Niche Builders Club – Checking Interest in a Concept
This post is more of a “Thinking Out Loud” post – to see what kind of interest and/or discussion comes from it.
Anyhow – I built a High Top Skate Shoe site for one of my boys over the past weekend… he is really into the skate boarding scene, and has a ton of friends, some who read here… who are into it also. The way it all transpired and will continue to work is pretty simple:
- I handle the technical aspect, WordPress, graphics, Plugins, etc
- He handles the content and marketing side of it.
Its all beautifully simple to be honest… I go out and find the products that are in demand and sell well. I post them to the site, and from there, he takes over and starts writing more stuff about them. I get to do what I am BEST at (Development, research, building, tech crap, etc) and He gets to do what he is best at (Talking about the shoes, new product releases, social bookmarking, finding video’s, etc)
It’s really the same thing Kim and I do with her Coupon site – which also works very well! So… it got me thinking. Why not look into some kind of small club with 2-3 other people, each focused on their own area of expertise.
Crowd Sourcing Instead of Outsourcing?
Could it work, or do too many people like to keep their stuff close to heart? I mean… if we had a group of say 3-4 people, all working on what they individually do best, isn’t that what makes the start of fortune 500 companies?
- Have a Techy person or two to handle all design, installs, plugin setup, onsite seo, etc.
- Have a content writer or two to take the research and convert it to the site content.
- Have a few marketing people to spread the word about the sites, handle article marketing, link building, etc.
- Have a single umbrella company to handle all the income and pay it out every month!
- Manage the entire group using the “Canoe Theory” (If you have ever worked for a fortune 500, you know it!)
Truthfully – everyone working toward the same set of goals would only mean success if you have the right people in place! I mean… 5 people working on the SAME group of 10 websites all the time, will bring much faster results than trying to do everything by yourself, no?
And Now – the Headaches with the Concept
- Taxes – but this is easily overcome through the umbrella, and 1099’s.
- What if someone wants to leave the network? Do they continue to receive compensation for their past effort? I can’t see how… but maybe a plan where a departing member receives lower monthly payouts that end after 3 months, and the person replacing them receives a 3 month buy-in period, where they don’t get full share until the third month?
- What if someone slacks off? Read the Canoe Theory! (We will help you paddle for a little while, but eventually, your going overboard!)
There are many downsides to the concept – but with the right people in the right places, the upside could be huge!
One side of me thinks its just easier to outsource… but the other wants to try something like this! :-)
What do You Think?
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
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- Build a Niche Store Empire Series in 12 Weeks – Niche Market Discovery Part 1
- Build a Niche Store Empire Series in 12 Weeks – Niche Market Research
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
As long as the content can be outsourced then I can do the writing,, well not exactly me. Marketing and backlinking is where I lack the skiillset and the desire. I do ok with design I just know a little about alot of things.
But with that being said I would be interested in something like this, since I know there is power in numbers and a good group of people can make a great company.
What might be best is for you to create a general tech type blog that talks about gadgets and stuff like that and then allow people access to post their own content.
Each person could have their own adsense blocks or phpBay or Amazon links in their posts and market them all their own way.
Obviously, some people would be better at marketing than others, bringing more people to the site and others would be better at writing content too, but it kind of creates the idea that the site revolves around the group creating content idea.
For the site admin, they could impose a restriction saying “the posts are yours, but I control the sidebars” and have their own Adsense in there or something…
But, yes, it may be easier to just outsource the work and pay a set amount per post/link/article etc.
That would cut down the hassle factor.
If it’s beer related… I’m in! ha
@Ottidid – Actually, Outsourcing is one of the things that would be eliminated with the concept Otis.
There would be a content writer or two on the team! :-)
@Tao – I already have several of those types Tao. From How To sites, to Tech Sites, to DIY, etc. It has just never worked… The people writing don’t realize instant success and submit one or two articles, then leave.
I even have phpbay and adsense plugins that automatically rotate through different ID’s to split the share evenly… it just doesn’t seem to work.
@Jake – LOL Hear ya Jake! Is that drinking it, or making it? OR… making it, then drinking it!?
The thing missing from the site you and I tried this on was the marketing aspect. Tech – yup! Content – Yup! Marketing, bookmarking, etc… none!
If we had a third who was into bookmarking, article marketing, link building, etc… it would have skyrocketed! Still would!
Mark
Drinking it AND Making it! No particular order haha
Yeah that’s one of those tedious jobs that “most” everyone hates!
Aside from your main query, Mark, did you use some sort of plugin for what I’ll call the “fly-out” horozontal menu?
Like the concept Mark, certainly would be interested, have experience in article writing in the fitness niche
@potentmix – Yeah… I found this “ImageMenu Mootools script” and modified it to work for the site PM.
It took a few hours of trial and error (documentation is kinda slim, but its free) to get everything set the way I needed.
I will start a post about how I did it now.
Mark
I’m interested. I am best at content but could branch out to other things.
I think there’d be too many partners. I think 2 people working together would work well and outsource what they’re not good at.
My plate is too full at the moment to participate in anything like this, but it sounds like a very interesting idea!
BTW, the site looks GREAT!!! I look forward to seeing how you created that menu with the Image Menu Mootools Script.
Rochelle
This is certainly something that would require the right group of people. Most successful companies are not started without some sort of help, or partners if you will. We all have things that we do well, it is just a matter of putting the right people on the right tasks.
Money is definately the hard part. Who pays for what, and how are the assets to be disposed of when the time comes. Can someone be fired? If so, what happens to their piece of the assets?
I have learned a lot from you Mark, and have had a great deal of success building sites as you have suggested. To me the greatest determinant of income generation so far is getting the traffic to the site. The sites that are making the most money are the sites that consistently maintain their top search engine rankings.
For me outsourcing the content, and the tech stuff is the only way I can survive in this business. Promotion is the area that I specialize in, and luckily it is a skill that is in demand, although I certainly have time for more promotion.
Bill
Hi, I’m new on here but I thought I would add my bit as its a very interesting and positive idea. There are – as others have said already, obviously a number of potential hurdles to this concept being successful, but to be honest the way I see it is that the amount to be learned from this is the motivating factor. The income is not going to come early on, we all know that, so how else to keep the motivation up once the initial excitement has died away? For me, the learning and the social aspect too – working together for a common goal.
My main skills would be writing and I’m happy to use this for getting links to the site etc. Article marketing is my thing, so there is where I would fit in to this “concept”. I’m not bad at keyword research too, having learned from making a huge amount of mistakes in the past.
Looking forward to seeing how things work out here…
Regards
Joseph
I’m torn on this one. One of the biggest benefits, to me, for being self-employed is that I don’t have to answer to anyone else but myself. But then again, I love sites like yours where we all have common goals and try to help each other out. Of course I would love it if a group of us could get in a canoe and each paddle down the river of success in unison, but I know that achievement wouldn’t be easy.
I guess I’d give it a try if there was some kind of deadline toward initial contribution & then each person contributes when they can – knowing that any effort you put towards the site, like any other, will increase revenue. I wouldn’t want to be required, for example, to do x amount of things for the site every week of the year. I don’t know, I’m just rambling.
It worked well when we did a similar thing with out services over at Niche Store Market back when BANS first came out. You just need one person leading and co-ordinating the builds and the other participants to have very clearly defined roles and timeframes for completition of their task(s). If you get a good bunch of dedicated people together it’s certainly possible and would probably work quite well.
As I say though, everyone needs to be ’singing from the same hym sheet’ as it were.
Ben
I love the idea and think it merits more discussion. I would be interested. I excel at writing content and can probably provide some back up, if needed, for marketing.
[...] A week or two ago, I tossed out the idea of putting together a small group of people to test the idea of Group Building a Niche Niche. [...]
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