[sk24iam]

Hello,

I finally got my latest site up and running. This is something new so please give me your honest feedback on it. A brief overview of what my site offers...

BetMyStock gives you the opportunity to bet on the stock market, just as you would bet on a sports game. Rather than investing your money into the stock of a company, we give you the opportunity to make simple predictions one one stock price versus another within a day’s period. We give you a free 10 cents to start out with and you can use that however you wish to gamble with. You can bet on any of our selected stocks or indexes. If your bet is correct at the end of the day, the winning percentage of the event will determine what you receive. If you lose the 10 cents we give you, we’ll give you another free 10 cents. Once your balance reaches $15.00, you can cash out with real cash!


My site is supported by advertisements so essentially the payouts come from clicks on the sponsors.


Please let me know what you think of the idea of the site as well as the design. Thanks!

BetMyStock


-Stephen

[tom-knox]

Like this idea but i feel that, even though your ideas is clearly different, you might still be competing with updown.com as far as stock playing

[sk24iam]

I agree with you in that the site would attract the same people as mine but the difference that I see is that you don't have to choose just one. I believe the people that want to challenge their stock picking ability purely out of curiosity and for the fun aspect may be driven towards updown.com but many of their users compete to win the cash prize. The group of people going for the money would have no reason not to use my site as well giving them another opportunity to make money off of their stock market knowledge. My advantage is that they are only competing against the market on my site, whereas on updown they are competing against the market as well as other users to achieve the number one spot to win the cash prize.

[Anca]

I like the site, its design is nice and the information is well structured. Great job.

I would like to give you a SEO advice: I have noticed that all your pages have the same title "Betmystock" and the same description. For Search Engine Optimization it is good to to have different titles different descriptions for each page of your site.

[sk24iam]

Thanks. I will look into using a different title for each one.

[akula]

Originally Posted by sk24iam

Please let me know what you think of the idea of the site as well as the design. Thanks!

stephen..ok...so it's like this
personally, i really, really like BetMyStock...not particularly because of what it currently is or what it currently does but because of what it represents

being a finance buff myself i feel that i can identify with the mindset that goes into making a site like BetMyStock and in that sense i think that this project just might represent an awesome start to an awesome career

keep at it man, continue to problem formulate and release new versions...give it a few iterations and i think you'll be on a winner

[sk24iam]

Originally Posted by akula

stephen..ok...so it's like this
personally, i really, really like BetMyStock...not particularly because of what it currently is or what it currently does but because of what it represents

being a finance buff myself i feel that i can identify with the mindset that goes into making a site like BetMyStock and in that sense i think that this project just might represent an awesome start to an awesome career

keep at it man, continue to problem formulate and release new versions...give it a few iterations and i think you'll be on a winner

Thanks... I have many plans for new features to be implemented down the road.

What exactly do you mean by "what it represents?"

[akula]

Originally Posted by sk24iam

Thanks... I have many plans for new features to be implemented down the road.

What exactly do you mean by "what it represents?"

well, it's quite simple...

as you are aware, at this stage, BetMyStock is probably not a sustainable business (as most new ventures aren't!).
i'm not sure what assumptions you may have used in your proforma statements to justify setting up this venture, but you'll probably agree that given your current business model, this is not an obvious venture you can count on to pay your salaries or turn a profit. correct?

so, that said, i think that what you're doing is great because it represents a step in the right direction. for example, I know that about 20 years ago, a bunch of guys in queensland set up something similar to BetMyStock and some years after that, the project transfornmed into a global marketplace for CFDs, making all of them into multimilionaires

I think that the same might happen to you, given a few years and building on your experience with BetMyStock, you will set up a wildly successful financial services business...probably something to do with derivatives...and that's what I mean by "what it represents"

what you are doing right now is developing a skill set that combines securities markets and the internet. there is a lot of opportunities in this area to really hit a huge home run, and so I think that you're positioning your self quite nicely

have you ever studied finance at college or anything?

[sk24iam]

The profits do rely on ppc advertising which will directly be related to the amount of traffic the site generates. I do believe this business model can generate a significant amount of cash flow with this system. In the long run, I do have some unique financial plans for the site which will take it to a whole new level.

I majored in finance and management in college.

Anyone have any free advertising suggestions for a site like this?

[akula]

Originally Posted by sk24iam

Anyone have any free advertising suggestions for a site like this?

sure...let me cover some promotional ideas, and something more important: product features that will help betmystock go viral

from a marketing perspective, it's most likely that you will find early adopters in the 18-24y.o college student target market. betmystock is essentially an educational tool that helps these people maintain interest in studying finance. it's not really a product that effectively solves any other identifiable problem for any other specific audience...

given this target market, for promotion, you might wanna go where your audience is. i'm thinking a fan page, group, events and an app on facebook. likewise, universities have finance clubs, and if you contact those clubs, i'm sure they will sign sponsorships deals and give you access to their members...which can be as easy as putting your logo on the next mail out to members or complex, such as holding university wide, state wide or national competitions on your site

(btw, that's where your profit potential lies...it's not in taking bets between your self and the punter, but in brokering bets between punters, that's where you'll make serious money)

anyways, remember innovation diffusion theory: you are not after a million random people with nothing in common to use your site, but rather you are looking to achieve early adoption and endorcement with a very small and narrow group of people who will diffuse the product to other groups...which ties into your feature set: your site is lacking the social networking features that you need, to achieve users spreading the url to other users

i won't elaborate much more, but over time you'll need to add new features, and integrate betmystock with popular sn sites...for example: when i make a bet on betmystock, i should be automatically promted to send out an email to my fb friends saying "i just made a bet that dow will increase by 2% or more, do you want to bet with or against me?"...or other kinds of similar features

all in all: think small, define narrow target market, try to go viral by coding features into the product that help you go viral and achieve network effect, start thinking about how to facilitate or encourage betting between people

finally: as you may have guessed by now, from a marketing perspective, your site has a serious design flaw. specifically, it remains functional given a single user. meaning, that i am able to use the site without involving my friends, and neither is there an improvement in my product experience if i do tell people about it. what you want on another hand, is for betmystock to build on network effects...think of a telephone: for me, it's a useless product unless one of my friends also has a telephone, and the utility i get from the product improves the more friends also have telephones...that's the sort of product design you're looking for

is this kinda making sense?

[sk24iam]

Originally Posted by akula

sure...let me cover some promotional ideas, and something more important: product features that will help betmystock go viral

from a marketing perspective, it's most likely that you will find early adopters in the 18-24y.o college student target market. betmystock is essentially an educational tool that helps these people maintain interest in studying finance. it's not really a product that effectively solves any other identifiable problem for any other specific audience...

given this target market, for promotion, you might wanna go where your audience is. i'm thinking a fan page, group, events and an app on facebook. likewise, universities have finance clubs, and if you contact those clubs, i'm sure they will sign sponsorships deals and give you access to their members...which can be as easy as putting your logo on the next mail out to members or complex, such as holding university wide, state wide or national competitions on your site

(btw, that's where your profit potential lies...it's not in taking bets between your self and the punter, but in brokering bets between punters, that's where you'll make serious money)

anyways, remember innovation diffusion theory: you are not after a million random people with nothing in common to use your site, but rather you are looking to achieve early adoption and endorcement with a very small and narrow group of people who will diffuse the product to other groups...which ties into your feature set: your site is lacking the social networking features that you need, to achieve users spreading the url to other users

i won't elaborate much more, but over time you'll need to add new features, and integrate betmystock with popular sn sites...for example: when i make a bet on betmystock, i should be automatically promted to send out an email to my fb friends saying "i just made a bet that dow will increase by 2% or more, do you want to bet with or against me?"...or other kinds of similar features

all in all: think small, define narrow target market, try to go viral by coding features into the product that help you go viral and achieve network effect, start thinking about how to facilitate or encourage betting between people

finally: as you may have guessed by now, from a marketing perspective, your site has a serious design flaw. specifically, it remains functional given a single user. meaning, that i am able to use the site without involving my friends, and neither is there an improvement in my product experience if i do tell people about it. what you want on another hand, is for betmystock to build on network effects...think of a telephone: for me, it's a useless product unless one of my friends also has a telephone, and the utility i get from the product improves the more friends also have telephones...that's the sort of product design you're looking for

is this kinda making sense?

Yes, this all completly makes sense...

I do plan to integrate many of the social networking sites into Betmystock to introduce the challenge to new users. One thing I had not thought of was the sponsorships with universities, that is a great idea.

I do plan on adding a community side to the site in the near future. I'm just waiting on the funds to implement this. It will have several of the ideas you expressed such as competing against friends, as well as a forum and the opportunity to refer a friend for a percentage of their winnings. This aspect of the site I believe will drive major traffic and will keep visitors coming back.

Thanks for your advice.

[akula]

very good
nail it man
make a million

get a cofounder, keep things niche, avoid going after the mass market, release early - release often, get those network effects happening and you're gonna be right

do it like a champ, try not to repeat all the common, mind numbing mistakes that people make with startups

[sk24iam]

Thanks for your words of motivation.


Any comments on the functionality of the actual betting?

[veikoh]

Good idea, I like the concept. Hopefully it will turn to profit but I do not see it from Google Adsense revenues.
My site had Adsense click thru rate less 0.2% with the earning of few cents per click. The person who bets visits your site only once and have 50% of chance to win 10 cents.

[sk24iam]

Originally Posted by veikoh

Good idea, I like the concept. Hopefully it will turn to profit but I do not see it from Google Adsense revenues.
My site had Adsense click thru rate less 0.2% with the earning of few cents per click. The person who bets visits your site only once and have 50% of chance to win 10 cents.

The goal is to keep visitors coming back everyday to bet once. I am trying to figure out a way to keep visitors coming back multiple times a day, any advice on this would be appreciated.
The niche of the site currently generages a few dollars per click which is pretty good even with a low click though rate if I can generate enough traffic. I do see a decent amount of profit, at least enough to support the costs and new features but nothing to get rich off of for the time being.