I think it's a very worthwhile idea to explore. Bit like the film Pay it Forward!

Starting off small is the best way, advertisers may be scared off initially if there’s little traffic, but once that has been built up they may even fight to have their name associated with it.
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Yossa - Getting Britain Back to Work

Add a business idea and make it a reality with http://yossa.co.uk

I know, but in my opinion, the biggest initial obstacle would be trust. Somebody would be offering a good deed, but the person who accepts it has no obligation not to just never return to the site again. The only thing I can think of would be naming and shaming.

As previously stated I haven't even began researching this, and it would take a long time to do so. The good thing about it is the very little amount of money you'd have to spend.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Very good idea and it gives something back. I've heard of something similar before. Where I don't know. Is this a business or justa good cause/charity?
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Computer Support London www.scootek.co.uk

It sounds like a good idea and an idea that can be done without having to spend much money (or none) at the start.

In my opinion, unless an idea had some stupidly big obstacles in the way, you should always give it a go. I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but unless you try it and see for yourself, then you'll never know how successful it will become and I always think that when you tell other people on these forums about ideas, I’m sure someone with good contacts, money and experience could set these up themselves! So if you don't do it, someone else will.

And if it doesn't become of anything...well you take it on the chin, hopefully there were lessons on the way to be learnt and simply try again with another idea.

Thomas Edison failed hundreds of times trying to make the first light bulb, and then when he actually did it, he looked back and instead of saying I failed 100's of times, he said I learnt 100's of ways in how not to make a light bulb.

It’s all about feedback...not failure my friend!

You can start with a free web template, and put some hours into the social media network forums and its started. Just basically get it out there, have fun and good luck!
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The Ultimate Caravanning Experience
www.thecaravancommunity.com

Why not eh? I can design the site and market it myself. I just need to know the best way of doing so.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Best way of Marketing?

That’s the age old question...but try the free ones first, similar to what you are doing on here...interacting with other users (possible customers), giving advice, posting stuff and then having a link at the bottom so people can view the site etc.

Social Media Marketing is massive and free. Below is a link that someone posted on here before about it

http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842910561608570/harnessing-social-media.html

I think by the sounds of things, your idea will be one that people will talk about and pass on to friends, colleagues etc for them to have a go and do a good deed. So I think that it’s all about the social network side of it. I’m no expert in this but the real experts do still keep going on about it.

Make a video, put it on you tube, create a facebook page for it... There are so many areas for you to venture with it.

Have fun!
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The Ultimate Caravanning Experience
www.thecaravancommunity.com

Social Media Marketing is a good way of getting free links/publicity.

Try adding it to Yossa and see what feedback you get from it, you could win a free corporate video to help you market it too
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Yossa - Getting Britain Back to Work

Add a business idea and make it a reality with http://yossa.co.uk

Another stumbling block is that I'm having trouble deciding how it works. If you receive something, then you in turn have to offer something. Another idea is that somebody can post on the forum what they have to give, and the others have to give their reasons why they deserve this deed. Then on deadline day, which could be set to, say, 5 days, either the op makes a decision or the sitemaster, based on the best answer.
Then, the person who has received this deed has to offer something, and so kicks the cycle off again.
A person is not allowed to receive 2 good deeds in a row, and by the rules would have to give something and be exempt from receiving until this has happened.
I am tempted to set up a PO Box so I would be in charge of the goods people send to each other, in order not to make it get too difficult with people giving their addresses out to each other.
If somebody receives a good deed but does not give one after, they will be named and shamed on the public page. As will all the good deeds that are done, to give newcomers an idea of what goes on on the page.

I think this could do very well.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

I love the idea!

Thinking revenue models...
1) Advertising- your idea

2) Fixed delivery cost- like a courier!

3) Donation-based system- people donate an amount of their choosing for doing the deed for people. Would require great sales skills and branding.

4) Comission-based- derived from the value of the product (like a salesman, 10% of the cost of the item is added for the delivery-man)

5) Form a non-profit org.- did you know in the US the average salary of the CEO of a non-profit is $400k? I have no idea about the UK, though.


Just brainstorming...
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Business Accounting Finance

Rule 1
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Yossa - Getting Britain Back to Work

Add a business idea and make it a reality with http://yossa.co.uk

I was thinking more along the lines of building popularity, and then approaching companies for sponsorship.

Seen as though a company would be associated with a site that does a lot of good, I can see a lot of sponsorship and advertisement coming in.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

I like the idea, and would be more than happy to have my company affiliated with it.

If you need a hand marketing it, give me a shout (karl@reaperwebdesign.co.uk) and ill try to lend a hand in abit of my spare time.

You say you are intending to build it yourself, do you have the php skills to do it?

Also, have you looked at organisations like Freecycle? you could talk to them about setting up an RSS feed for their products.


Karl

I am not skilled in PHP, only CSS and HTML. I was going to create it as a tidy looking front page and a few other pages, then a forum.

Do you think I need PHP skills to pull it off? I know of someone who can teach me.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

I believe that PHP would work better, as it would allow you the option, if coded correctly, to enforce the rules of offering favors.

i.e. you sign up and get a membership. You get 1 free 'deed point'

For every favor/deed you offer to do that is accepted, you get 1 extra free point, for every favor/deed you take, you lose 1 point.

Only allowed 1 membership per email address, with email validation (makes it a pain in the arse for people to just sign up for 200 free deeds with no helping others)


A forum wouldnt allow this system.

PHP is an awesome skill to have, but if this is to be your only project that uses it(that is, you're not looking to become a web developer for a living) learning it is pretty pointless.

I've only skimmed the thread, but yes you will need something more than HTML and CSS. HTML and CSS get you presentation, but you need a database(and your pages need to link to it) in order to add, edit and remove displayed data in a convenient way.
This doesn't *have* to be done via PHP, as there are other web scripting languages available that can do this task.
The combination of PHP and MySQL(an open-source relational database management system) however is pretty powerful as both are open-source, so it's far easier to find a developer versed in them than in say Coldfusion. The open-source nature also means that hosting for PHP/MySQL is also cheaper than say using SQL Server as your database, as that requires the host to provide a server that has a license for both SQL Server and Windows.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

I would prefer to restrict it to 1 membership per ip address.

Can somebody explain exactly what PHP actually is? And explain it to me as if I was an 8 year old. I don't want any technical jargon?
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

PHP is a complex coding language, that will do nearly anything website coding wise that isnt handled by html/css excluding games etc. Its all database driven

Cant really describe it much better than that......

This kind of project would require a very good coder, not an amateur (no offence)

Essentially, PHP(and other languages that do the same job) is a programming language that allows a developer to make pages dynamic.
A static page would be something written in HTML. Because PHP can talk to the database, it can pull out data based on queries and change the page accordingly, without the need to write a new page from scratch.

By making your pages dynamic, users can enter data into a form and then a display page could take that data from the database and display it.

A great example is an e-commerce site.
By having PHP, the manager/owner of that business can enter product details(pricing, description, etc) into a form and instantly they're saved to the database and the user can see those details.
By using PHP, there's only one page(a product template page), as the data is filled in when the user requests it.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Shit, sounds complicated.

Also sounds like something I need to learn. Anyone got any good suggestions of how to learn this?

Thanks

Dan
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Like I said, whilst it is a good skill to have, it's rather pointless to learn a language such as PHP to use one just one site.

For all the time, effort and books/premium video subscriptions involved with learning enough to do this yourself, you may as well just pay someone a few hundred pounds.
Better to have it done right quickly than attempt to do it yourself and foul it up. Personally, I'm learning the language because I've always had an interest in programming.
It obviously helps though that all my ideas involve pretty complex web applications (the technical term for a website that connects to a database to do things like dynamic pages) and that my main project will need continuous upgrades and new features, once launched.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

I don't exactly have the kind of money to throw a couple of hundred pounds at someone at the moment though,
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Then that's your hurdle.
You could learn it on the cheap and try and do it yourself, but it sounds like you'll need at least some functionality that isn't taught in standard tutorials.

You'll also need software, domains, hosting and a marketing budget.
Whilst PHP code can be written in just notepad, almost all beginners (and I include myself in that) buy something to make the process easier for them as it's a bit daunting without.
Naturally domain names and hosting aren't expensive, but they are costs, as are Google ads (or whatever you choose to use, but things that will get you attention aren't generally-speaking free)

It sounds like you may need to take out a loan.
Whilst I'm sure you have high hopes of your venture going well, the reality is that it will involve some risk and that that risk is usually financial.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

I don't think people really understand this idea too well. I am not taking out a loan, and I have a full time job. It was just an idea.

It can be done without PHP, and I am going to try it anyway, regardless of what people think. Taking out a loan? Why would I do that? The whole point of this idea was minimum expenditure.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

You're posting on a forum with startups in its name, forgive me for thinking you might be rather serious about this idea.

PHP/MySQL is the lowest cost way of doing this with a database. I don't think you realise the amount of automation that a dynamic site gets you.

Let's say that you get a total of 100 deeds a day. That means manually-entering however many pieces of data that pertain to that task and the associated member times 100.

A dynamic site would mean that members with the correct level of membership/permissions could update a lot of that themselves. That essentially means almost no work on the admin side for you, once the system itself is up-and-running.

But, if you want to create a huge amount of extra work for yourself, go for it.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

But I am not able to do this myself. I would have to pay somebody, which I can't do. I would much rather take longer to enter things in myself at first.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Okay.
I'm just attempting to give you an idea of the amount of extra work that you could end up doing.
Taking out a loan obviously isn't appealing, but manual data entry could reach literally hours of work a day if your idea was to become moderately-successful.

It's obviously up to you how you proceed, but don't say you weren't warned
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Would I have to learn just PHP or MySQL/ASP.NET/all the other things I keep hearing about.
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

You'd essentially need a scripting language (such as PHP or asp.net, but only one) and a database system of your choice.

PHP and MySQL are hugely popular because they're open-source. This means it's very cheap to get hosting for them and that plenty more people have written books and tutorials on them, too.
It also means that you don't have to buy Microsoft development tools, which make things easier but can be as pricey as hiring someone to do your entire site for you.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

To move in a separate direction, do you think I would have any luck if I wrote a letter to a certain large company, selling my idea to them in the first place. If, after my research and a little bit of planning, I write a proposal to a company to sponsor the site in order for it to be developed in the correct way, and to have proper marketing?

Do you think this may have a shot at getting somewhere? I am able to write a very professional letter, and have a lot of belief in this idea, so if they wanted a one to one meeting, I could only improve their opinion of it.

What do you think? Is this a waste of time?

Cheers.
Dan
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Yeah, getting funding is a good idea. There are plenty of venture capitalists/angels etc that might be willing to pay for the development of your site and marketing in return for a percentage of the company.

PHP sounds daunting and it can be hard, but if your brain works in the right way it's easy and you may well find that after a couple of tutorials you just 'get it'.
If you've no way of financing it yourself and can't get funding, learning it would mean you just need to get yourself some hosting, domains etc and see if it goes anywhere.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Well can you recommend me the best way to learn PHP then?

It would be beneficial to my career anyway even if this venture fails,

Dan
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Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

This is just a thought, but the person above (britishcoder) seems to know the deal when it comes to PHP etc and you need to know yeah?

You say you might write a letter to a company asking for investment, yeah, that is a good idea...but how about britishcoder getting involved? Investing time and development in return for a percentage?

After all, you’re both on here because you're interested in business in some kind of way and both seem creative too.

I don't know if either one of you would be interested, but it’s just food for thought!

Don't forget places like business link, which provide start up grants and funding. If the idea is really unique and not out there already, you will probably get more funding than normal too.
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The Ultimate Caravanning Experience
www.thecaravancommunity.com

Honestly, the best way to learn varies from person-to-person. Some think books are best, others like video tutorials, some like one-on-one teaching(warning: that's damn expensive)

The best place to start would probably be going on to somewhere like Amazon and typing PHP into the search box. There are plenty of books for beginners.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Quite honestly, whilst I understand the principles and terminology, I'm not an expert.
I'm learning the language myself because I have big plans in-mind for a number of ideas, but one offering in particular.

Once I've learned all that I feel I need to, all of my time will be invested in that. I can safely say it's the best idea I've ever had and all those to whom I've explained it(I don't trust many people, so very few) agree that it fills a niche.
I won't have(nor do I expect) tens of thousands of businesses queuing up to throw money at me, but I do believe that a good number of small to medium size businesses(primarily those with 10 to 25 employees) will be willing to pay a small monthly fee for my software-as-a-service. Over time, those subscriptions should add up, allowing me to grab another few servers and build some of my other, more complicated ideas.

So, I'm kind of busy...and should be moving faster, as my signature suggests.
I mostly hang-out here because business in general has always interested me.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

I think this would also be good to do in our community and with a group of friends or with our kids.

I think this is a great idea. I just checked and the url www.gooddeedcompany.com is available. You might want to snag it. Although, consider the fact that the word "company" implies that it is a for-profit endeavour. www.gooddeedexchange.com is also available.
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I'd personally go for a .org, though both gooddeeds.org and good-deeds.org are taken.
I'm pretty sure there are no special requirements for getting a .org as of a few years ago, though the domain registration company will tell you so if there are.
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Khalid.

I'm blunt when critiquing websites and ideas on this forum. The public won't sugar-coat their opinion about your offering, so there's no point in me doing so.

Any changes in the situation?

I mean, have you satisfied your need to prove the model? Have you scrapped the idea? Or is more research needed still?


I made a few comments about the idea making you money.

Either way, however, I think it's a great idea. We need more people creating ventures just like this. Business can help the world if we just set out minds to it.


Thanks for being a thought leader, and thanks for making me think mrkidd85!
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Business Accounting Finance