New business idea

G

Gabriel

Guest
I am investigating the idea of an online business. It's very much in the design phase right now but most of it is well mapped out in my head, if not on paper.

The business requires a large scale campaign to get Dublin businesses on board with the idea before I can kick it off.

I have my own ideas on how best to blanket approach businesses but am looking for different opinions on how best to do so, as it is vital to get their attention early on.

The website will be consumer based and of benefit to retailers (to start with).
I need to try to get a lot of retailers on board to make the business feasible. After that, marketing and word of mouth will hopefully snowball the business.

Has anyone opinions on how best to approach the main hurdle of canvassing businesses to begin with?

I originally conceived the notion of lettering the CEO or relevent manager of each business with my proposal. This might seem blatantly obvious but I am keen not to miss any point, no matter how pedantic.
 
On the topic of new business advice in general have you checked these links:
<!--EZCODE LIST START--><ul><li></li><li></li><li>[broken link removed]</li><li></li><li></li><li></li><li></li></ul><!--EZCODE LIST END-->
...and possibly many more earlier topics that might be relevant in this forum.
 
I haven't read them all (yet) but have been perusing this section for some time. Thank you Clubman for putting the most relevent ones in one handy place for me. Much obliged.
 
I'd have thought that you're going to need to put a salesperson on the ground to go knocking on doors and get some facetime with the relevant decision makers.
 
Thanks rainyday. Perhaps you're right.

I work fulltime and have a mortgage to pay. Perhaps wisely or foolishly, I'm not willing to give up my income at this stage to do the door-to-door hard sell.
I would consider myself capable of selling this idea and right now the business is all me.

I don't require an awful lot of money to start the business. Somewhere under ten thousand would probably start me off comfortably and so I'm unwilling to hire anyone at this point in time.

Do you feel it's feasible to conduct a campaign via post/email or is that out of the question?

My idea runs something along the lines of a post campaign to send out feelers to see if the hard sell is worthwhile.
 
Do you feel it's feasible to conduct a campaign via post/email or is that out of the question?

Unsolicited email is usually a bad idea!
 
I can't see that you would get anywhere with unsolicited post/email. Is it feasible that you would use a couple of days holidays from the day-job to test out the idea by getting yourself in front of a few of the relevant retailers? You could then decide if it is worthwhile funding a salesperson to do this, or chucking in the day job.

Have you any parental leave or other options to take a chunk of time off from work?
 
Thanks for your helpful and constructive replies.

I think you have a good point Clubman in relation to unsolicited email. It's a bad idea.

rainyday,

Perhaps I need to re-think my plans in relation to this project. Think of something along the lines of the size of the yellow pages and you'll have an idea of the scale of my idea. Being web-based though it can start a lot smaller and grow.

I can certainly take a chunk of time off work if needs be but realistically I'd need to hire a team of sales people to get the coverage that I ultimately require.
For the idea to really take off I need lots and lots of retailers on board.

Any further advice would be much appreciated. Perhaps someone might know how something like the yellow pages is collated? I realise that at this stage people line up to sign up for its service but at the beginning would it have been driven by hard door-to-door selling?
 
I guess you need to test out the idea first. No point in chucking in the day job if there isn't really a market for your product service. Can you do some test marketing with a selected group?
 
Have you drawn up a business plan covering all of the things that you would need to do to make this a realistic prospect (not just advertising/marketing)? This business plan should also help you determine whether or not this is a realistic/viable opportunity. If you find that it's not then you've lost little and have learned a lot. If it is viable then the plan will guide your actions going forward. This would be the place to start in my view. Some of the links above give recommendations on this sort of stuff. There are also various state agencies who will provide assistance with this sort of thing.

Disclaimer: I am not an entrepreneur so I have no practical experience of this sort of stuff! :)
 
It sounds like a project that really needs a huge effort to succeed. It sounds like an all or nothing project - it either succeeds brilliantly or fails miserably. You will not get a mass response from a mailshot. You will need blanket coverage, door to door sales and advertising on television to get the momentum going.

Take the Independent Directory. It should work but it doesn't as far as I know. And that has the resources of the Independent Group behind it.

Can your idea be built up sector by sector? For example, a Golden Pages for restaurants could be extended to related consumer issues if it worked. Or can it be test marketed in a particular geographic location? There is probably some town in Ireland which is used for test marketing because its demographics are fairly typical of Ireland as a whole.

If not, can you bring your idea to someone with the marketing clout and money to make it work? Someone like Denis O'Brien for example who has investments in successful websites.

Brendan
 
Thanks again for your replies.

Clubman,

The business plan is something I need to do. I accept that without that I have nothing, but I am very much at the early stage of this project. It is the next logical step in this process but I just wanted to sound others out first.

Brendan,

Without giving away too much about my idea, [broken link removed] might give you some inclination of what I'm trying to achieve. However, my project goes a lot further than that.

There are other shopping sites out there. Shopping.com, LX Direct...to name but two. They tend to be limited in scope and tied to a few retailers that offer e-commerce solutions.

Your idea about building the site up sector by sector is a good one and exactly how I have planned it.
I might like to start with an area I am familiar with and go from there.

Due to it being web-based I'm not sure that a specific geographic location (other than Dublin) would be of much use. Or perhaps I'm missing your point.

I'm not sure if a site like the above requires TV advertising to work? There are other ways of getting your site widely known - although TV advertising would obviously be nice.

Your suggestion about taking my idea to someone with more clout is an interesting one that I hadn't considered. If I was considering it how does one go about approaching someone like Denis O'Brien?
 
Gabriel. Speaking as someone who has already been in similar situations, I'ld like to give you a few pointers to consider and maybe act on. I can only guess on what your plan is.

1. Don't overestimate the public use of the internet as a reference base. Even though some of us on this board use it as a competitive right-arm, many don't.

2. Get in contact with a CEO or Director, and ask them how they would approach a mailshot arriving on their desk. I think if they are honest they will tell you where it goes.

3. Don't overestimate the perception that businesses are looking for good value, especially the established ones. There is a large element of traditionalism in Ireland, whereby they stay with historical suppliers for certain goods and services.

4. You may get verbal agreement from many, but work on a safe contingencey of how many will actually hand over the money.

5. Don't underestimate your competitors (if any). You may have more competitors than you actually think. If you are promoting a web based media, then your clients are going to pull back from another form of media. Hence a new competitor. They will hold out longer than your 10k€. They usually have a crisis contingencey for that situation.

6. Don't underestimate the cost of advertising in Ireland. If I pay you, I want to see how you are going to promote that portal.

8. If you are approaching businesses, have figures for them which indicate "added value". Otherwise you are the same as the last person they spoke to.

You will find that friends and family are supportive and positive, but I just feel that it helps for the negatives to be emphasised.

Regards "If I was considering it how does one go about approaching someone like Denis O'Brien?"

Hid in a bunker on an Algarve golf course and wait for his ball to land there. Have your speak then.

Best of Luck!!
 
Hi Ocras,

Some very sobering and very interesting points there. I'm here to receive constructive criticism of my idea so thank you for your reply and don't feel the need to hold back.

I might come back to other points you've made, but one I'd like to comment on numbers 1 and 3.

I have some experience of retail so I'm familiar with the traditionalism and general internet scepticism that exists, however I feel that the future will bring a greater embrace of both e-commerce solutions for Irish businesses and more detailed websites depicting what a company has to offer.
Tesco and Superquinn's online shopping is probably a good example of how times have changed in the last few years.

Would you happen to know what time Denis tees off at? ;)
 
I don't require an awful lot of money to start the business. Somewhere under ten thousand would probably start me off comfortably and so I'm unwilling to hire anyone at this point in time.

Do you feel it's feasible to conduct a campaign via post/email or is that out of the question?
Click to expand...

Ten grand isn't enough money to publicise such a venture to that scale. It'll probably buy you a couple of post mailshots. or a good radio campaign (but not quite Harvey Norman!)

Another factor to consider is that if it is a good idea, and takes off, what's stopping the competition stepping in a taking over?

Why not try taking it step by step, and start with 4 or 5 companies first? - maybe specialise in a particular area.
 
Hi XXXAnother PersonXXX,

It's not the sort of idea that would lend itself very well to just four or five companies. It only works well as an all-inclusive type scenario. You can compartmentalise speciality areas, as Brendan suggested, but even here you would need to catch a great proportion of retailers in that one area for the site to work.

After some consideration I've decided that I might try to contact someone who has more clout than I do and perhaps look into the area of financial backing. I've run my proposal by a few close friends who all think it's quite an original and very useful idea.
If I'm right in the way I'm thinking, marketing it could be easier and require a lot less money than I'd originally anticipated as it would be in retailers interest for the site to be used.

Next step is the business plan.
 
I've run my proposal by a few close friends who all think it's quite an original and very useful idea.

Not being smart/negative but you should also run it by people who might be more critical and objective since friends might be liable to say what they think you want to hear!
 
I agree Clubman. I will, but they obviously need to be people I trust and who are savvy enough about the internet to understand the concepts involved.
 
I'm not sure that the idea lends itself to others stealing it. It really depends on whether you can get retailers on board. If you can then there's no point in anyone trying to steal it.

Apologies, I'm talking in riddles here!!
 
I appreciate the importance of discretion in this matter. However don't forget that if it's a good business idea potential investors or peer reviewers should be able to appreciate that regardless of the technicalities that may underly it.
 
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