Starting a web based business...

[Exentrick]

Hello All,

Before I start, I almost never use forums, so, let me know if there is a more appropriate place for this. And forgive me for any faux pas.

I'm looking into starting a non-tech related, web based business. I've got the concept pretty well worked out, but I'm not sure about some of the technical logistics. I want this to look and feel professional, so I'm not quite sure of the best way of going about this. I guess my major questions are:

1) Lets make an assumption that lots and lots of people want to come to my wonderful site. Should I have my own server setup in my office to handle traffic, so I could have direct control over it, or should I offload that responsibility elsewhere? I'm pretty comfortable with building my own machine to handle this, but I'm not sure if it would be better to have it offsite or not. I have literally no idea about how to host or set up a website, so any advice here or links to guides would be useful.

2) The other area I'm clueless in is getting ads (which would initially be the only source of revenue). Basically, how do I get relevant ads on my website. Are there firms out there to assist with this or should I just cold call the marketing depts of a few places i think would be interested (These would be small-medium sized business... I'm not talking about calling IBM or anything).

3) Lastly, assuming I get this all set up. Could anyone give me some rough estimates of revenue this might generate. I know its going to be highly variable based on the amount of traffic generated, etc., but some ballpark figures for different amounts of traffic with what sort of traffic levels might be realistic, would be very helpful.

Thank you in advance for your help and if there is any other information that would be useful for answering my questions, let me know.

Matt

 

[Epic Fail]

Does your business plan involve giving out free ipods?

 

[Exentrick]

If I lie and say yes, will you answer my questions?

 

[Q]

1) Buy hosting from someone else, easier for now and no offense, you probably aren't going to get anywhere near the amount of traffic you think you will right away, so spending $ on buying a server for yourself is a waste.

2) Google Ads for now. I don't think calling marketing depts. will do anything, they will probably hang up on you to be honest. When you have marketing departments call you, then you know you've hit it big.

3) Impossible to estimate, maybe this will help.
http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/

 

[Homerboy]

quite honestly, if you're asking these questions, your site isn't really going to be as popular as you think.

 

[Malak]

quite honestly, if you're asking these questions, your site isn't really going to be as popular as you think.

I'm going to have to agree. A web-based business surely cannot succeed here for 2 reasons:

1. You didn't google your answers, and I can guarantee you that google would have helped on the 2nd question.

2. You didn't already know the answers.

Plus I hand out all the leases to businesses on the internet.

 

[lykaon78]

Give the guy credit. He was smart enough to find Anandtech. I wouldn't exactly consider this a mainstream sight.

Not everyone wants to give away free ipods.

Exentrick: Quintox gave you a good answer.

 

[Homerboy]

Give the guy credit. He was smart enough to find Anandtech. I wouldn't exactly consider this a mainstream sight.

Not everyone wants to give away free ipods.

Exentrick: Quintox gave you a good answer.

It's not?
Its one of the largest forums on the internet.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Have a simple word like "bin" bring your site on the first page of google.

I did it... ok I kinda cheated, google added another section for "bin file" results.

But honestly, SEO is a good step. You also need to put yourself in the feet of your customers and ask yourself "would I bookmark this site? Would I buy any products off of it, more then once?"

 

[Exentrick]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Even the sobering ones.

I don't expect this to be a blockbuster success or anything. First of all, I'm not just setting up some stupid t-shirt site or something. I've identified a market niche that is not being served and developed what I believe to be a solid business plan. It will be a part time thing for a while as I get my MBA, then if it works out well, maybe full time in a couple of years, if not, then it will have been good experience. I've done a ton of research on the business side of this project, but not the infrastructure/tech side.... So, Malak is absolutely right. I should have done more research on this subject. I'll spend a week or so doing just that and come back if I have any outstanding questions.

And for the record, I found Anandtech because I'm quasi obsessed w/ computer hardware, like the rest of you. Except, I really only know about the gaming side of things, not the IT side. Anyway....

Thanks again,

X

 

[lykaon78]

It's not?
Its one of the largest forums on the internet.

I said mainstream.

 

[arkcom]

So Exentrick, what did you find out? I'm looking at building a site for my store and my main dilemma is hosting. The plan is a small store, with around 20 items + a forum and community/blog pages for people to discuss their projects related to my stores products. Likely all built/managed with Drupal.
My options for hosting-

Shared hosting ~$8/month - I'm sure this would provide all the bandwidth I'll need for a long time, but limits on the number of databases and files kind of scare me. Some aren't cms friendly as far as permissions. I've also heard a lot of horror stories about shared hosting.

Standard VPS ~$20/month - Everything seems good with this, easily expandable, full control, etc. But at this price there are other options

Cloud VPS ~$20 - Same as standard VPS, but dynamically expanding/contracting to meet demand (cool, but not a necessity)

Or for $15/month I could "upgrade" my home internet to a business line and run my website on one of my spare machines. I'd have less bandwidth available, but my machine would be about 10x faster than the cheapest VPS.

Too many decisions...