Instead, Prowler, which in 2013 one-quarter of graduating high school seniors created accounts on, according to Skurman, runs largely off of ad-based revenue, especially targeted advertising. It now has 21 employees (up from 17 last year), two-thirds of whom are engineers, Skurman says. The site also boasts engagement figures that stand out to advertisers, a boon Skurman hopes to duplicate with Niche. Prowler sees 1.2 million unique visitors a month, according to Skurman. Thirty-five percent of its visits come from logged in users, who are four times more engaged than non-registered users and spend 12 minutes on College Prowler. “What we need,” he says, “is more traffic, and the way we get traffic is through reviews and covering big life decisions.” That, and a name that doesn’t call to mind a creepy guy roaming campus. With Niche, Skurman may have found both.
It’s funny, now I’m arguing for the outside view instead of the inside view :)
If they “run largely off of ad-based revenue, especially targeted advertising”, and “have 21 employees”, I could too. My guess is that the numbers work because they have higher CPMs because they have such a targeted audience.
My overarching point though, is that it could be monetized, not that advertising is the best way to do it. My evidence is that all my major competitors are multi-million dollar companies, and that I think I could out-do them (more users, more engaged users, better information, more brand recognition...).
My overarching point though, is that it could be monetized, not that advertising is the best way to do it. My evidence is that all my major competitors are multi-million dollar companies, and that I think I could out-do them (more users, more engaged users, better information, more brand recognition...).
But you can’t put yourself in the same reference class as these companies, because it’s most likely that they started out with more resources, bigger teams, more experienced founders, and/or more connections than you.
Yes, it’s probably true that there are successful startups who began with less resources than the incumbents in their industries. Yet these companies may start out with more resources than you seem to have available.
There are many business models other than launching a multi-million dollar mass consumer website that monetizes from advertising. In my view, such a business is relatively risky and resource-intensive. It seems to me that you have chosen an especially challenging business model for your first startup.
Bringing a product to a mass market is a challenge; see the examples edanm and I raised of restaurants and movies flopping because they fail to resonate with the market. The wider the market it is that you are aiming for, the harder it is to make a product that resonates with them.
So, I did not intend to sound like I was making a fully general counter-argument. I want to specifically caution founders where there is a large gap between their current resources/experience, and the demands of their business model, especially when their business model requires targeting a mass market, and they have no experience marketing to even a small or niche market.
Sorry for the delay, but here’s my pitch: http://www.collegeanswerz.com/pitch . I think it’ll enable a more productive discussion of the viability of my website.
I skimmed the pitch. I think you are probably correct that there is a business opportunity in this area. Nevertheless, my main view is that a good idea or business opportunity is only a small part of building a business.
Consequently, your pitch seems a bit more like a theoretical paper on a business case, such as in a class project as school. That’s different from attracting consumers (who require good marketing and design, not spreadsheets) and investors (who need to believe that you in particular are capable of executing on your idea).
I will continue to recommend that you learn more about design and marketing, and ideally work with other people in those areas. Unfortunately, to fully argue this point, I would need to give extensive feedback, which would take me too much time and space to write up. I concur with the critical feedback that others have given in the thread.
A big challenge is the fact that if you are the type of person who posts on LW, then your mind is quite different from the average consumer, and you will not be very well calibrated to understand what they find attractive, usable, hearable, and valuable. Bridging this gap in perspective will take considerable work.
As for the article you link to, I agree with you there is a good expected value for you in a risky project. I will still emphasize the execution risks involved in this project. Ultimately, I think that even if you fail fast at making a successful business, you will still gain value from this project, as long as you don’t burn too much time, capital, or other resources. You can always go work at someone else’s startup and build skills and connections for a future startup of your own.
All “execution means”, is 1) raising the money I need to pay for people to answer questions at all schools on the site, 2) market this to high school students, 3) get enough momentum to raise a series A, and 4) hire the right people to help me expand. At least that should get me to be a player in the market.
I agree that I’m no expert in design/marketing, but I think I could do a good enough job at them to get me to a point where I could hire experts.
All “execution means”, is 1) raising the money I need to pay for people to answer questions at all schools on the site, 2) market this to high school students, 3) get enough momentum to raise a series A, and 4) hire the right people to help me expand. At least that should get me to be a player in the market.
Yes. And these are all challenges with significant risks. My claim is that is that it will be hard to build significant momentum prior to getting a level of design and marketing which is significantly beyond your current ability as someone with a programming background. Even if you pay people to provide your site with good content, your visitors will not appreciate that content if is housed in unattractive design, except perhaps for some viewers who find your content so compelling that they are willing to overlook the design.
I could be wrong about this, of course (and your analytics will tell you the answer), but if I am right, then you will need to get help with design and marketing prior to steps 2) and 3). Getting either training, or significant help, or contractors, or co-founders, would need to be incorporated into your plan sooner rather than later.
I agree that I’m no expert in design/marketing, but I think I could do a good enough job at them to get me to a point where I could hire experts.
This seems like an empirical question… and leaving it up to chance sounds like a risky prospect when your money and time is on the line. Given that you admittedly lack experience in design and marketing, it seems like you would be uncalibrated to estimate how much experience in those areas you need to attract funding and co-founders.
To give you some more background about why I emphasize marketing and design so much: in some deals where I’ve seen companies get funded, a big part of the funding was showing design documents and marketing strategies to potential investors. Also, I often see experienced and serial entrepreneurs worrying about the marketing success of consumer products they are working on. Being scared is a rational attitude given the uncertainty of the mass market and what people will respond to, which is why I’m trying to scare you a little bit about the risks you are facing.
Becoming good at either design or marketing (let alone both) coming from a tech background is at least 6+ months of work to produce non-amateurish work. Perhaps there is some way that you can get help or guidance in those areas in the very near future.
My claim is that is that it will be hard to build significant momentum prior to getting a level of design and marketing which is significantly beyond your current ability as someone with a programming background.
Ok, now I understand. (As an aside, I don’t even have much of a programming background! I taught myself Rails this past summer, and this is the first website I built.)
I disagree; I think there’s a very real need for more comprehensive student reviews, and the design of my website isn’t going to prevent people from using it. The design may not blow you away aesthetically, but I think it’s at least pretty straightforward and easy to use. Aside from my own intuition, a lot of people I’ve talked to said they love the site and would find it useful if it had reviews.
Regarding marketing, 1) I talked to a college advisor I know, and she said she likes the site a lot, and wants to tell all the other advisors she knows about it once I get reviews. So I think I could spread the word by doing more of this. 2) I talked to a guy on the school board of my town, and he said he loves it and that guidance counselors would be happy to spread the word, so that also seems like spreading via guidance counselors will also be effective. 3) There’s a lot of people writing about How to Choose a College, and I think it’ll be in their interest to spread word of my site, being that it helps people choose a college. 4) Social media advertising. 5) Word of mouth. Not to downplay the value of marketing, but from what I read, things that solve real problems tend to find their way to users.
You’re making a lot of outside-view arguments, but I’m taking an inside-view with my website (I think I have enough information to take an inside view).
It’s like the map and the territory—inside-view is like looking at a lower-level map. So it’s like we’re looking at two different maps. Your interpretation of your higher level map may be correct, but the lower level map might have more information that leads to a different answer.
Right now, I’m working on a big comparison of my site, to all of my competitors. Comparing what my site has to what they have. I hope to be done in the next few days, and I’ll let you know when I am and show you what I’ve got. I think it’ll make more sense once I could show it to you, and I think it’ll allow for a more productive discussion. (Note: I should have done this explicit comparison earlier on, like immediately. I’m very disappointed in myself for not doing so. Like this has been the most disappointed I’ve been in myself in over a year probably. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me.)
via http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/10/a-website-for-rating-big-life-decisions/
It’s funny, now I’m arguing for the outside view instead of the inside view :)
If they “run largely off of ad-based revenue, especially targeted advertising”, and “have 21 employees”, I could too. My guess is that the numbers work because they have higher CPMs because they have such a targeted audience.
My overarching point though, is that it could be monetized, not that advertising is the best way to do it. My evidence is that all my major competitors are multi-million dollar companies, and that I think I could out-do them (more users, more engaged users, better information, more brand recognition...).
But you can’t put yourself in the same reference class as these companies, because it’s most likely that they started out with more resources, bigger teams, more experienced founders, and/or more connections than you.
You could make that argument against a lot of startups.
Yes, it’s probably true that there are successful startups who began with less resources than the incumbents in their industries. Yet these companies may start out with more resources than you seem to have available.
There are many business models other than launching a multi-million dollar mass consumer website that monetizes from advertising. In my view, such a business is relatively risky and resource-intensive. It seems to me that you have chosen an especially challenging business model for your first startup.
Bringing a product to a mass market is a challenge; see the examples edanm and I raised of restaurants and movies flopping because they fail to resonate with the market. The wider the market it is that you are aiming for, the harder it is to make a product that resonates with them.
So, I did not intend to sound like I was making a fully general counter-argument. I want to specifically caution founders where there is a large gap between their current resources/experience, and the demands of their business model, especially when their business model requires targeting a mass market, and they have no experience marketing to even a small or niche market.
Sorry for the delay, but here’s my pitch: http://www.collegeanswerz.com/pitch . I think it’ll enable a more productive discussion of the viability of my website.
Also, check out http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/jmn/salary_or_startup_how_dogooders_can_gain_more/ .
I skimmed the pitch. I think you are probably correct that there is a business opportunity in this area. Nevertheless, my main view is that a good idea or business opportunity is only a small part of building a business.
Consequently, your pitch seems a bit more like a theoretical paper on a business case, such as in a class project as school. That’s different from attracting consumers (who require good marketing and design, not spreadsheets) and investors (who need to believe that you in particular are capable of executing on your idea).
I will continue to recommend that you learn more about design and marketing, and ideally work with other people in those areas. Unfortunately, to fully argue this point, I would need to give extensive feedback, which would take me too much time and space to write up. I concur with the critical feedback that others have given in the thread.
A big challenge is the fact that if you are the type of person who posts on LW, then your mind is quite different from the average consumer, and you will not be very well calibrated to understand what they find attractive, usable, hearable, and valuable. Bridging this gap in perspective will take considerable work.
As for the article you link to, I agree with you there is a good expected value for you in a risky project. I will still emphasize the execution risks involved in this project. Ultimately, I think that even if you fail fast at making a successful business, you will still gain value from this project, as long as you don’t burn too much time, capital, or other resources. You can always go work at someone else’s startup and build skills and connections for a future startup of your own.
Thanks for the response.
All “execution means”, is 1) raising the money I need to pay for people to answer questions at all schools on the site, 2) market this to high school students, 3) get enough momentum to raise a series A, and 4) hire the right people to help me expand. At least that should get me to be a player in the market.
I agree that I’m no expert in design/marketing, but I think I could do a good enough job at them to get me to a point where I could hire experts.
Yes. And these are all challenges with significant risks. My claim is that is that it will be hard to build significant momentum prior to getting a level of design and marketing which is significantly beyond your current ability as someone with a programming background. Even if you pay people to provide your site with good content, your visitors will not appreciate that content if is housed in unattractive design, except perhaps for some viewers who find your content so compelling that they are willing to overlook the design.
I could be wrong about this, of course (and your analytics will tell you the answer), but if I am right, then you will need to get help with design and marketing prior to steps 2) and 3). Getting either training, or significant help, or contractors, or co-founders, would need to be incorporated into your plan sooner rather than later.
This seems like an empirical question… and leaving it up to chance sounds like a risky prospect when your money and time is on the line. Given that you admittedly lack experience in design and marketing, it seems like you would be uncalibrated to estimate how much experience in those areas you need to attract funding and co-founders.
To give you some more background about why I emphasize marketing and design so much: in some deals where I’ve seen companies get funded, a big part of the funding was showing design documents and marketing strategies to potential investors. Also, I often see experienced and serial entrepreneurs worrying about the marketing success of consumer products they are working on. Being scared is a rational attitude given the uncertainty of the mass market and what people will respond to, which is why I’m trying to scare you a little bit about the risks you are facing.
Becoming good at either design or marketing (let alone both) coming from a tech background is at least 6+ months of work to produce non-amateurish work. Perhaps there is some way that you can get help or guidance in those areas in the very near future.
Ok, now I understand. (As an aside, I don’t even have much of a programming background! I taught myself Rails this past summer, and this is the first website I built.)
I disagree; I think there’s a very real need for more comprehensive student reviews, and the design of my website isn’t going to prevent people from using it. The design may not blow you away aesthetically, but I think it’s at least pretty straightforward and easy to use. Aside from my own intuition, a lot of people I’ve talked to said they love the site and would find it useful if it had reviews.
Regarding marketing, 1) I talked to a college advisor I know, and she said she likes the site a lot, and wants to tell all the other advisors she knows about it once I get reviews. So I think I could spread the word by doing more of this. 2) I talked to a guy on the school board of my town, and he said he loves it and that guidance counselors would be happy to spread the word, so that also seems like spreading via guidance counselors will also be effective. 3) There’s a lot of people writing about How to Choose a College, and I think it’ll be in their interest to spread word of my site, being that it helps people choose a college. 4) Social media advertising. 5) Word of mouth. Not to downplay the value of marketing, but from what I read, things that solve real problems tend to find their way to users.
You’re making a lot of outside-view arguments, but I’m taking an inside-view with my website (I think I have enough information to take an inside view).
It’s like the map and the territory—inside-view is like looking at a lower-level map. So it’s like we’re looking at two different maps. Your interpretation of your higher level map may be correct, but the lower level map might have more information that leads to a different answer.
Right now, I’m working on a big comparison of my site, to all of my competitors. Comparing what my site has to what they have. I hope to be done in the next few days, and I’ll let you know when I am and show you what I’ve got. I think it’ll make more sense once I could show it to you, and I think it’ll allow for a more productive discussion. (Note: I should have done this explicit comparison earlier on, like immediately. I’m very disappointed in myself for not doing so. Like this has been the most disappointed I’ve been in myself in over a year probably. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me.)