I've developed a great concept. With no resources, how can I make it more than a concept?
December 12, 2010 10:41 AM   Subscribe

I've got a big idea that I think could go far, extending social networking in a useful (and Meta-) sort of way. I've brought it to a few people who are well-versed in the internet and social media and all of them think it is an awesome concept.

But, it's just a concept. I don't have resources whatsoever. If I were to use what little credit I have, I am more likely to end up with more debt, and an incomplete product that wouldn't persuade people any more than a good description of the concept would. As far as I can tell, I either need an angel investor or something like Kickstarter for non-creative projects (well, not "artistically" creative). Suggestions on how to take a great concept and move it to the next level?
posted by swimming naked when the tide goes out to Computers & Internet (13 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
You'll need a business plan as well as a (best case) a fully or minimally functioning prototype or (not as good) storyboards that communicate the functionality.

If you don't take the time to craft a business plan then you haven't really taken your idea seriously, so why should anyone else? A plan is key for attracting finance, resources from entities (think free server resources in return for a small percentage of equity) or labour from folks who are will be trade their skills for perhaps not so small parts of equity.

I know several people who have taken business ideas through various stages of evolution; all had plans and executed those plans. Business plans don't guarantee success, they just skew the odds in your favour. Folks that "are too busy" to craft a business plan are stacking the deck against them.

Business plans can be relatively short or run to hundreds of pages. What they all have in common is they clearly and succinctly communicate your business concept to a third party.

There are lots of books on writing business plans and templates you can download off the web. The key thing is to just do it; write up a business plan, clarify your idea, codify your thinking and circulate it, getting input from people whose option you respect.

Your idea will be much better for it and you'll have a much, much improved chance of attracting others as well as resources.
posted by Mutant at 10:52 AM on December 12, 2010


Welcome to the club. However, ideas are a dime a dozen and free money is extremely hard to come by even for good ideas that are already built out into at least a proof of concept.

You say yourself that your current resources can only get you to a "non-working prototype" stage, so I'd recommend focussing on acquiring the resources necessary to get past this, which is another way to say that before you start climbing the ladder you have to get a ladder. This can be in the form of meeting people that get you closer to the money people, finding technical people to build the thing, and other things like that.

Then again, maybe you don't want to actually build this but supply the idea to someone who then builds it and gives you a share of the proceeds, but the "idea guy" is both an extremely difficult goal and one that is also routinely mocked within the (Internet) world. Everybody wants to be the "idea guy."
posted by rhizome at 10:57 AM on December 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Pace Mutant, business plans are not as vital as they used to be. At any rate, a business plan is just a guess and will be revised whenever something doesn't work out, so you can build the business until someone asks you for a business plan, then just write up your guess about what the site will do for the world and how you plan to make money at it (which, even if you're Facebook, isn't always apparent).
posted by rhizome at 11:07 AM on December 12, 2010


Best answer: People use Kickstarter for all kinds of stuff, not just artistic projects.

Open-source social-networking site Diaspora and iPhone tripod mount Glif are two high-profile examples.
posted by box at 11:18 AM on December 12, 2010


I enjoyed an article by Derek Sivers on this subject: Ideas are just a multiplier of execution.
posted by clyde at 11:23 AM on December 12, 2010


It'd be easier to answer this question if we knew more about your skillset and the nature of the idea. But my quick, generic answer to this kind of question is to point people to Paul Graham's essay How to fund a startup.

What you'll see there is that it doesn't take a lot of money to build the first iteration of a product, and it's that early working prototype that will be critical in convincing angels and the like to put up the next round of funding.

From the sound of it, what you may need most at this point is some co-founders, possibly drawn from those people you mentioned who are well-versed in the net and social media and were excited about the concept.
posted by philipy at 11:26 AM on December 12, 2010


Best answer: You'll need a business plan

This advice is _always_ posted on these types of threads, and I think its countervaluable. The amount of time that will be sunk into developing a proper business plan could undoubtedly be better used somewhere else. Also, try to find successful web app that was built with a solid business plan.

Also, when you go raise money, the people who are going to invest in it _are not_ going to read your business plan. It will be a struggle to get people to read a 2-4 page executive summary. No one who is serious will trust the rest of your business plan beyond this anyway, because you're not opening a McDonald's franchise. Your financials are going to be a complete guess.

I think you are in a tough spot, and I really don't know what to tell you to do, but honestly, if you had, say, 100 hours to invest in this project starting from where you are now, I think you would be better off building paper/photoshop prototypes than doing another edit pass on the nonsensical "Phase III: Cash Geyser Engaged" BS section of your bplan.

If you don't take the time to craft a business plan then you haven't really taken your idea seriously, so why should anyone else?

The counterargument to this is that there are much, much more effective ways to show you are taking your idea seriously than fiddling with guesses clad in opaque prose. Normally, the best one of these is "BUILD THE DAMN THING", but still. If you're idea involves selling stuff to customer type X, having 10 meetings with those type of customers, who will be referenceable, and getting them to say, "If your product does a, b, and c I will pay d for it." is more valuable than more business planning. Getting a designer to do mockups is more valuable. Getting an experienced engineer to do estimates and take technical risk factors off the table is more valuable.

Basically, your concept now is a giant ball of risks: if someone invests money in it, they face execution risk (you don't know what you're doing), market risk (who knows if the market wants it), technical/engineering risk (at this point, you don't actually know how hard/expensive it will be to build), marketing risk (assuming you could deliver a product customers want, at this point you have no proof that you could actually get them to know about it. This is one technical people miss a lot, and its especially challenging for social startups because they are generally suffer chicken/egg problems).

Your job is to reduce these risks. A business plan is one way of doing it: it involves thinking about things like "if it costs X to build this product and we make Y/year, are we profitable?" That's good stuff. But the problem is, the inputs in your case are going to be crap, so the risk reduction is not very meaningful per unit time/dollars invested. What you want to do is find the angle that the best application of _your_ time will lead to the biggest reduction of risk. For programmers, this is almost always building a prototype. For sales people or people with deep industry expertise, its getting reference accounts who will talk to investors, etc. in the absence of a product. I don't know specifically what makes sense for you to do, but I would think along these lines.
posted by jeb at 11:28 AM on December 12, 2010 [11 favorites]


People use Kickstarter for all kinds of stuff

True, but Kickstarter isn't about investing. You would keep 100% ownership, which means there needs to be a damn good reason for people to give you their money when it might make you rich, with no return for them.

Also the guidelines rule out funding for hiring developers to build your site, but do allow funding for something you are building yourself.

You may be able to use Kickstarter, but it might not be the best route to go.
posted by philipy at 11:35 AM on December 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


swimming naked when the tide goes out: "But, it's just a concept. I don't have resources whatsoever."

Time is a resource; if you don't have it, angel investments won't help anyways. So use your time wisely. My suggestion? Find ten people who, when given a description of your concept, say "Sounds great! I'd pay $X for it." Presto, instant business plan. You can look at the the costs of the concept vs X, if you like. But you can plan a product all you like and if you don't have a single customer lined up, you're screwed! So find some prospective customers.
posted by pwnguin at 11:56 AM on December 12, 2010


I've brought it to a few people who are well-versed in the internet and social media and all of them think it is an awesome concept.

If it was really that great of an idea, those few well-versed people would have volunteered to help you build it in their spare time for a cut of the profits.

As a software developer, I have yet to be presented with such a spectacular idea.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:21 PM on December 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I've brought it to a few people who are well-versed in the internet and social media and all of them think it is an awesome concept.

If it was really that great of an idea, those few well-versed people would have volunteered to help you build it in their spare time for a cut of the profits.


Exactly. But I would say that doesn't mean the idea isn't great: you just haven't found the right person yet.

If it's a software idea, you need coders, and you need designers. Talk to a bunch of those - you seem to know a few, or your "well-versed" friends will know some they can introduce you to. When one of the people you talk to shows true excitement about the idea, ask them if they'd be interested in getting involved as a partner. Once you have partners who can do the coding and design, you can run the project just about for free.
posted by lollusc at 3:06 PM on December 12, 2010


The point of writing a business plan is not the business plan. It's to force you to sit down and think through your idea thoroughly and in enough detail to write a business plan about it.

The more detail you know about your idea, about what differentiates it from what's already out there, about how it works, how the user gets to it and gets through it and what the end result is, what the trouble spots you'll have to invent are and what parts are solved problems that you can buy instead of build, and so on, and so on, the better off you'll be.

If you have a twenty-five words or less concept, you don't have anything.
posted by ook at 4:29 PM on December 12, 2010


I would do this:

1. Get together with someone you really like, who has the skills you don't, who you could work with to be a founder.

2. Apply late to the current YCombinator class (I think you have a couple more weeks).

3. When you don't get in, make it happen in your spare time, or apply to Founders Institute, etc.

4. Then if that doesn't work, find a mentor, make a community of people to talk to, and get cracking.

Others will say different, but I say: why bother going out shopping for angel money? Sure you can burn through someone's dollars. And end up in a hole. But also, real businesses don't always get built full-time in the beginning. You can make a business happen when all the founders are consulting, or even working full-time.

I've also seen tons of people spend nine months having meetings and polishing their business plans and you know, "talking." They could have launched, gained users, pivoted, relaunched and gotten funding in that time. Do it, do it now, do it soon, or don't bother.

Other people's opinions on this matter will vary, and I'm not exactly a lean startup evangelist, but I do think people can build and own their own companies without needlessly burning through a ton of cash. Find a smart partner.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 9:27 PM on December 12, 2010


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