i have a elaborate website idea now what?

Question by Joe B: i have a elaborate website idea now what?
I’ve searched the net for this same question, but the answers are all the same and not specific to my question. What I mean is, for sake of argument, lets say Ebay doesn’t exist and I had the idea for it. How would I go about creating and managing that website when I only know your basic HTML, and at the same time keep others from stealing my idea? Most other answers to this question state to sign up with a hosting service and work off of a template, but obviously there would be no templates based on an “idea”, but only “design”. The Ebay was just an analogy, but my idea includes elaborate programming. How would I go about creating my idea?

Best answer:

Answer by Tasm
I’m not sure either. I know some 14, 15 year old had an idea for a website and made millions. I’m guessing their parents paid for some contract software developers.

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Author: admin

5 thoughts on “i have a elaborate website idea now what?

  1. If personally you know only basic HTML and want to share your idea with no one, you have two options:

    1) Pay someone to do it out of your own money, a personal loan, a business loan, venture capital (unlikely) etc. (there are legal methods to ensure you remain the owner)

    2) Give up.

    More realistically, partner up with somebody that knows more than you. If you know no programming, how can you be sure your idea includes elaborate programming? Maybe it just seems like that to you and someone who knows a bit more than you could do it without charging you a fortune for it or wanting big %’s of any eventual profits.

    LE:
    @Ratchetr love these general-purpose managers:)

  2. You can’t make a website like Ebay with only HTML. You’ll need someone with extensive server-side experience (PHP, ASP.NET, PYTHON, JSP, ETC), and also have access to millions of dollars worth of dedicated servers.

    Before investing too much time in your idea, search google for it, chances are there is already a site that exists that had your idea (Or 1,000)

  3. Agree with Bobber. HTML is a mark up language, you can’t even create a variable and store a value with it. To create a site like ebay, you need to learn language like PHP.

  4. To create a successful, EBay type business requires a lot more than basic HTML skills.
    Programming skills are probably the least important.
    EBay is a business. Business skills are probably more important than programming skills to be successful.

    It depends a bit on what it would take for your idea to get started. Does your idea have a high or low barrier to entry? (See link).

    EBay is a good example of a business with a high barrier to entry. An auction site with 5 sellers and 15 buyers isn’t going to go anywhere. To compete with EBay, you would somehow need to attract huge numbers of buyers and sellers very quickly. That would cost, literally…millions of dollars. And you could very easily fail.

    Amazon might be an example of a business with a somewhat lower barrier of entry. You can start out selling a small number of things on the net, and, if successful, grow your product offering and ramp up. It would take years, or even decades to become bigger than Amazon, but it should cost less to take a stab at it. (Most stabs will fail, of course).

    There is a bit of a Catch-22 here:
    If your idea has a high barrier to entry, then you are faced with that barrier as well. If you are fist with the idea, then you have an advantage, but you will still need huge quantities of money, and a good sense of business and marketing to make it a success. (Oh, and some good programming too.)
    If your idea has a low barrier to entry, then with the first whiff of your success, there will be many others trying to imitate your success (because it’s easy). To even try to defend against that, you would need to patent your idea (copyright won’t cut it here). And that means lawyers…so now you’re back to needing a chunk of money.

    Not saying it can’t be done, just that there is a lot to it. The programming part is just 1 detail of many that you need to control.

    Best of Luck.

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