Help P-lease!
Out of context: Reply #20
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- rafalski0
I have learnt that if the client has no idea what he wants, but he wants to put his money in interwebs, the thing will likely fail.
This is how it works: there is a startup by visionaries who don't eat don't sleep only work 24/7 on their next big thing. They need funding so they find someone with money. Bang, success!
Do you think there would have been youtube the founders hadn't had the vision what they'd wanted and the enormous drive to do it in the first place?Is there anything you see behind that project beyond the funding? They're paying you to come up with a vision?
Probably their best bet would be to find a small social network startup and invest in it, preferably with your company on the design end.I have once worked on a feng-shui numerology based dating startup. She didn't have an idea how it would work and what it would do exactly, but wanted it built anyway. When I said the project needed a person to run it daily, she introduced a friend who only seemed to be interested in the dating potential of the site "what do you mean phone number, like I'd have to answer clients' phones? No way I'm doing this!"
I also worked on "a specialized eBay, only better". The owner was sure "if you build it, they'll come" and it would just produce money by itself. Was surprised when I said he needed to provide daily support, at very least someone to oversee the thing running during the startup months.Both of these were probably of much smaller scale, but I guess the same rules apply, especially on a tight market social networking is. If they have no vision I'd either skip it or cash in while clients learns that he needs to learn what he's actually doing.
He's paying you to do the research he should've done himself, fair enough but I don't see it coming together.
There is an old Jewish joke:
"What do you mean you're in business with Solomon? You have no money to invest in it!"
"Well, I have the experience to do it. Worst case scenario is, in 6 months he'll have the experience and I'll have the money."