If you work as a computer programmer or in a related field chances are that you already found yourself with great ideas on starting up a new website or a web business, but then what happened? Well, if you like programming like I do, you probably put the project aside waiting for the perfect time to start developing it and… totally forgot about it!
The difference between an entrepreneur and a common person is that that first one has an idea and acts on it. So, if we want to have a totally different life and income we have to start working with the ideas that come to our mind. Thinking about this subject I decided to list the top two reasons for giving up on a new idea before even starting to work on it.
1. “I don’t have the necessary time to act on it now, so I will save it for later.”
This is one the most common excuses for not working on a new idea. As a I have learned before, you don’t ever have enough time until you make time. If you feel that the idea you just had can change your life, than starting working on it! Everything that is worthwhile takes time to develop and accomplish. If you give up before even trying chances are that you will find yourself regretting it later. So here is how we overcome this one: make time to develop your new ideas, be it 1 hr each day or more.
2. “I don’t have the necessary skills.”
This is another common excuse. Have you ever thought about what would haven happened to Microsoft if Bill Gates thought that they didn’t have the necessary skills to become the biggest software development company in the world? Imagine Bill Gates sitting in front of IBM executives and thinking “Boy.. I don’t know if we can do this…”. That is the kind of thought that can leave you constantly paralyzed, not only it destroys the current idea but blocks any other great ideas that might come to your mind.
Nobody is born with all the necessary skills, even as a baby we can’t even feed ourselves. If we lived in the animal world chances are we would be dead in a few hours after birth. So, what can we do about it? Well, we have a couple of solutions, one of them is going out and purchasing the necessary resources to acquire the skills, such as books, seminars, courses, lectures, magazines or even people. Another great solution, which applies to web and software development, is outsourcing the project. What do I mean by that ? Well, if you don’t have the time or the skill to develop the next million dollar website, you can hire people that can do that job for you! The only thing you must have is a clear idea of what you want and a budget.
Try looking up similar websites and scanning through their content and structure, drop down notes about all the great features you see and then make a sketch of your desired website. What features it will have? What kind of audience is it intended for? How can it generate profit? What should the layout look like ? After having thought about all of that, create a document in which you specify everything you desire for the new website. Why did I say desire and not want? Well, because if you want everything you see chances are that the development costs will be greater than your budget, so it’s nice to know what are the features that you absolutely can’t live without and what other features can be postponed or taken out of the scope.
After reading through the document a few times you will come out with a much better comprehension of your original idea. With this done we go into the tech part. First thing you will notice is that you can choose between various technologies: if you want a website with a database to store user information and dynamic content you will have to choose between scripting languages such as JSP, ASP, Ruby, PHP, etc. If you don’t know a lot about this, then go with the flow by using LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). Choosing LAMP will save you money with web hosting and, since there are a lot of developers that are familiar with these tools, will probably save you money in development.
Now that you have a clear idea of what you want and the technologies involved, you need to post your project somewhere so that developers can bid on it. I recommend Scriptlance, since it has an active user base and hundreds of developers and projects. I worked with it for several months as a developer, bidding on projects and found that you can actually make a name for yourself using the system. Developers are rated based on their currently completed projects, so you know what to expect from them when they show up. Chances are that they also have a portfolio of projects or even similar projects to your own, which gives you a better chance of evaluating their skills before you hire them.
Best of all, developers only get paid after the project is completed. The website really acts as a link between developers and project posters. So, next time you have a great idea and don’t know what to do about it, remember that there are a lot of developers just waiting to turn your idea into reality.
FYI: If you are not sure which web hosting service to use for your new website, I recommend Hostmonster. I’ve been using their service for two years now and I am happy with it. By signing up for one account you can host multiple websites, which is good if you are planning on launching other websites or even your own personal blog!
If you found this advice useful be sure to share it with your friends.
