Business Plan Question about employees?

[disneyteddies]

Hi Alison,

apparently we're are not communicating our points well enough to each other so I too apologise because I'm not trying to be rude either.

Your offer is very generous and we thank you for it. However we will pass on it because we have been down that road before. Many times I have considered starting it with just a very basic site like that but this is such a huge idea that we can't force ourselves to start it out of the gates at only 10%.

Yes there is much you don't know about all our ideas and plans but they have to remain that way because like I said before this isn't a hobby to us it's going to be my career and we have too many trade secrets now that we would be self-destructive to ourselves to divulge in a public forum.

I don't know how to stress any further that we have been working on this for a long time and thoroughly research all areas before moving on. I've spoken to university professor's about what I need in my site and they told me (about 5 years ago) that for what is involved with our site (which is going to be spectacular), it would cost about 8 thousand dollars and that was back then.

Further interviews with 22 local companies big and small brought us to the same conclusion. Whether it was a one man operation or a ten man team. The going estimate for what we needed done was approx. 105-128 hrs worth of work at roughly 85 dollars an hour. We are going with the ten man team because as I said before they win awards all the time for their products and have been established for over ten years so we know they will be around if we ever need help afterwards unlike the one man team that might decide to move to Calgary or Newfoundland the next day.

I also know very well about how to conduct an interview with examples. Believe me twenty minutes with someone to talk about this business is not enough by a long shot but I already have many different means of showing and conveying my message about who, what, why and how they should help us start this new business venture. Banks won't help us because we have no collateral and very little savings so we are going the other routes that are available to us. We cannot bootstrap anymore because our 4 jobs are just barely keeping us even at the moment (Canada is horribly expensive just to live lately).

I don't know what else to tell you.....We're going to do this and it's going to be all or nothing and it's not going to be nothing.

I am halfway through a business plan (so far about 80 pages) but I now need help in the financial sections which is why I asked the above question to start this thread. (I don't speak financial lingo either). No I don't know everything I need to but I've learned a heck of a lot more than an average person and we are the kind of people who finish what we start no matter how long it takes.

There's a ton of stuff you don't know about the wars we've fought in our everyday personal lives and the triumphs we've already accomplished over our lifetimes (we do NOT have just average problems that everyone else faces...I do have a curse or a bad luck magnet attached to me that will be there until I accomplish this goliath task) but that is my personal dragon to slay.

I'm done with this topic now because it is really derailing me at the moment but I appreciate all that have contributed to this thread.

Thanx.

C-ya in the funny papers.

Hank.

[AlisonMSmith]

Originally Posted by disneyteddies

this is such a huge idea that we can't force ourselves to start it out of the gates at only 10%.

Well, I certainly hope when you get it up and running, you'll be back to show us all what you're doing. It will be a fascinating case study to see something so huge and spectacular.

I've spoken to university professor's about what I need in my site and they told me (about 5 years ago) that for what is involved with our site (which is going to be spectacular), it would cost about 8 thousand dollars and that was back then.

Not to beat a dead comic book character, but that's kind of my point. Did you buy a microwave or VCR or calculator back in the day? Technology gets LESS expensive, not more expensive. If it would have cost you $8,000 five years ago, it should cost exponentially LESS today. I coded my first site in 1994 and you couldn't possibly have done FOR ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY, what you can do today in a few hours.

Please, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to convince YOU. I wish you well with your amazing endeavor. It's others who come across this that concern me. I don't want them to think that web sites with high functionality have to cost a lot, because they simply don't.

(Just loving Obama with his $18 million web site -- that is full of false information.)

We're going to do this and it's going to be all or nothing and it's not going to be nothing.

Well, good for you. I wish you well. Sincerely, please come back and let us know what you've done when you get your business off the ground. I'm sure we'll all be fascinated to see it.

Best,

Alison

[disneyteddies]

I'll definately bring it around when we get it. I just don't know when that will be right now....soon I hope.

I feel like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick....the comic book version of course.