Can you guys give me Feedback on my Online Business Idea?
 

-I really enjoy viewing this Forum, and I have noticed that alot of you guys are very intelligent and wise when it comes to real world situations, so I thought this was the best place to ask my Question-:happy0180:

I'm 15 and interested in launching a Online Data Storage....but you might say "There's already Carbonite, Dropbox, and Mozy". In this case I would have to differentiate my product from the others and SELL IT.

I came up with a Socially Interactive Storage that would allow Users to Share Documents, Photos, Videos, and Contacts. It would be called "TheHub", obviously I would have review copyright infringements with The Hub TV Network but I could always change the name.

TheHub would allow users to store all the personal data on our Database.
Social Interaction plays a role which would allow users to allow other users in they're Circle to review and download only CERTAIN documents they want them to see.

A College Professor could upload pictures of him having sex with his mistress to TheHub but his students would only be allowed to see his Planned Coursework.

TheHub would be available on Android/iPhone, Tablets, Mac/Windows/Linux.

In hence to Social Interaction, the primary use is an Data Storage so Prices would range from FREE to 35$ (Trying to keep it inexpensive here) Bandwidth available has not yet been decided.

If the website gets enough hits, I'm hoping to open a Office in NYC, LA, or Chicago.

Could you add some more ideas? Trust me Guys, if this project was to become a reality I would definitely give you some type of Reward that's worth it's own Recognition. Would this be profitable? (I know you can't really tell, but try)


Thanks guys and God bless

P.S- This would be the fastest way to buy an FRS, second to Robbing a Bank.:D

Sorry hate to burst your bubble but contact info and personal info is a no no when it comes to third parties .
Such things are mostly kept with the higher end, bigger name brands such as apple.. Hence the iCloud .

Also google has its photo thing (forgot the name right now) that's lets you do everything you said , keep in private , share certain things with certain people and so on.

But props to you for thinking about something at your age, don't back down!
Good luck to you

Do you have any coding experience?

Do you have capital?

Why would someone want to pay for this with free options?

...And even then, I've heard stories about the "iCompany" stealing that information and spy on you... :thumbdown::iono:

Anything that involves a third-party...Yeah...I don't know...Heck, sometimes I don't even trust my own computer...!

Thanks for the Info Bro! I completely understand, I'll just have to come up with something different and original! I have to be my own boss PERIOD.

I'm satisfactory in C++, but I ordering some books on Notepad++ and Adobe Dreamwaver.

With the "FREE" option, the user would a fairly small amount of bandwidth to work with.

I'm trying to receive as much Feedback as possible before talking to an Angel Investor or start Affiliate Marketing.

....allow Users to Share Documents, Photos, Videos, and Contacts.

I can already do that through email and Facebook. It sounds like you are creating a mix of Facebook, Email, Twitter, and Pinterest. Not a bad idea, I think its marketable but where is the novelty? You would need a coding army to get started and make it work well from the get go. Also, almost no one is going to want personal photos close (mentally) to photos they want to share with everyone. What if they make a mistake and accidentally allow everyone to see their personal photos, just the idea of two opposite sides of life on one social webpage is off putting and I think not appealing to most. However, if you are very good at webdesign, are good at marketing yourself, and you know the right investment capitalists, you can raise investment capital through private placement, then you can live off other peoples risky investment for a while until the money runs out. Lots of companies do it. And if you raise enough money you can dam near run the company on the interest.:happyanim:

Interesting selling point...

1. Never share your business idea's publicly, because they will get stolen.
2. The key to succeeding in business, is to find a need in the world and fulfill it.
3. Most of every other social media can do what you've already suggested, it may not be in the same place. But its there.
4. If you really want to get into data storage, I knew of a millionare who started a warehouse full of servers and backed up company info off-site to these servers. Easy money, easy job.
5. Always, always write a business plan. Think out your idea, elaborate on startup costs and overhead.
6. If you cant do what you want to do, better pony up. because your going to have to pay someone to do it.

I don't know the back-end requirements or possibilities of online storages, servers, etc.. so I can only speak to what I would really like to see.. It'd be absolutely wonderful if someone could take the idea of the "CLOUD" storage and make it accessible on any device, at any location.

Apple is getting close to this, allowing you to save pictures, files, etc., on your "cloud" storage using one device (latptop), and accessing it on your other Apple devices (iPod, iPhone).. without needing a physical hard drive to transfer the data. I've only heard of it, but haven't actually tried it yet.. Sounds like a revolutionary way of sharing/transfering your personal data/files though.

Again, I don't know the technical how-to's on what Apple needed to achieve this, but if you're thinking of starting an online data storage service, I think this is one approach to have success in your venture.

I see where you're coming from, but with my product I feel that users shouldn't feel hesitant to upload personal data due to it's primary feature as Online Storage. I don't want anyone to get confused about the goal of my website, it's not intended to be a Social Network, but it can...

If anything my Target demographic would be Businesses and Gradeschools/Universities, I obviously don't expect the average American teenager to be sharing important "documents" and backing them on a Data storage.

High Ranking Officials in Large Corporations could post documents and information to they're HUB Database, where only other High VP's and Exec's can view and download.

This is a completely different then what Facebook, Twitter, and Other sites main intention of success which was Friends, Gossip, and etc.:happy0180:

That will never happen. Security of on-premise solutions will be desirable for that. IT may use a cloud backup solution with encryption but end corporate users won't. Also, prepare for dealing with a crapload of compliance issues.

Too late to the game without a fresh idea/spin and I do not see one here, sorry.

So its an FTP site?

Understandable, but hey failed ideas often lead to 1 successful idea. Back to the drawing board!

Somewhat to a Degree. It'll look Cooler and will have "Cloud Storage".

NEW IDEA...:popcorn:

Affordable Supercar:

Now the average Vehicle cost about 2-3k to Produce this excluding manufacturing cost, Materials, shipments, Worker wage, machinery and etc.

So in theory a vehicle that cost 20k is not a profit for automobile company in reality they're actually making they're money from leases which would be about 35-40k for car that originally cost 20k.

Well the question is, how can I make a Ferrari type vehicle that's under 40k for the Consumer?

The Question is the novelty in terms of my vehicle being marketable.

Ferrari's 458 Italia uses an Aluminum chassis, why exactly does it cost so much? Is it because of it's Monstrous V8 engine, High Tech Suspension, Formula 1 Gearbox, or because it's just a Ferrari?

-Sorry for my Rumbling, back to my idea....-

Affordable Super Car: Looks expensive but it's not, fast as hell, and uses basic yet reliable car attributes.

But wouldn't it just be a Sports Car, since the price would be low? Yes, technically speaking it would be a Sports Car, but I want to attract people's attention so I'll call it a Super Car.

Replace Magnetic, Electronic Dampening, and all that crap with a basic double wishbone suspension with front and rear strut bars. I personally the handling can still be perfected to a certain extent with these basic car parts.

Engine Ideas: Highly Modified Toyota Inline 4 (Turbocharged)
Highly Modified Honda 1.6 V-Tech (Supercharged)
GM LS V8 (They're phasing this Engine out production)
Twin Turbo V6 (Like the Best, but cost is a major Obstacle)
l
Chassis: Aluminum Chassis....I don't know what else to say. Double Wishbone Suspension, Strut Bars, Make it as Light as Possible. Keep it Under 3000 lbs. Mid-Engine layout.

Interior: Not expensive leather that's straight ripped off the back of Cows in the beautiful Valley's of Netherlands, but Synthetic leather that's nice and soft. Sport seats.

Drivetrain and Gearbox: 6 Speed Manual, 6 Speed Single Clutch. I would like for it to be a 7 Speed Dual Clutch but obviously cost is a factor.

I know you think I'm underestimating the cost of actually starting a Car Company, but it'll a small company. I'll limit production to about 2500-3500 a year. No more than 25 Employees actually working on the development of the car. Sorry USA, but I'll outsource the jobs and have the limited supply shipped over. Shipping is expensive, but I won't be shipping alot of vehicles. Maybe 100-250 a Month.

Ariel Motor Company has 7 Employees. Yes they're cars can be built by hand in 1 day and yes they only make about 100 or so per year, but they're concept of inhouse produduction show that it's possible.

I came up with some Designs, but they're not anything professional. They don't have dimensions. But they're just basic designs, not blueprints.

Your Thoughts?

Where did you get this idea? Assuming someone accepts your figure of "2k/3k" for the manufacturing materials of a car, this still does not account for the research and development costs, product testing to ensure DOT compliance, manufacturing facility maintenance & utilities, labor costs, insurance costs, etc.

What you are proposing is a pre-assembled kit car company. If you have quality construction and design, companies like Factory Five are proof you can be profitable, but this is hardly a new concept and it doesn't seem you've done the research on the true costs involved.

For the storage idea, there are already plenty of options available for that. Sorry.

For the supercar idea, you're way off on your costs - especially the development / certification costs. You've also got to compete with the Miata and FR-S/BRZ that live around the $25k price point, come from reputable manufacturers with full warranties and dealer service departments across the US.

The car you want to make is already sold here as a kit from Caterham (well, except for the looks part).

-Justin

You are 15 years old and already have a good start in computer programming it seems. Take some business/marketing classes in school, learn some more programming languages, and start your own web design firm.

That's included in the 'etc' in my statement.

I'd say if I was given 2 Million to Start, I could make it happen. Tesla recieved 7.5 Million dollars in funding, but they produced High Tech Electric Vehicles which would require alot more extensive research and development than the car I'm hoping to develop.

And the Caterham would not be your ideal daily driver, even for a Young Single Man in a Hot Climate. Now the Caterham 21 is something similar along the lines of the vehicle I'm hoping to develop. But NO Convertible.

Ok, I misread that statement, but now it makes even less sense. What is the the $2000 derived from after ?

Well I heard the rule of thumb is divide the Car's MSRP by 5 and you would have the cost to produce the vehicle, hence excluding all the other expenses. So the cost to produce an FRS is 5k, and the Lamborghini Aventador cost 77k to produce. This is just from what I've heard.

I considered this, but what would differentiate me from other companies?

What will differentiate your storage service or sports car from other similar companies?

There are hundreds of thousands of companies in need of a web presence, with more being established daily. There's a lot of business to go around. What you want to set yourself apart is quality work and customer satisfaction. The rest comes down to branding and marketing.

An awesome looking Mid-Engine Sports Car for a low price with a Nice Interior and Reasonable amount of Power. That Lotus Elise's lackluster interior and high price is what I think held it back from success.

In Need? It's a fairly big market so I wouldn't have expected Web Design to be in Demand? Are you sure? I will seriously consider doing Freelance Web Design if there's really a Big Market for it?

Here's what I'll add since everything on here has already been said. And I'll put it number form so it'll be easier for you to understand.

1. Pay attention to details
2. Prepare to work long hours in order to make your plan come to fruition
3. Hire smart people. People who get what your trying to do and want to be a part of it.
4. Lastly and more importantly, EXECUTION. Being able to execute your plan well will be the biggest reason you fail or succeed.

I've seen plenty of people have great ideas/plans but poor execution.

Take it from a person who co-owns a couple of local businesses & stocks from major companies.

Good luck and I'm loving that you're thinking big at your age. :thumbsup:

Car idea shows you need to do TONS more research into manufacturing.

Though I would need to do TONS of research to comment on the data storage idea.


Stick to your strengths.

I accept constructive criticism whole-heartily. I wouldn't have planned on putting the car idea into reality until I graduated from college with a Mechanical Engineer Degree/Computer Science and have taken some Business Production Courses.

I do have a question though referring to a previous post...is it possible to become a Millionaire through a Web Design Company? :drool:

I would also recommend you look into APICS CPIM (Certificate in Production Management, I think?).

It gives good insight into the whole production process from a management point. Scheduling strategies, forecasting sales, inventory control, quality control, production constraints, etc...

It's an industry cert program, kind of like how IT people get certified for certain software.

Edit:

http://www.apics.org/careers-educati...ification/cpim

An affordable super car is not a new idea. There are dozens of companies that have tried it and failed miserably. There are a few that made their owners somewhat wealthy and continue to this day. I dont think you could do it cheaper than companies like Factory Five kit cars. They keep everything as simple as possible and are afforded such luxuries such as not needing to be federalized which saves millions of dollars. There is caterham, and that mexican car company, etc, etc. Its being done and it will continue to be done. If you have the balls, the means, and a lot of luck you can do it, but be prepared to fail a few times. You need to learn about raising capital, private placement etc. You need a decent idea and a good amount of money. Try to attend something like sema or other trade shows they are great places to shmooze with investors.

You don't necessarily need to differentiate yourself from other companies. Rather, people needing websites often have no idea how to get started, so just approaching a business owner in the first place sets you apart from everyone else, because he now knows who to contact for his needs.

Regardless, our company does try to set itself apart as a personal, trendy, friendly company (our site at www.ink2pixel.com is "fun" rather than "corporate").

We also pride ourselves in providing complete solutions for our clients. Some companies only provide online marketing. Some only do web design. Others only do printing. In the end, your client has several companies to keep in touch with. From start to finish, our clients stay with us. We do their hosting, print and promotional items, complete web design and programming, and online marketing. We make their online and offline presence simple and easy to manage.

So you don't have to be some groundbreaking web company. You just need to make your customers understand the value you offer.

With your C++ experience, learning web design should be simple. HTML is understandably structured, and PHP is much less strict a coding language than C++.

As for your data sharing site, that would need to be groundbreaking since there is a myriad of other similar sites out there. If you're going to do it, you need to find a way to do it better than the others. For example, our client runs a professional network at virtuallatte.com. Sure, there are other professional networks, but we provide a ton of valuable content, one-on-one advice from experts, and the ability to earn stock in the company. So we set ourselves apart from others.

You could always open a web firm and use the revenue to invest in your more ambitious projects.

Hey Man that's awesome that you do it all from Web Design to T-Shirts in one Company.:thumbsup:

I would ask, how exactly did you start? And do you work from Home?

Thanks! I started learning web design when I was 10, but I didn't open a "company" till 2008 when I was...16 I guess. Had very few clients of course...

I have a partner now who does most of the selling, and we both work from home. No need for an office or anything really because we meet clients at their locations

That's Awesome Man! You get to work in your PJ's.

You must be a Workaholic if you're completing websites mostly by yourself. Do your Customers ask for a due date or do you give them an expected due date based You and your partner's workload?

I'm curious though, how much revenue do you think a Company would need to make a month to rent a office. I always envisioned cool to own a office in a Skyscraper or something.

The best kind of business is one with low overhead. Renting an office is for the big players, start small so you dont go belly up in the first year of business. Keep in mind most companies dont last past the first couple years because its incredibly hard to break EVEN on profit for the first several years for any company.

TBH most people start personal private businesses as a tax shelter. Think about what assets you can add to the company that will REDUCE your net income. The goal is to post a loss for as long as possible while generating positive cash flow.

Have you considered how you want to setup the company? Partners? Capital? Etc. theres a lot more that goes into a real company than just hopes and dreams.

What exactly would be the startup cost of Freelance Web Design?

I can't really see any major expenses besides maybe a Computer. Pay for Domain and Hosting services and maybe market your business through fliers or newspapers. Other than that I can't see any.

I plan to visit a Business Consultant to discuss setup. I know quite a few guys who know code like the back of they're hand. I know this one kid who is good with Photoshop, so that's a plus. ;)

I'm not exactly a workaholic. We try to stick with simple, local sites so we can do them in high volume and get them set up with local marketing which is a recurring fee. I can knock out a great, simple site in just a few days, though we do occasionally get the multi-thousand dollar orders for complex sites. An example, virtuallatte.com (though I only designed the frontend and picked up the backend from his previous designer), is a common type of site our high-end clients want (tons of functionality, sleek design, etc.)

A standard among many companies, at least as far as we've seen, for a turnaround for a simple site is 2-4 weeks, so we always quote that even if I can get the site running within a couple days. That way, we give an average expectation and the client is happy when we overdeliver, but we also don't run the risk of falling short of our expecations.

If they do want a site urgently, we can try to fit in our schedule, but it's first come first served, so we don't take on a project just for the cash and upset the rest of our clients by delaying them. Our client acquisition is steady enough that even if we have to turn down a site, it won't affect us in the long run revenue-wise, even though we may miss out on a potentially valuable client because there was just no way we could deliver within their time frame.

I have a great example from a couple days ago. We are currently working on about 3-4 sites, small sites that didn't cost a lot, and a prospect asked us to redesign an entire Facebook application for $4000 by August 31 so that he could better compete with a very popular application that makes roughly $1.5 million per year. Getting a massive design overhaul done by August 31 would have made it an 11-day project, which would mean I would have had to completely halt all other work and do his application, so we turned it down, though not before attempting to negotiate a later date.

As far as an office, I'm not sure, but I imagine it can't be much different than an apartment. I see ads all the time for $400-500 offices, but I don't know if that's usual. My apartment is $875 so I would likely just budget $1000 for an office. Though it's best of course to do thorough research and budget accordingly.

Also, in reference to your post to powertrip, I definitely wouldn't mind helping you with maybe outsourcing some of your work if you open up a firm. There is a lot of work, especially marketing, that people outsource to us so we can discuss wholesale pricing, etc. at a later time.

Well, the Mexican Car (MXT) is 60k, that's not really affordable to the "average" american.

What is a Caterham? (Sarcasm). In reality that's what's most Americans would say.

Why would I need to be federalized, if I could do inhouse production similar to Ariel Motor Company? I don't want to be a Big corporation, but a small rare breed automaker. Somewhat like Tesla, but smaller.

If I could receive 1 million from Angel Investor(s), it would allow me to create a CAD Automated Clay Model(200k),Worker Salaries(250k, 5 workers x 50k each), Trade Shows, and alot of other expenses.

P.S Maybe 2 Million to get started, for like Advertising, Production, Dealer Networks....

Their's alot indeed that needs to be considered, but if I learn the right stuff I think I could make it happen.

Tesla received 465 Million (ouch!), it makes think "how much would I really need"?

I'm to continue to learn about Web Design, Automotive Industry, and Corporate Finance. I'm going to keep thinking of business Ideas, examining the risk, strengths, and weaknesses. Maybe invest in the stock market. Thanks for all the Help Guys.

Lots.

You've already glossed over equipment, facilities, purchase parts inventory and raw material.

Plus the time for all the R&D/testing that has to be done before a product can be released. This is pure operating cost since you have no revenue until you're selling cars.

So'd you say 10 Million?:iono: