Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with business and internet

How to split business ownership fairly?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:11:30 -0800

How should my business partner and I split the ownership and income of our start up? A parter (let's call him Bob) and I (let's call me Alice) started a business with no formal agreement regarding ownership. Currently, the business has minimal income and users. We expect this to change very soon.

Alice: Alice created the project in August '08. Alice has spent $1200 out of pocket on expenses.
Bob: Bob joined the project in June '09. Bob has spent $700 out of pocket on expenses, but is fine with spending the next $500 to equal this out.

Bob and Alice have each spent an equal amount of time working on the project each month that they have been working on it. So, Alice has been working on the project for 16 months and Bob has been working on it for 6 months.

What we want to know:

How should we split ownership?
How should we split income? We're interested in splitting the income evenly until we're each making a decent/living wage.

Alice and Bob have a completely amiable relationship. We're both interested in doing what's fair.

What website provides the infrastructure for taking investments on the startup of your internet business

jeffreyclong — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:43:35 -0800

What is the website that allows you to set a startup amount for a web -based project and allows people to invest in such a way that you won't start the business until you have sufficiently met your startup amount. I tried a bunch of google searches and couldn't come up with it. Hard to find the right keywords to search.

Pros & Cons of bringing web development in-house?

MeatLightning — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:33:22 -0800

Pros & Cons of bringing web development in-house? Hi all -
I manage a mid-size e-commerce website. We currently work with an agency to build and maintain our site. We are considering hiring a dev (C# / .NET, SQL) and taking over development... or at least much of it (still may go out of house for UX, front-end dev).

Anyone have any advice, experiences, warnings, etc they can share?

Have you gone down this road? How did it go? What should we watch out for?

thanks in advance!

What Should I Do To Make My Blog Grow And Kick More Ass Even Though I Have No Free Time?

miss lynnster — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:41:06 -0800

Tips on how to keep a blog's potential growing when your available time is shrinking... Okay, so a lot of you guys already know about HiddenLA. I created it 4 months ago when I was unemployed. I had time to update it 2-5 times a day and worked really hard on the design. Then, partly with the momentum of the site, my career started turning around. Now I'm the busiest I've been in 2 years... working full time and commuting 2 hours a day. I'm exhausted. I try to update the event calendar constantly, but it's hard to create posts at work without getting busted so I've just kind of let it slow down.

Thing is... I still have big dreams for what HiddenLA could become... and while the traffic is dwindling as the posts become less frequent, I know the potential is there. I originally told myself I'd give myself 3 years to make it work... and then in less than 3 months it made over 820 Facebook fans. People have really shown a lot of enthusiasm so I can't let this thing die like most blogs do... it needs to thrive. There's so much potential and I think a lot of people really want this type of community site (but better -- because down the road I really want to make it better than it currently is).

I was looking at writing a business plan for the site but am still not completely sure of the big picture so I found myself paralyzed. I feel like what I want to create is something that doesn't exist yet. To start monetizing it, I started a relationship with blogads.com, but haven't had time to put any ads up yet and with with the traffic decreasing while I'm focused on my day job the ads are becoming less valuable I'm sure. I need to figure out the big picture first and get a gameplan for making the site really kick ass. It was really starting to build some serious momentum before I got distracted.

So far everything on the site has just been done by me for free. What I'm looking for is tips on how to make this site successful and not a bear to oversee. I know down the road I'll need to delegate but I don't have much money right now. Even if I could send the copy to someone else and have them import it into WordPress might be helpful since there's less of a chance I'd get busted by my boss seeing the WordPress page on my screen.

Thoughts?

(BTW, I already subscribe to Daily Blog Tips.)

What kinds of advertising options should a new internet startup offer its customers and how should they be priced?

tnoetz01 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:46:06 -0800

What kinds of advertising options should a new internet startup offer its customers and how should they be priced? I'm starting an online service targeted at beer enthusiasts, and we're considering offering advertising to the industry.

I'm trying to build some revenue model scenarios based on advertising options and rates. Specifically, I'm looking for help deciding what advertising options to offer and how much to charge for each, likely on a CPM basis.

What advertising options are typical, and what are typical CPMs for a site targeted at a fairly niche audience like ours?

ass gas or grass?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:53:01 -0800

What are some examples of Medium-High Traffic websites that have successfully started to make money and how did they do it? It's been 5 years since This Question and many things have happened on the web. I help to run a pretty high traffic (~150k visitors a month) site in a specific demographic. I have some ideas about how to make money off of it without driving away our users, but some examples of others that went from labor of love to money-making without a lot of fuss or being sold would be helpful, but I can only think of giant ones, or Metafilter, obviously. Unique details would help a lot.

Thanks!

How to get internet service for an office in a location without wired broadband capability?

Outis — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:41:53 -0800

What is the best way to get broadband internet to a warehouse with offices that isn't capable of it via landlines? My dad bought a building for his company to relocate to (in Northern Virginia) and while it's a great building in a great location, internet is difficult to obtain there. Verizon is the phone company and the only form of internet they provide is a T1 line, no DSL or Fios. The T1 line is a fortune (not to mention overkill) and my dad's not looking at spending 4 times more than he is with Cox at his current location. Been speaking with Cox and they want into the new building's area badly, since they'd pull in all of Verizon's T1 customers, but the permits are constantly being upheld since it's an I-5 zoning with dangerous things.

Is it possible/feasible to get a Sprint Broadband card and connect it to an office router for use of 6 computers? The only internet used is e-mail, the Nextel website to send texts out to the technicians, and the GPS website to determine location of vehicles. The office network is self-sufficient so the important stuff is on the server in the building. However, it does back itself up via the internet nightly but that can be done in house.

My dad's desperate to move in the next two weeks. Verizon went back and forth saying they had DSL and didn't and Cox was hoping to but not able to provide at the moment. Frankly, he can't stand Verizon and the run around they give on the phone and they're telling him he has to get a T1 line and it'll be a month before they install it.

Satellite has been brought up, but the guy that deals with his IT isn't a fan of reliability.

Or, does someone have a better suggestion?

Help finding "earth" business address for website.

SociologistTina — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:14:34 -0800

I have the web address, but can find no "earth" address for a website which I would like to contact by snail mail. Is there a way online (hopefully free) to find the actual business address for a website?

What should I sell online?

Elminster24 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:02:05 -0800

Help me find something to sell online. My current site was de-indexed and while I'm working on getting that back in the rankings I'm looking for something else to sell and would like to experiment with sourcing a product myself versus going the affiliate route. I've dabbled in affiliate marketing and had a halfway successful eBay Partner Network based site that was bringing in about $400-$600/mo on average and growing. Unfortunately Google de-indexed it for reasons I'm still uncertain of. I'm working on relaunching the site with new content and hopefully that will help but this has made me realize I can't put all my eggs in one basket.

This is where you guys come in. I'm trying to think of unique product ideas to sell online. I know how to get a site designed and rather than a site that sells MANY products, I'm looking for a site that can sell just one or two specific ones. I'd love to be able to source my own products to make them unique but I really have no clue where to even begin with that. Aside from shady dropshipping scammers, can you guys recommend some good resources for determining how to source a product (preferably within the US), find suppliers, etc.?

Also, any suggestions on where I can get inspiration for a product to sell in my store would be appreciated.

I'm not looking for THE idea...just some resources to gain inspiration. Are there any matchmaking sites for people who want to sell their products online and are looking for partners (NOT affiliates)?

I have an idea for a unique information product but it is based on World of Warcraft and I don't have much hardcore knowledge of the details of that game so I don't know how to go about finding a writer for that sort of thing...

Help me become a web savvy mogul superstar! (on a budget) :)

miss lynnster — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:49:00 -0800

I'm about to start some new business ventures and my current web host has not been doing a very good job so I want to switch while things are still small. Helllp! By this time next year I plan to have four business websites up and running. (Right now I have one site and two domain names, so I'm planning on doing a lot of work this year.) Recommendations on how to keep this virtual growth as painless, smart and profitable as possible so that I can focus on the work itself, not on damage control with my host. (I've spent three hours on the phone with them this week alone because I haven't been getting my e-mail. They're just awful.)

Here are the sites I plan to set up:
1) I own the domain. My current design site features my resume, portfolio, and room to ftp client files. In the future I'd like to develop that ftp area to be a separate password-protected client area.
2) I own the domain. I need to redesign my old jazz vocalist website and launch that within the next two months. (I don't want MySpace to be where my main web presence is, so please don't suggest that. I need my own domain with MySpace as a minor supplement that points to it.) Although I don't plan for mine to be so Flash-heavy, the content of this site will be similar to this, and should eventually include an area to purchase CDs.
3) Domain needs registering. A new business site set to launch within 3 months, probably no more than ten main pages with one form questionaire page. There might be a variety of photo galleries added over time.
4) Domain needs registering. Probably utilizing a blog template, this site is an online community startup to launch in a year or so, the timing to be dependent upon how the new business progresses (they're tied together). This could end up being a huge and very successful project down the road with a great deal of income potential, but only time will tell. For at least four months, this domain will be a blank canvas waiting for paint while other things get accomplished first.

So here are my questions:
A) What host would you recommend for hosting these four sites (with room to grow)? I want to be sure that the prices are reasonable and don't become cost prohibitive as my businesses grows and traffic increases. I've heard dreamhost is good but when I tried to contact their customer service for an estimate they didn't e-mail me back. I figured that was a bad sign so I gave up on them.
B) My previous domains were registered with Network Solutions. I know I probably don't want to register the new names with them. Should I go through the new host or how do you recommend I register the names? (I already know what they're going to be so I need to snatch them up asap while they're still available.)

Okay... advise away!!!! Thank you in advance for your help. :)

How to stop torrents at work?

numlok — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:13:20 -0800

I'm sure this question will not make me the most popular student at the dance, but is there a way to identify (via IP) machines running BitTorrent clients within an internal network (ie. work)? My company has around 50 employees, and the old, "Please don't torrent at work" doesn't seem to be doing much good anymore. It brings our email and web browsing to a near standstill, and dropping by the "usual suspects" is not only tiresome, but doesn't seem to find all the sources of traffic any longer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Is this small business worth a punt?

hatmandu — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:25:37 -0800

I have the opportunity to buy a niche website. Is it worth it? Negotiations have got the price to $750. It's a niche site offering an offline service, not directly the same as but at least related to some of the work I do, so in theory it might offer a way to look for new clients. The owner has about 100 or so past clients in his database. The site gets only about 65 unique visitors a month, from which about 2 give business, making about $300 or so monthly. Those uniques generally come from search engines, in which the site is well indexed and even appears at the No 1 slot for some keywords which it's not implausible some customers might enter.

So, I wasn't planning to spend $750 on anything beforehand, and at the moment have declined ($500 would be much more tempting, but it's very unlikely he'd go that low). But could this be worth a punt in order to rope in extra business, and make some small money on its own accord (with fairly low effort)? Or would $750 be much better spent on advertising, for example? (Or not spent at all?) What would you do?

Comcast or Comca$t?

awenner — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:51:22 -0800

What are the costs of doing business for a large ISP? All this talk about bandwidth throttling, downstream capping, and miscellaneous connection meddling among the major ISPs has made me wonder why the market isn't producing an alternative to the major internet providers. In the old days of dial-up, there were often dozens of small-scale ISPs per city, while today a few major companies - Verizon, Comcast, etc. - dominate the national market.

Here are my questions:
* What are the operating costs of a business that provides high-speed internet connections? What's the relationship between those costs and the fees charged to customers? Is the argument (made by ISPs) that rising costs will mean increased fees credible?
* What factors are preventing new competitors from entering the market? What's to stop an upstart ISP from renting Google's "dark" fiber optics?
*And finally, what are some potential solutions that a new company might employ to get around today's existing constraints?

The Economics of Financial Domination

divabat — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:18:21 -0800

How do financial dominatrices make their money? A comment on AskMefi some time ago talked about financial dominatrices, and I've been fascinated by their business ever since. From what I could gather, all they have to do is put up a website saying "You worship me! Give me money and stuff because I know you want to!" - and it works. One site had her Internet bills paid off. Many ask for regular tithes and offerings, and have application processes.

How does this work? From what I could tell, the buyers don't actually get anything back for their cash - it's up to the dominatrix if she wants to give them something or not. (Usually they don't bother.) It's not like she's selling pictures or anything (though I did see one with videos) - it pretty much seems like they're paying money because it gets them off.

How does one get established in the financial dominatrix business? Is there some sort of Financial Dominatrix Directory where they get listed and people just scroll through to see who they like? How do they get attention, and how do they get people to pay? Are there any male dominators, or any women that would pay for such "services"? How would you keep your identity secret to collect cash (and avoid a situation like this mess - link NSFW)?

If you would like to comment anonymously, send me an email at dominatrix.economics@gmail.com.

Recommend an internet print shop?

wubbie — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:44:51 -0800

Recommend an internet print shop that offers the standard business cards and letterhead, but prints on an actual press and not just (gross) digital printing with glossy coatings? Also interested if you know of any internet-based shops offering production effects like embossing. I know some are offering spot gloss varnishes at this point.

How to get submission form fields from email to database and more!

prophetsearcher — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:20:48 -0800

How can a new company track leads submitted via its website through the sales and post-sales process, simply, automatically, and online? (Caution- IDon'tReallyKnowWhatIWantFilter:)

I'm helping to start a small company (well, it's really a division of a larger consulting firm) that is selling a one-off product/service to non-profits.

Through AdWords, I have managed to attract nearly 30 leads a day (which I'm quite pleased with, considering the cost of our product). Problem is, each lead comes into my inbox - as well as my partners' - as emails. (I believe the site is an ASP.net site, with form submissions. I'm pretty clueless, though).

Is there a way that each of these emails, which is a filled out form, could automagically be imported, fields intact, into some sort of database (ideally, online, but not necessarily).

Even better, would be if we could add notes to each lead ("Joe called Org on 30/1/08 and was asked to call back in a week") and automated reminders ("2/7/08: Joe- Call Org back"), and results ("2/12/08: Product Sold for $999,999.95") and more followups (8/12/08: "Call Org to find out how product was used; interested in more?")

This all would have to be (1) not crazy-expensive (2) easy to use (3) ideally, usable by people in different continents (ie, online?).

I suppose, all else fails, a Google Spreadsheet could take care of some of this, but I'm looking for a frictionless solution that would import our leads, fire off reminders, integrate with our address books and calendars, etc.

I've seen this question, but it didn't seem exactly right and didn't get the types of responses I'm hoping for. Honestly, I'm not quite sure even what I'm looking for or if it exists in our price range...

I'm not scared of a little bit of mucking around, as long as that's only for the setup. It would have to be foolproof for the other end users.

How can I treat my website as a real business?

quibx — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:40:41 -0800

My website is starting to turn into an actual business. How do I go about treating it like one? I've been running this toy website for about 5 years now. In the last year it's grown exponentially, and we've published a book and became a youtube partner. I've got people who do work for me, and we go out and cover events.. Basically, it feels like a business, but I want to start acting like a business. Where do I start? Do I incorporate? How do I get investors interested in something like this that is experiencing growth but not on a scale like a large company?

Keep in mind I am more of an idea guy, and know nothing about running a business, business plans, or anything like that. But I have seen the writing on the wall, and I could very well do this for a living if i had the proper capital to get some ideas off the ground.

Are there any case studies about websites that took off and became a full fledged business?

Legal requirements for an adult dating site?

treepour — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:11:55 -0800

I'm considering starting an adult internet dating service in the US. What legal implications do I need to consider? (Some mildly NSFW details follow). I'm considering creating a site for local gay/bi men BDSM enthusiasts to post/browse/search profiles, send private messages, etc. I know sites like this already exist but I'm hoping to create a small, low-overhead site that's both locally focused and low or no cost to end users.

I would, however, like for members to be able to post possibly NSFW pictures of themselves. On the one hand, I know that US recordkeeping requirements have become quite stringent. On the other, there are still a lot of personals and related sites -- not to mention craigslist -- that don't require one to submit two government-issued picture id's in order to post NSFW pictures of oneself.

Are sites in this latter category operating in a legal gray area? Or are there exceptions to the recordkeeping requirements for social networking, dating, or craigslist-like sites? Short of talking to a lawyer, are there any good resources for obtaining this sort of information in general?

How can I run my one-man software business from abroad?

csugden — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 13:45:04 -0800

How can I continue to operate my one-man software business while out of the country for 3 months? I've been preparing a piece of software which I'm almost ready to start selling. But I'm planning on going away on a long study trip abroad this summer, from late May to early September. This has been planned for a long time, and it's fixed. So how can I keep an eye on my business and make necessary changes?

I don't want to wait until I get back to launch. But I also don't want to be unable to update my website or do customer service or patch my code. I think I have a few options:
1. Internet cafes. Not fond of this idea because of security concerns, as I would want to be able to check on my sales and so on.
2. Home connection. I'll be staying with a host family (I'm going to France), and I have no idea whether they'll have the net and I don't want to be an annoying guest by hogging their net!
3. Public wifi. I would have to take my own laptop, but all my files are on it so I may have to do this anyway. Plus, I don't know whether there will be any hotspots where I'm going.
4. Get someone else to look after it while I'm away.

What do you think? If it was just email there wouldn't be a problem. I just don't want to find out there's a bug that really needs to be fixed and I can't do it for three months!

Opinions gratefully received. Thanks, Chris.

how to make the next big site

sacho — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 16:39:59 -0800

my friends and i have an idea for an awesome website - the next youtube or myspace. we know what we want it to look like, how we want it to work, the features we want it to have. but (and this is a big but) none of us have the skills to actually make it - or even know if it's possible with current technologies. is the idea worth anything without the technology or code that would bring the idea to fruition? how do we take our ideas to the next level? how to we protect our idea while trying to do this? hoping you can help a few english majors with a dream make it with an internet startup...thanks!

For Sale, $150K/yr. Asking Price?

rokusan — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:13:32 -0800

How to find a good web/mail host for 100+ websites all at once, and how to $value those fees? One of my three jobs (see other thread on learning how to say "no" better) is consulting for a web-development firm. I do QA and some software design.

They've recently decided to get out of the web and mail hosting and support (maintenance) business (too cutthroat) so they can focus on technology instead, which has always been the bigger part of their work. My napkin-guessing says the hosting contracts are currently producing $100-200K per year. Not a lot, but too much to just throw away, too.

Though it's a bit out of my comfort zone, I've been asked my opinion on (1) how to nicely hand their 100 or so clients off to another firm, (2) how to find and choose such a firm for such an odd situation, and (3) what a fair rate would be for "selling" such clients.

They're very concerned about quality of service and maintaining good feelings so the clients do not feel dumped... which is probably why they've stayed in the business this long even though it's non-core for them. I know that some other people in-house are business-casing a "spinoff" of the hosting business to remove it from the overall firm, but that's another track.

I suspect the answer to (3) is "a year's worth of fees or so", but I know there are a lot of web folks here, so I'll take input/steering on that part, too. What would you pay to "inherit" a $100/month customer? Or a dozen? Or a hundred?

As for the first two parts, I barely know where to begin.

(If there are hosting people here who want to offer themselves, my e-mail is in my profile, and I won't mind. I'm gathering options.)

Working poor need cash too!

Willie0248 — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:13:49 -0800

My underpaid mother is in serious need of some extra income without quitting her day job. Of course there is... My mother needs an extra chunk of cash each month, but cannot leave her current job even though she is significantly underpaid. She is a hard worker, and very intelligent to boot, but due to an old-school company loyalty mentality she will not leave her job for a better one despite my urgings. Unfortunately, I am a poor grad student and cannot contribute much to her bills, though I help in any way I can.

We have explored the idea of a second job to attain a little bigger income flow, but we live in a severely economically depressed area of the South (as in the median pay here is 60% lower than the national median), so we're looking at minimum wage for anything part time and after-hours. Perhaps an internet-based solution? I am more than willing to get the ball rolling for her, though she is quite the techie for her age.

Hive mind, I ask for your advice. How can a strong middle-aged, old-school woman make a few bucks on the side while working a normal 9-5 job?

Get yer' own, mister!

bartleby — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:27:20 -0800

I need some valid reasons for a (business) subtenant to get his own DSL service instead of sharing ours. Besides the fact that we're not 23 year old singles sharing a flat. The branch office has some vacant space, and the head there has found a subtenant who will rent it from us.

But he seems to have found a very cheap subtenant, because since we let him share DSL for a few days to get set up, he doesn't see a reason why he should get his own line.

Even more disappointing is that the head there seems to be apologising about this, instead of telling the subtenant to grow up and get his own resources for his own business.

So now I've been tasked with providing the head with a list of concrete reasons why not to share our DSL line with a separate enterprise.

Bring on your liability/security/worst case scenario stories.

Oh, P.S. We've got a single fixed IP, so he'd have to go through our router as well.

Where do I start on finding technological wizards to make my digital media concepts reality?

skylar — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:27:47 -0800

A friend (okay, it's me) has absolutely no understanding of coding or building software whatsoever. But I have a couple of potentially very exciting digital media business concepts which would require for a software program or web app to be built. How would I go about finding someone, or a group of people, to work with on investigating one or more of these concepts and making them reality? I'm willing to invest some money, but this needs to be at the lower end of the scale and I have no idea where to start.

Resources for starting an online adult film business?

superboy422 — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:08:06 -0800

What are some good resources for starting an online gay adult film business? I'm an enterprising gay twenty-something web guy who thinks he can do better than (or at least as well as) some of the adult sites out there today. I'd like to start my own pay-per-download site, and recruit my own talent. However, I have no experience in this area, and I don't know anything about the legal issues I might encounter, how much models generally expect to be paid, and the plethora of other issues I might not even be taking into consideration.

Can anyone recommend any resources that might be valuable to a budding porn mogul in the making? :)