I need a web designer so that we can make serious money...

[vieome]

@vieome - you got me, I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about!

Perhaps if I provide the answers it might help.

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How many cents does the ball cost?

5C

If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how many minutes would it take for 100 machines to make 100 widgets?

5 Mins

In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how many days would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

47 Days


I was just trying to follow your train of thought. It seems that the idea that someone might nick your idea made you eventually keep it to yourself. So then I got to wondering if it is an idea that you are going to eventually put on the web, how do you still protect that idea? Then I got to thinking in general about how entrepreneurs try and solve problems and it is by solving problems that they create opportunity. Then I thought about some general logical problems above and what type of thinking it takes to solve them. So in a sense my post was simply the thought process that came into my head, as a result of reading the thread in its total.

But I guess the final question is once you put the idea into the e-commerce website for the world, how do you protect the idea then?

[adrianh]

@vieome

Of course the idea will be out there for any one to copy and it may even be out there already. I'm not saying it's the most wonderful thing since sliced bread. All I want is to implement it and make some money. I build model trains for a living, do laser cutting and all sorts of other stuff. All those things have been around for many years. There are people out there who do it better than me and there are people who do it worse than me, yet I make good money from it.

You see, I have many ideas, some good, some bad and some downright stupid. I can think of another 2 ideas. One would take a massive buy in from a big industry player (if I can patent it) and the other would require the purchase of about R50K of equipment and franchising the idea. The point that I am trying to make is that I can see what it will take to get things up and running. The current idea is not particularly brilliant and it will not make millions, it will simply create a steady turnover that has the potential to grow over time. I can't see it growing into the largest thing in the country, hell it will serve a fairly vertical market, but nonetheless, if I look at the input requirements i.e. a website and a bit of logistics vs. some of the other products and ideas that I have then it is simply a no-brainer.

I simply want to get it up and running as I see fit without the risk of somebody doing the same thing before I am able to get good buy in from my client base. The other thing of course is that if I do it myself and quietly get on with it then it will simply serve a market and not draw too much attention as to its workings from outside its client base.

Lets say you decide to build a website to sell yo-yo's to all the schools around your neighbourhood. You know that yo-yo's are in fashion and that you could make good money provided you can supply a yo-yo with each kids custom logo. Ok, so lets say you need a developer to write a program to allow the child to create his logo online. Remember, this all assumes that you do not really know how to do that custom program. Will you then go out and explain to every developer that you meet how you plan to make money from your custom yo-yo website aimed at the local schools....of course not. You want to get the site up, you want to get the yo-yo trade going it your local market and then slowly expand it into town and hopefully into other towns. So lets say you are doff and you tell the local developer all about the workings of your yo-yo website, he tells you that its a crap idea and that he's nit interested. What stops him from simply going ahead and doing it. You maight say, ahh, you will make him sign a non-disclosure agreement up front, cool, so he tells his buddy in a different town....

[HR Solutions]

What about Mark from Red Giant .......... Ive used him a few times and he is good .

[Justloadit]

What stops him from simply going ahead and doing it. You maight say, ahh, you will make him sign a non-disclosure agreement up front, cool, so he tells his buddy in a different town....

He does not have the machinery or the know how to do the logo, so he effectively would be stuck.

Sometimes we run around in circles because we can make it, we think every single soul on the planet can make it, but what we forget is that we as individuals have put in thousands of hours of learning and developing our skills, that we simply sell our know how at crap prices, simply because it comes easy to us.

i hope you are not falling into that trap.

I agree that we need to keep the ideas close to our chest, but not so close that even we can not see the wood from the trees.

Business is a partnership along the chain to make the product sell, if you strangle the chain, then no product gets sold.

It is not simple to balance, and this takes skill developed over years of failures and some successes.

[Richard S]

Good luck Adrian. Have you ever tried elance?

[Justloadit]

One also must be careful with ideas that's going to change the world.
On many occasions the idea makes so much good sense that it can not fail.
Then when we go out and present it to customers, we realise that the world has a different view point to yours, and what you may think is important to you is not to others, and wham bam the idea is dead.

[adrianh]

Sometimes we run around in circles because we can make it, we think every single soul on the planet can make it, but what we forget is that we as individuals have put in thousands of hours of learning and developing our skills, that we simply sell our know how at crap prices, simply because it comes easy to us.

i hope you are not falling into that trap.

This trap has been my single biggest downfall all my life! I am slowly learning to deal with it but not effectively enough!

[HR Solutions]

A unique web package is a fantastic thing to develop. To give you an idea - we pay a company R550 per person x 9 users = R4950 PER MONTH to have login details and use a package to store our data base on for recruitment whereby anyone can upload their cv onto, we can access it in Jhb & CT and process the cv into our own personalized cv for our clients. It does a lot more than that, but if you work out that the Web company has approx. 500 clients @ say an average of 5 users per company @ R550.00 per user. That is a nice tidy sum of around R1.3 million rand per month !!! - Ongoing !

[vieome]

What stops him from simply going ahead and doing it. You maight say, ahh, you will make him sign a non-disclosure agreement up front, cool, so he tells his buddy in a different town....

I fully understand where you coming from, I guess in some ways, I am the same, suffering from idea overload. The problem is time, who has time?

[Mark Atkinson]

What about Mark from Red Giant .......... Ive used him a few times and he is good .

Thanks HR

Adrian you're welcome to put your idea to us if you like and we can see if there's any interest from our side.

You're welcome to draw up a NDA if it makes you feel more comfortable.

I can't guarantee that we'll be keen but we'll happily put some thought into it