Not another lame project, this site will be huge *and* profitable

[birchy]

I need someone to finish prototyping the main part of a php/mySQL/js/css site (about a dozen pages). You invest (risk) some spare time for the next month or two. You get half the first $xx of profit, and sliding scale percentage thereafter. The site is projected to hit gross receipts of $500,000 by year five.

What is different and why you should take a few minutes to study the business plan.

* Not dependant on SEO for growth. Marketing involves several hundred committed initial users, who in turn seed a 10,000,000 person market, using a technique that is proven, but is (usually, but not in this case) hard to control. This market in turn seeds (via social networking) two other markets: 160 million and 277 million+. Ten year penetration/saturations for these three markets are conservatively projected at 33%, 5% and 2% respectively. These markets overlap to some extent (users can belong to one, two or all three markets). First year growth can be as high as 400,000 registrations, 100 million visits per year rate. Revenues are from two different advertising streams, plus "turn off the ads" user fees.

* This site is a merging & upscaling of two different successful tiny scale sites, one of them mine. Both of these sites are fairly unique, and this project will sport several additional features.

* Includes the "holy grail" of websites, a high percentage of users' making it their home page, thanks to a totally unique, "why didn't I think of that?" side project. A year or two, eveyone will be copying it, some big sites are sneaking up on it, but haven't jumped ahead to the logical conclusion yet.

Requirements:
* average to exceptional php/mySQL/js/css skills. Having done a few projects will make it easier for you to churn out the prototype. You can still be honing skills, if you have lots of energy. You need to be able to handle absolute and relative positioning confidently. You need to be able to code non-scrolling headers and footers, five-star voting, pop up hover text (js), session control, cookies, etc. Code should follow accepted practices for security, but doesn't need to be as robust as the final code will be. Graphic design is not required, but a starter set of hooks for css should be provided. I will provide layouts, functional / feature descriptions, some existing code for reference, a list of sites with things I like. You can use code libraries, but no CMS, or prebuilt software will be customizable to fit. One page uses a lot apis, but I've done most of that work. Use of frameworks is negotiable, and depends on how easy it will be for me to improve / maintain. Goal is to alpha-test the prototype by Thanksgiving (not all sections of the site will be commissioned until next year). First beta by Christmas break.

* Willing to work within certain coding guidelines; e.g. not using tables for layout, not getting too obscure with OOP. I'll probably have to improve and maintain the code for the first year.

Non-disclosure and written contract will be involved at the appropriate times.
US based coders only (otherwise the non-disclosure is worthless).

I will do the coding myself, if I have to, but I'm better at project management. I'm aware of two competitors who can each diffuse and confuse a different one of the three markets, so I would like to beat them to the launch. (Neither will be strong competitioin, AFAIK.)

If you like the project and want a bigger piece of the pie, and I like what you've done, we can extend the contract.

Email me for more details, be prepared to provide some samples or URLs.

While I'm not holding my breath, it is conceivable that this project could get as big as FaceBook. Howz *that* for bragging rights?

Birchy

[Fumigator]

Please don't take this the wrong way... if it's such a great idea guaranteed to make lots of $$$ then there should be no hesitation on your part to risk your own funds to pay someone to develop the prototype. Sorry, that's just my perspective. I know you want someone to get on board and by golly maybe you will find that special someone, but with no details on the nature of the website and only vague pie-in-the-sky projections based on a model I can only describe as pyramidal (or "multi-leveled" if that suits you), I'm not yet sold.

[birchy]

Medical bills have wiped out my savings. I have excess bandwidth and hundreds of people who respect and appreciate the help I've given them over the years. Now it's time to monetize.

Certainly I have to be vague to some degree on a public forum, and I will present the business plan to anyone who wants to spend some time reviewing the details. I wouldn't want to work with anyone that didn't didn't examine it with a skeptical eye.

I'm curious where you got the notion that this project has anything to do with "multi-level marketing"? Was it my communication skills, or are you just too anxious to beat down everyone that posts here? Has anyone who posts here, ever had a positive outcome? Surely, there must have been one person who met the criteria...

Look, I know it's a long shot finding someone to work on spec, but there a lot of younger coders out there, who enjoy coding just for the sake of it, have spare time, and instead of playing WOW all night, would be willing to hone some skills, have a shot at some serious $, maybe have some bragging rights. I doubt they read this forum, though, so I'll be modifying my tactics. This was a good warmup though.

This site will happen, it will bootstrap itself, and it will be immensely useful to millions of US users. I would like to accelerate the process, focus on what I do best.

I'm not naive. Even the best and biggest sites have trouble showing a profit. My projections are based on small samples, but they are also conservative. I've never worked on sites of this scale, and I will have to learn a lot, just like Pierre Omidyar and Mark Zuckerberg did. Most of the best sites started with just a good idea, married to someone who had the skills to give it life.

[Fumigator]

Marketing involves several hundred committed initial users, who in turn seed a 10,000,000 person market, using a technique that is proven, but is (usually, but not in this case) hard to control. This market in turn seeds (via social networking) two other markets: 160 million and 277 million+

This just sounds like multi-level... My apologies if I misunderstood what you meant by a few seeding a bunch. I do live in the multi-level-marketing capital of the U.S. so my ears do perk up when something smells like MLM. :p

Also I really don't want to be all "no no no will never work bah humbug you suck"; quite the contrary, I would LOVE it if you had great success. It will give the rest of us hope! It can just be very frustrating to see so many good ideas with no oomph to make them happen.

You should seek out an Angel Investor to fund your plans. This is exactly what they do. There is likely a local investment group willing to give you a chance to pitch your idea, and if it's as great as you believe, you'll probably get funding. For example, here's a group in Utah (http://www.utahangels.com/) (which is local for me).

[birchy]

I'd rather the project fail than give up any control. Eventually I'll have to compromise on that, but by then I'll be ready to start moving on. Also, by the time that I convince a group to invest, I can have the prototype done myself. And I have other uses planned for what would be their share of the profits. If the site doesn't generate enough income to fund itself through the initial growth phase, I'm not in the mood to depend on it doing so only in the later years.

If I am successful, you'll probably become aware of it in about 2 years, when it breaks out of the niche market into the mainstream. It will have a 2 digit number, and the word "tree" in the name (just another stupid nonsense name like Yahoo or google or ebay).

[it career]

I'd rather the project fail than give up any control. Eventually I'll have to compromise on that, but by then I'll be ready to start moving on. Also, by the time that I convince a group to invest, I can have the prototype done myself. And I have other uses planned for what would be their share of the profits. If the site doesn't generate enough income to fund itself through the initial growth phase, I'm not in the mood to depend on it doing so only in the later years.

If I am successful, you'll probably become aware of it in about 2 years, when it breaks out of the niche market into the mainstream. It will have a 2 digit number, and the word "tree" in the name (just another stupid nonsense name like Yahoo or google or ebay).

Would you call it birchtree ? :D

[birchy]

Good guess, but the tree part is coincidental. The site name refers to a photo I took in the mountains when I was trying to be a lumberjack (and that's ok!).