Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

This is less a question and more an observation.

I am always amazed at the quality of advice that comes from my peers on this forum as well as others. Peers that aren`t in my industry and in many cases don`t even understand my business model.....but provide excellent advice none the less.

I am especially amazed at the collective wisdom that occurs on posts with multiple responses.

I think its possible because:

1. Most everyone who posts believes in giving and getting,
2. They share challenges and stresses that only other entrepreneurs can understand.
3. Starting and growing a business require many of the same leadership skills regardless of the industry.
4. Starting and growing a business have many of the same issues regardless of the industry.
5. Other than helping each other and getting answers to our questions we don`t have any political agendas or vested interest with each other`s businesses.

Anyway my observations.....agree / disagree

Steve

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Peersight, the Nation`s first e-enabled CEO Membership organization for Small Business. http://www.peersightonline.com None of us is as smart as all of us. Come watch us grow at http://blog.peersightonline.com

I`m new to these boards, but see the same. I was thinking, in a different thread on critiquing a Web site, about how to turn this into something never-before-seen in business.

Consider: This site has governance, in the Sloan brothers. It has a unified intent. It has a tremendous wealth of resources in small-business owners, advisors, and starting entrepreneurs. With the postings, multiple opinions generate a sort of "bell curve" of what eventually becomes nearly pure, objective advice.

This is so much like the Open Source community, I wonder if it couldn`t become akin to developing a global operating system, or something like Wikipedia? For some humor, look at the porn industry model and "peep shows." :-D

There`s a widely diverse market of customers, all with hugely varying tastes, biases, moralities, and so forth. The gateway is any boarded-window "book store," so only those with an interest in the product enter the gateway.

In the peep show, the product is presented for a short or limited duration. If the product is satisfactory, the customer pays additional money to keep watching. This is the same with many written-materials sites like Salon.com. You start to read, and if you`re interested after getting the gist of it, you`re asked to register.

Why not have something for business advice and development? The Sloan brothers could open up an area of the site to customers who want business analysis. The SuN members could choose to visit that area just like choosing to visit forums. Anyone who`s bored or has spare time on their hands can provide advice.

Modern software tracking can drill down to even phrases. Suppose the minimum "pay" was set to 10 words in a phrase. Software can track the phrases, and assign Member ID information to that phrase, as well as original status (not copied).

Cookies and other tracking software can time the client`s visit to the site area, and set up billing-per-usage processes. When the client finalizes their visit, deciding they`ve now taken enough advice, a button terminates their ongoing session(s) over time. At that point, SuN takes a finder`s fee, and pays out whatever would be the exchange medium to the members who participated, on a percentage of their participation.

So for example: Clients could register. Instead of scrolling down and reading every post to a question, they would see only one response at a time. They would then click "next" to see the next posting. At any time, when they`ve received enough advice for their needs, they could also click "terminate" or "I`m done," or something.

If they were billed $X per "click" (per response/post) the dollars would be assigned on the basis of the posts they`ve viewed. The Sloan brothers could take half, and divy up the remainder in "Startup Bucks" or whatever. Members could build an account purely on the basis of their egos and interest. With some number of "bucks," they could then buy something, or get free advertising on the site, or any other value-exchange.

The only problem is to work out a way that participation is meaningful to the client`s need. I`m sure that could be done, and have an "almost kinda sorta" way it could be accomplished. "Startup Bucks" might be the reward/incentive, or it could be some other form of value.