Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I have an online business idea that is still in its infancy stage.  There are a number of issues to work out and the one I am struggling with at the moment is how to create a successful launch of the website. 

Without getting into specifics, the website would, in a manner of speaking, match up buyers and sellers.  The sellers would be my customers. I would charge a fee for them to list their items for sale. 

I am confident that this business model can work (it already is, I just think I can do better). What I would like some guidance on is how to create a successful launch so that I can hit the ground running. I will need to entice both sellers and buyers. How do I entice the sellers when I can’t point to flocks of visitors to my site, and how do I entice the buyers when there are no products for them to purchase? 

My initial thought is to give my customers (the seller) a year of free service so that I can build up a base. Once I get to a certain level I will only offer new sellers 6 mo, 3mo, etc. of free service.

I assume most sites implement a beta period where they ramp up with a controlled group of users. Does anyone here have experience with launching a website similar to this? Any thoughts/suggestions/advice on this subject would be much appreciated. Thanks. 

No, it`s not like ebay.  I was speaking in very broad terms when I said it matched buyers and sellers.  In my case the seller is someone who is advertising or promoting a service or good through my site to prospective clients.  The actual nuts and bolts of the idea are not so much what I am concerned about.  I`m just curious to know how successful websites like this launch.  How do you strike the balance of promoting your site to build a customer base while not promoting too heavily before there is a strong enough stable of sellers/promoters/etc. to hook the end user?  Unlike an ecommerce site, this site depends entirely on the amount of buyers/sellers (again, broad terms).

For instance (and again, this is a different model than my idea), what would happen if you logged on to facebook or myspace in the very beginning and there were 4 other people signed up?  You`d likely never go back.  So, how do you promote the site to hook enough people to then in turn hook the next wave of people?  Hope that makes sense.  Sorry to be so vague about the actual business idea.  Thanks.

In the beginning, Facebook did have 4 users. MySpace had one - Tom!

So you have to consider that ... you have to start somewhere. They all started somewhere.

You can do a rollout release, like inviting your first clients by personal selection. Then, you tell them "I project traffic to be ____ within ____ months." Then you go out and get that traffic.

How do you build traffic? The same way you build traffic with anything ... pr, word of mouth, search engine optimization, etc.

PS - the one place you don`t want to be is a site that can`t convert. Many free services can`t convert to turn a profit now. I have been an early adopter with many services that offered me free initial service ... but when it came time to pay, it just wasn`t cutting it, and I canned my subscription. So you want to make sure you keep communicating with your early adopters to understand their needs and their happiness with the service. And, make sure your business model is rock-solid enough to support you when it comes time to collect payment.

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Thank you Nikole and Roland for your insight.  You present some good ideas.  I`m not sure yet if I will be following through with this idea, but I appreciate your input.  Thanks.

I would not hesitate to put up a site.  Put up something basic about the concept and sell visitors on the idea.  Then, get an email address from them so that when you do launch you will have a list of people who you know are interested that you can leverage to get the site off the ground.  You could even do this with a blog.  One of the hardest parts about launching is the site is delay of your first traffic coming.  If you launch a "pre-site" you will have something to build a client list while you are off building the site.


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Promotion. Do you have a budget for that?

Problem is that if you don`t have a budget, then it will take TOO long. Ridiculously long. If it`s really a marketable idea then you should look for investors. If you have funding then you will be able to create a big bang, otherwise it might just take too long and never gain enough momentum to create a Nova.