Today, Julien Brinas, a former student at NYU and an internet entrepreneur came to speak to the class about the development of his career. I was surprised to discover that his advice was much more applicable for my business than I would have imagined, and he really made me reflect on the numerous aspects that were important to consider when wanting to establish a successful online presence.
A business will often hire someone to create a fully functioning and brand-appropriate website, which may cost up to 100k (depending on how complex you want your website to be), but which will also be the winning ticket to more views and online purchases. The first step when hiring a web designer is making sure that you have conveyed your brand and your brand image to them, guaranteeing that no detail is left up to interpretation. If possible, you should let them know how you want your product backlog to work, meaning the number of steps it takes them from the home page to the final purchase. You must consider your customer's demographics and which payment cards they are most likely to use, and whether or not to accept those companies and what the different interest rates would be. Response time will have an effect on how long a visitor chooses to browse your website, and knowing the scalability of areas of your website you want to grow will help focus web design efforts in the future.
Everything mentioned above does not even mention the graphic designer, which is completely separate from someone responsible for the user experience.
Julien also advised us on steering away from offshoring your business, at least in the beginning stages. After all, offshoring is more useful for large-scale operations, and good communication is much more important to begin with. This was advise I found particularly useful, as I initially assumed I would outsource my entire production starting on day one, when in actuality, it is probably smarter for me to oversee production the first few months, or even years in order to be fully involved in the manufacturing process.
Today, we were told to begin our business plans, which should be broken up into the following stages:
1. Executive summary
2. The team
3. Summary purpose
4. The problem
5. Proposed solution
6. Size of opportunity
7. Competitors
8. Differentiation
9. Market and customer acquisition plan
10. Financials
11. Next steps
I still haven't thought of a brand name though, which is stressing me out.
