How to monetize an idea. Experience and mistakes
In my head, like many of you, the ideas of various services, sites, which in my opinion are simply necessary for the Internet community, constantly turned. I wanted to learn how to turn my ideas into money and, over time, I realized that successful people are distinguished by the fact that they have ideas that they are not afraid to implement .
This article has pushed me to write my own topic. But I’ll talk not so much about startups, but about the basic principles of creating simple and successful Internet projects.
For many years I worked as a freelancer, this is not exactly what I wanted to do. You pay money for being a good specialist in your field: a good designer, coder, programmer, SEO. From the very beginning I dreamed of “selling ideas”, but unfortunately it’s almost impossible to sell an idea , so you need to bring the idea at least to a startup . And freelancing gave me invaluable experience, which is impossible to get in the web studio: I worked on the most unusual projects, the life of which I could later observe. Many of them have died, some have remained on self-sufficiency, some have grown into more serious services, but most importantly, I met people who are far from web development, but earn on exactly what they put into practice their ideas. Be sure to learn from the experience of others and learn from the mistakes of others.
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Often, especially when you are still a student and are limited in financial opportunities, it seems to be the easiest to work on an “idea” with friends, having cooperated with a team of designer, programmers, and SEO. This approach has at least two drawbacks. Firstly, if the implementation of a pair of your ideas has taken away a lot of time from partners and has not brought any material satisfaction, not the fact that they will support you in the third. Secondly, on the contrary, if your idea is a bang, and you share your first million with your companions, you’ll have a thought, wouldn’t it have been easier to order the implementation of your idea from a specialist. By sharing expenses with the prospect of sharing profits, you always lose more, you need to weigh well, do you need it.
Here I will mention such a project as 2druga.com , a classical pyramid, a lot of such people appeared in 2012 and you could really make money in them. With only one reservation - it turned out to be earned only by the creators of the service, and only a few. The promotion of such a site does not require any deep knowledge of SMM or SEO. Having spent a month on its creation, devoting an insignificant amount of time to its support, it was quite possible to earn several million in six months. Now we will not talk about the moral side of this enterprise, the fact remains that for each hour you spent, you received several thousand rubles, but in the end you will lose. An Internet business that is able to provide you a comfortable life should be based on long-term planning. The model, whose lifetime is less than a year, will not allow creating a constant cash flow.
A few years ago I was actively following the startup about.me , the idea of ​​such a service often visited my head, but I did not fully understand how it should look. And here is an example before our eyes, you need to act. While I was waiting for an invite to the site, my friend and I set to work, I very quickly put on and folded the design of the home page, the user’s page, we began to design the service, figure out how it should work, how deep the integration with social networks should be. Approximately on the fifteenth sleepless days, reviewing a database model printed on four A4 sheets and estimating how much time is needed to implement a really cool user page editor on JS, it was realized that this project simply does not fit us. And the point is not that we do not have enough qualifications for its implementation, but the fact that, before spending months on the realization of your idea, try to evaluate its profitability .
When I became interested in web development seven years ago, practically the first project I created was a rental property website without intermediaries in my hometown. The base on the site was real and really relevant, except that it was difficult and expensive to promote such a site, and I quickly scored on it. A similar service appeared five years ago, and two years ago, and two years ago such a service, oh, a miracle, shot it, and with minimal financial investments. And the point is not that this site was better than the previous ones, or the real estate market somehow changed, it was just people who realized that they needed this service and they knew that such a service should exist, and found it. Analyze the market to be sure that your product is needed!
As a result, I came to the conclusion that you can create long-term projects that will not take much time, their creation and maintenance will not require a lot of money, but at the same time each of them will be the embodiment of some kind of my idea and, most importantly, will bring I have money!
The basic principles of success in this field are simple and now I just repeat:
- not every project will even be self-sufficient, but it is always an experience;
- assess the complexity of the project at the design stage, maybe it will just be inconvenient or not cost-effective;
- study the market, make sure that the people you need really think up;
- if the project does not imply serious software development, then it is easier to hire a designer, a programmer than to try to implement your own idea with someone else in the stake;
- make a bet on long-term projects, a project that is able to self-regulate and develop with a lower monthly income is actually more profitable than a knowingly temporary one.
I think for most of you I have not said anything new, my goal was to collect all these basic ideas in one article and explain that there is nothing difficult in monetizing your ideas.
This article has pushed me to write my own topic. But I’ll talk not so much about startups, but about the basic principles of creating simple and successful Internet projects.
Freelance as a "start-up fair"
For many years I worked as a freelancer, this is not exactly what I wanted to do. You pay money for being a good specialist in your field: a good designer, coder, programmer, SEO. From the very beginning I dreamed of “selling ideas”, but unfortunately it’s almost impossible to sell an idea , so you need to bring the idea at least to a startup . And freelancing gave me invaluable experience, which is impossible to get in the web studio: I worked on the most unusual projects, the life of which I could later observe. Many of them have died, some have remained on self-sufficiency, some have grown into more serious services, but most importantly, I met people who are far from web development, but earn on exactly what they put into practice their ideas. Be sure to learn from the experience of others and learn from the mistakes of others.
')
Work for the idea is not an option
Often, especially when you are still a student and are limited in financial opportunities, it seems to be the easiest to work on an “idea” with friends, having cooperated with a team of designer, programmers, and SEO. This approach has at least two drawbacks. Firstly, if the implementation of a pair of your ideas has taken away a lot of time from partners and has not brought any material satisfaction, not the fact that they will support you in the third. Secondly, on the contrary, if your idea is a bang, and you share your first million with your companions, you’ll have a thought, wouldn’t it have been easier to order the implementation of your idea from a specialist. By sharing expenses with the prospect of sharing profits, you always lose more, you need to weigh well, do you need it.
Cutting down money is not a business.
Here I will mention such a project as 2druga.com , a classical pyramid, a lot of such people appeared in 2012 and you could really make money in them. With only one reservation - it turned out to be earned only by the creators of the service, and only a few. The promotion of such a site does not require any deep knowledge of SMM or SEO. Having spent a month on its creation, devoting an insignificant amount of time to its support, it was quite possible to earn several million in six months. Now we will not talk about the moral side of this enterprise, the fact remains that for each hour you spent, you received several thousand rubles, but in the end you will lose. An Internet business that is able to provide you a comfortable life should be based on long-term planning. The model, whose lifetime is less than a year, will not allow creating a constant cash flow.
Soberly assess your strength
A few years ago I was actively following the startup about.me , the idea of ​​such a service often visited my head, but I did not fully understand how it should look. And here is an example before our eyes, you need to act. While I was waiting for an invite to the site, my friend and I set to work, I very quickly put on and folded the design of the home page, the user’s page, we began to design the service, figure out how it should work, how deep the integration with social networks should be. Approximately on the fifteenth sleepless days, reviewing a database model printed on four A4 sheets and estimating how much time is needed to implement a really cool user page editor on JS, it was realized that this project simply does not fit us. And the point is not that we do not have enough qualifications for its implementation, but the fact that, before spending months on the realization of your idea, try to evaluate its profitability .
Create a project when you need it.
When I became interested in web development seven years ago, practically the first project I created was a rental property website without intermediaries in my hometown. The base on the site was real and really relevant, except that it was difficult and expensive to promote such a site, and I quickly scored on it. A similar service appeared five years ago, and two years ago, and two years ago such a service, oh, a miracle, shot it, and with minimal financial investments. And the point is not that this site was better than the previous ones, or the real estate market somehow changed, it was just people who realized that they needed this service and they knew that such a service should exist, and found it. Analyze the market to be sure that your product is needed!
As a result, I came to the conclusion that you can create long-term projects that will not take much time, their creation and maintenance will not require a lot of money, but at the same time each of them will be the embodiment of some kind of my idea and, most importantly, will bring I have money!
The basic principles of success in this field are simple and now I just repeat:
- not every project will even be self-sufficient, but it is always an experience;
- assess the complexity of the project at the design stage, maybe it will just be inconvenient or not cost-effective;
- study the market, make sure that the people you need really think up;
- if the project does not imply serious software development, then it is easier to hire a designer, a programmer than to try to implement your own idea with someone else in the stake;
- make a bet on long-term projects, a project that is able to self-regulate and develop with a lower monthly income is actually more profitable than a knowingly temporary one.
I think for most of you I have not said anything new, my goal was to collect all these basic ideas in one article and explain that there is nothing difficult in monetizing your ideas.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/212993/
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