Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi Nation,

Can anybody guide me how to do a cost analysis on custom website design? My business plan will heavily depend on internet. I would like to know if there are any good books/resources which can give a step-by-step procedure to include all the cost factors into account. Programming, Band Width cost, IP address cost,Maintenance cost,etc. This will be required to develop my business plans and make accurate assessments.

Thanks,
Surya

I`d just call around and get estimates. I`m sure there`s many web houses that will give you a rough estimate based on a 10-min conversation. Or you can find sites of a similar size and functionality and contact them about their costs.

Nicole,

I am really new to this area. I am a Mechanical Design Engineer. I am planning on offering Design Consultancy services. As of now I am thinking of the following method for doing business.

My employees will be working from home. Making large 3D CAD files. We need to be colloborating in real time. My clients will place questions on a forum on our site or create a ticket. I will need lot of server space. These are services I need ..Email,Forums,Conferencing,Ticket, Blogs,Training, online sales management,CRM, etc.

I m lost here. Too much to say ... I think I will make a audio file to cover all these requirements and elucidate my plans.

Any ideas where to start.

Thanks,
Surya

Well, your requirements are confusing me, so I`m sure someone else would be confused too!

It is easy to set up a server to store those kinds of files. And there are MANY already-built solutions for what you are mentioning, so you should start researching now ... but do you really need all of those? How many clients will you have at one time? In one year? How big will your staff be? You have to answer all these questions from your business plan before you can begin to know what you need.

There are two sides to my IT requirements .

We are basically a design company.  For the first two years, I am expecting to hire about 5-20 employees. All my employees will be working from home. I plan this to save money in capital for office space & maintain.We will be working and  also  in real time colloborating.  We need conferencing Software and screen sharing features to review designs in real time.
 
Once our designs are completed they will be placed online for sale for consumer. I would like to charge for each design file downloaded. Forums, to debate the effectiveness of designs, concerns, improvements or Comments.

This is very Simple outline of my business.