Awesome Ecommerce Site Idea

[mike810]

I have been planning on making a Ecommerce computer and computer related accessories website. I have several ways I am going to make it different then competitors.

I am going to of course write a review for many of the products which will be tedious and boring but is necessary i believe. I am also going to write tons of small computer tutorials explaining common actions, problems, etc. Also I am going to explain how to install the hardware and accessories I sell. Such as a basic installation tutorial of hard drives on each hard drive product page. I am going to have forums that not only relate to the store but also a public forum acting as a computer knowledge and information database. This will include all kinds of boards relating to different computer subjects. The point of offering the tutorials and forums is to attract people who aren't looking to buy computer products to my site. I have more ideas in mind relating to this.

I am going to personally design the website and create the tutorials, forums, etc. This is tons of work so i am open to anyone who would like to join me on this huge project.

I believe this can become a huge successes and I am ready to spend Thousands of hours creating it. Again if you are interested in partnering up or helping out feel free to contact me.

[terryxu]

review is necessary. maybe you should get the keyworeds

[mike810]

Get the keywords? What are you referring to? SEO? I am experienced in SEO so yes i will be able to get it up at the top for some keywords.

[terryxu]

selling point

[mike810]

I really believe that this can be a huge success . I am surprised nobody wants to team up.

[akula]

I really believe that this can be a huge success . I am surprised nobody wants to team up.

mike, let me give you some feedback. i read your post and then i read it again. the impression i get is negative. the reason for it is that you're trying to be creative and innovative. this enthusiasm you have creates feature creep, which means that you're never gonna finish what you start, making you a difficult person to work with.

let me spell it out for you. be like woot.com. that's the one and only innovative and ecommerce retailer that's achieved success in the past 3 years. implement their model. it's better than yours, because there's evidence of it working.

set aside this plan for testing your programming prowess. go on source force. get a cms. pop it in, woot away and make some goddam money rather than spending the next 6 months obsessing over the finer points of javascript.

[mike810]

Thanks for the feedback akula.

I see what you are saying. But the problem is, I am not trying to base this off any other website. I am trying to make this unlike any other ecommerce website. I am not interested in making money quick and easy. I am trying to create a unique and one of a kind community/ store that will achieve success in its own way.

I am guessing that what you said is exactly why nobody is interested in this idea. But I can insure everyone that has any interest in this that I will not just stop half way through this project, I am going to finish it with or without help. With partners, this can be even more of a success.

[akula]

But the problem is, I am not trying to base this off any other website. I am trying to make this unlike any other ecommerce website. I am not interested in making money quick and easy. I am trying to create a unique and one of a kind community/ store that will achieve success in its own way.

you got it. that's why you are a risky business proposition.
let me diagnose the problem in a more comprehensive way. when entrepreneurs choose projects, for success to occur, the choice of project has to coincide with the entrepreneur's risk preference (i.e. capacity for failure)

in other words, when an entrepreneur is starting out, and they can't afford to lose a lot of money on, for success to occur, the entrepreneur ought to bet on sure things rather than long shots. for somebody who can't afford to miss on project, choosing a sure thing with a lower upside is better than choosing a long shot with a higher upside..and it is when entrepreneurs stuff up this decision that they run into trouble.

what I am telling you to do is to choose a sure thing. what you wanna do is a long shot. you wanna do the long shot because you are not thinking rationally. in fact, you are not thinking at all, but rather falling victim to a number of different cognitive biases.

because you're not aware that your mind is playing tricks on you when it tells you to choose a long shot over a sure thing, it makes it harder for others to have rational discussions with you. this causes a break down in communication, and that's why you'd be a difficult person to work with.

[mike810]

While i completely disagree with the last part, I respect your opinion, and i see where you are coming from.

The thing is however, I am not looking for any money, in fact this will cost no money, only time. I am not recruiting business men, i am recruiting web designers and developers who share the same passion and interests i do. I have my own business besides this idea, incorporated also.

I consider myself to be a very rational person. I understand the room for failure here, but with the right group, success in inevitable. Nobody would have to put anything in this but time, passion, and determination.

I have been following your posts since I came here, and it seems that you are afraid of new, innovative ideas. If I am wrong I am sorry, as this theory is based on only a week of observation and not the other 4500 of your posts.

While it seems you are being rational, at the same time it seems that you are being a bit ignorant. Please understand I mean no disrespect by this. In fact, i believe you are a very very intelligent person. Just try and open your mind to new ideas and look deeper into the chance of success, rather then failure.

[akula]

Just try and open your mind to new ideas and look deeper into the chance of success, rather then failure.

Thanks, I'm glad that we can have a decent discussion about opportunity selection. My interest is to reflect on opportunity selection and identify what I think are some pit falls for new entrepreneurs that are just starting out....and I think there is one major pit fall to avoid for any one who is weighing up different startup opportunities.

One problem area that I've seen as the cause of founder hardship is startup myopia, or short sightedness. Basically, when founders think of startups, they limit their thinking to one project at a time and prioritize the success of one project ahead of success of their careers as entrepreneurs as a whole.

For example: You wanna be an entrepreneur. Statistically, you know that the key to achieving success in your 40 odd year career as an entrepreneur is to stay in the game and get as many projects off the ground as possible, because it's impossible to predict which one of them will be a success. So, in these circumstances, the rational thing to do is get a sure thing off the ground, make some money, stockpile some resources and leverage your success to invest in the next, incrementally riskier project so you start to have an escalating portfolio of interests. That's a longer term, more assured and enthusiastic approach of forecasting one's success as an entrepreneur...where one small success incrementally leads to further bigger successes over time.

The opposite is to implement what most entrepreneurs do; which is to bite off more than one can chew, develop myopia and feed their own sense of being able to predict how one particular project might turn out. It's a fact of life that founders have to convince them selves and others that their particular one project is bound for success, when in all actuality so many external factors impact on project viability that such forecasting is impossible. Venture capital is a perfect, empirical example of this principle at work. It destroys many entrepreneurs who get emotionally attached to ideas and fail to make a career transition from being a hobby entrepreneur, to being a professional/occupational/serial entrepreneur (who are defined by their belief that project success is less predictable than portfolio success).

The point: I think it's very important for entrepreneurs to remain optimistic and fanatical about success. I don't think that such optimism is well founded when it all rests on the fate of some single, long shot project. What I do think is that founders will benefit from taking a longer term, career based view of their success as entrepreneurs and take the strategy to bet on sure things, and incrementally increase their exposure to risk as their portfolio of interests expands over time. That's a strategy conducive to enthusiasm and optimism about success.

I think that the opposite approach is heart breaking. I've seen too many entrepreneurs put all their faith in one project, then have their expectations crushed, and then not have the attitude, nor the resources to bounce back and do the next startup...and that's really the whole point of you starting this project..it exists to give you the opportunity to start the next project.

I do encourage you to take a longer perspective on things and consider how your opportunity selection right now relates to your entrepreneurial career as a whole. Think of it like this, all careers have a starting point, and it's a ineffective for entry level candidates to overextend them selves, because such a decision impacts negatively on their overall career progression.

What you wanna do is try not to overextend your self

[mike810]

Wow, I laughed at the end of that. Not because it was funny, it was just a clever way to tell me that I do not have the skills to complete a project like this.

I agree with you almost entirely, all of what you said applies to most people and entrepreneurs today. But it does not apply to all of them. Sure the odds would be against something of this magnitude, but that is what being an entrepreneur is all about. In most instances, Taking risks for the the small possibility of success.

Sure the odds of this idea working are not the best. But what were the odds of Bil Gates starting Microsoft? What were the odds of Jef Raskin starting Macintosh. While i am in no way comparing myself to these people, If they can build a Monstrous company on an innovative and creative idea, then so can we.


While I am no complete expert in web design, I have been actively creating websites for over 7 years. I believe you are right, I do not have the skills to do this by myself, that is why I am requesting partners. And that is why Jef Raskin asked individuals such as, Chris Espinosa and Daniel Kottke to join his team.

Like I said, I have been planning this for many months. I did not just think of this one night and decide to post the idea like many others. I have brainstormed numerous hours trying to figure out the best way to design it.

[akula]

man best of luck to you

for shits and giggles I'll tell you funny story

in 2002, I was 18 and just starting uni...I had done some other startup projects before that, but it's around that time that I decided to get into software

i didn't really know how to pick opportunities or anything so here's what i did:

1. thought up some crazy customer need which I thought was important at the time: electronic resumes..I wanted to create a site where users could post their cv's online and do career networking...i.e. I wanted to make a linkedin.com before there was a linkedin.com (lol we "didn't have any competition hahahhah")

2. after doing months of pointless "research" just to convince my self that there was a point to my asinine delusions, I persuaded my poor suffering web developer brother and my infinitely patient web dev friends to join me on board..god knows why, but they did. this was around march '02

3. from then on, it was "Daniel the CEO" taking over, I felt on top of the world and good heavens did I suck! For reasons only imaginable to a retard, I suggested that we code the entire software and website from scratch..sounds like a good idea right? except along the way, I'd keep changing my mind about what we were making, why we were making it, how we were gonna market it and what was gonna happen later

4. By Dec '08, our supercalifragilisticexpialidocious website was ready. It had turned into a hosted blogging application for small business, together with an information resource, and an affiliate program. along the way, of course, we forgot to ask our customers what they actually wanted in this software!! haha. 'doh...but with a product so GOOOD why wouldn't anyone want it???

5. The result? when we released, obviously, customers either told us that they don't need it, or that it's gotta be entirely reprogrammed, or worse, they paid us and then it didn't work

6. By this stage my poor suffering web developer brother and my infinitely patient web dev friends had probably gotten tired of working for free and subsisting on fairytale promises of "just wait, we're gonna have ALL THESE USERS!"

needless to say, v2.0 didn't get released, hosting didn't get paid and the domain name lapsed

the moral of the story: software development isn't all fun and games and everything always goes wrong. likewise, entrepreneurship impacts the lives of other people who make the decision to follow the vision of someone who usually doesn't have a clue about what they're doing.... and finally, for me personally, nowadays, i try to take responsibility when I drag people into my own delusions and think twice when I encourage someone to bet their future on a long shot...which is probably the reason why I still have my poor suffering web developer brother and my infinitely patient web dev friends

[mike810]

Interesting story, sorry it didn't work out. Great point and I will take your advice strongly. Although I am still going to get this done.

Thanks for the insight.