Originally Posted by EscortBiz

DISCLAIMER: I do not know the OP and my comments are simply general comments.

Developing a project and making it live isn?t always the best route to go if you will need money in order to generate income.

If you go to an investor and you tell him ?Check out my site, its live and it make 0 dollars, please invest? even thou you can say you need cash to promote etc. most people will not give you money.

Now if you manage to make it live and show that with 500 visitors a day you are making 250 bucks (just example), now you can easily find investors.

If you are in a stage where all you have is a business plan, then this stage is easier to find investors than if you had the site live, Yet still hard.

Time to see money is a big factor too, asking someone to invest in something and it will be live in a year will not fly in these days.

Now you could tell an investor the project is 95% done (given its true), and you need money to finish and market. This way he can?t say ?hey why are there no sales??

In general innovation beats copying someone. The problem is most people think that changing a background color on a dating site is innovative enough to make people forget everyone else and run to you.

How many times in the past few years did someone come to you with an idea and the convo went like this:

Them: I have this amazing idea, I want to start a worldwide auction site

You: Well, there is ebay

Them: Annoyed, well first off ebay charges 1 dollar a listing ill charge 75 cents, second ebay doesnt allow you to select what font you want for your title and I will.

You: (annoyed as hell reply with one of the two either a) Oh wow I didn?t know that, I think you got something there. (or B) well I don?t think it stands a chance, I think ebay has the market cornered and it?s hard to get tons of traffic to make a new auction site now work.

NOW if you replied with a) ?Oh wow I didn?t know that, I think you got something there.? Just because you wanted to be a nice guy, you just fucked yourself really good, because here comes the genious with more garbage.

Them: Yeah, and I already spoke to a friend of mine who puts things on ebay and he told me he?d list on my site, plus my girlfriend can tell her friends on myspace and facebook about it.

You: wow that?s amazing

Them: you know dell started in a garage and facebook in a dorm room

You: defiantly wow

Them: listen to this, you won?t believe it, the domain BetterThenEbayAuctions.com is available, I registered it last night.

You: WOW it was available?

Them: yeah, my girlfriend found it, im so glad I have her in my life, she?s so different than all other girls out there.

You: I agree, shes not your typical girl

Them: Anyway, I will need to raise like 200k to make it happen, the potential is amazing, even if I capture 1% of the market im looking at making over $2 million a month.

You: And you can definitely capture more than 1%

Them: I know that, and I just checked, ebay has over 23 Billion dollars of cash in the bank, you know once they see us out there they will make an offer to buy us.

You: Yeah they don?t want anyone killing their business

Them: You know myspace sold for 600 million and youtube for almost $2 billion, I wouldn?t be surprised if ebay offers us 1 billion dollars just to go away

You: Yeah, who knows, even if they offer you $100 million it?s a great return

Them: (angry) $100 million? If they offer me that I?ll tell them to take a hike

You: Yeah you are right, $100 million is kinda low

Them: So im going to raise money, I know you for a long time, I feel I should give you the opportunity first

You: (now you feel officially anally violated, all you where doing was being nice, he knows you have cash, now you are in a bit of a trap) yeah sounds real good, I appreciate that

Them: I figure ill sell 1% of the company for 200k, obviously if it was someone else I would only offer them 0.5%

You: sounds real good (now you pull out the old bullshit line) you have a business plan?

Them: Yeah im working on putting it together

You: Well once you have it send it right away

Them: Def, please I trust you so I didn?t have you sign a NDA, but don?t tell this to anyone

You: (about to throw up) def. not you know you can trust me

And right about when you think you got out of it, and you start dodging him like someone would try to doge a bullet, you start hearing from the whole planet that hes telling everyone that you are on board, your friends start thinking you went nuts, hes babbling and why? Because you couldn?t just do the right thing and tell them ?Sorry your idea is not unique enough.?

Fast forward 8 months, you bump into him or pick up his call by mistake.

Them: Hey whats up

You: (contemplating should I just bang down) hey how you been

Them: Well let me bring you up to date, remember my girl, turns out she was a all out gold digger whore, she used me

You: wow im surprised

Them: Anyway that auction idea, I decided not to do, but if you want to do it I have no problem with that

I can go on and on, but im getting a bit tired lol

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