$150 free for a good idea, you decide...

Not sure of category so feel free to move it Mods.

4 Years ago some guy called Alan Sugar gave me some free press and an award, not because he had anything to gain, but because he had made his money and his genuine passion was for enterprise, the award as called Excellence in Enterprise and I was honoured to receive it. Not only that but all I had done was email Sir Alan an idea, just an idea!

He felt it had "legs" and gave me a half page feature in the second most read paper in the UK, I started and built a business on that feature, cool! Then after one year of my "new customers" emailing him to tell him what an excellent service I provided and he awarded his first ever Excellence in Enterprise award, he is a nice guy

So that is the scene set, and it is also my motivation for this thread, I do apologise for the length but I felt an explanation was in order, I have grown much since then and this forum would be the second biggest factor in helping me develop skills I did not have, and learn new things.

What I have learnt by being self-employed for the last ten years is there is such a lack of people wiling to take their dreams and chase them and build new businesses and help all of our economies. Some may disagree, we live in an online world here full of self-starters full of dreams and ideals, but this is not the norm, I run an offline business that offers self-employed people a good income based on effort put in building it up – all I hear back is – do I get fuel expenses/company car/basic salary?

In my real world I see fewer people willing to take a chance, and work hard with “no guarantees” that is a shame, it’s my personal perspective and I am sure many could argue otherwise.

Oops, thread too long already so here we go!!!!!!!!!
Long and short of it is, I soon found out I can’t donate after reading all about the “new” servers which are not new now and I wanted to donate to DP and still do.

So, seeing as many of us make money from knowledge and tools here, I would like to give a little back, I know many of us can’t compete with the 4/5 figure posters here and many are watchers rather than posters and there are many people finding their first adsense cheque of $100 and feel maybe its not a biggy compared to others or hitting their first goal that might be trivial to some larger earners, its all relative and enterprise is the single biggest thing that will grow our countries forward, kudos to you all.

Competition;

If you currently run a website or are just starting a website/online business feel free to enter this competition for $150. Just answer the questions below;


Name of site/url/business
Age of business/ idea
Reason for start up and general business plan.
Any other information as regards why this is a good idea and why you are a good person to do it, or why there may be a market for it.
What would you spend $150 on

Conditions
1/ Must be payable by paypal (sorry)
2/ Must earn under $100 per month from adsense as a household.
3/ Must not be an adsense type website, I am looking for enterprise/ideas not copycats.
4/ If you ever get a PR 10 I want a free link

My decision is final and all that jazz, just type and inspire me with your ideas/ goals for something new, if I think it has legs then you may well get $150 paid into your paypal account to help you on your way, nothing to lose.

To all members, feel free to comment on the posts, to give advice, knowledge or to point out a scammer.

It’s just for fun, but if helps some little guy take a big step….job done.
I am not as knowledgable as many here so I guess with $150 that would be as good a contribution as I could make, and if your inventive I could do this again!

Competition ends 14th May

 

I´d like to nominate my mother´s site. www.virtuowl.com. She´s retired, living in the basic penury of the uk pension after working for many years and paying into the system. At least she has the benefit of doing it here, in sunny Tenerife, instead of freezing to the marrow every Scottish winter.

1) www.virtuowl.com
2) umm... about 2 years?
3) general interest in the internet and the topics, business plan - none that I know if.
4) The theme of the site suits my mother to a T. There is no reason why it couldn´t make money in the future - household items being big business.
5) If she won $150 I´d suggest she buy me a ... oh, okay, she gets to keep the dosh. I think she´s spend it on a seperate host with a good stats package.

The site wasn´t written for AS, but there are AS ads on it which pay for a cup of coffee and food for the fish each month.

 

Hi why not give it a try my site is very new

Name of site BidUp Free Auction http://www.bidup.org

Age of business under 2 months

Reason for start up and general business plan want a challenge and provide a free auction service to the net.

Any other information as regards why this is a good idea and why you are a good person to do it, or why there may be a market for it. Its Free and i am a nice man

What would you spend $150 Mods for the site

 

Just to clarify, I will give $150 to someone, but I really would prefer a "story/reason" and the biggest factor could well be even an idea that hasn't started yet, enterprise.

Sorry prowler but bidup is not that inovative for me, I can see why you would try it but the reason its never been fully implented online is because, if you were successful like ebay - you would end up charging! - and you would, they do it on the TV already so..

 

No problem but next time please state in your thread that it as to be inovative then i would not of wasted my time with the thread

 

Sorry, I would really like to find a gem, not for me, but for someone with ideas/desire, I guess I could brake all the rules but if you have something you could also PM me if you did not want to disclose too much on the forum, I make a decent income and I am not here to piss on anyone's parade or steal ideas, shit I have enough balls in the air just now, so if you have a good idea and PM me then I would consider PM entries if necessary, however a general post here first would be required.

Any sensitive info would be considered through PM, I would just love to give "someone" a foot up!

 

Thats fine no hard feelings

regarding your post
If you were successful like ebay - you would end up charging!

I have no reason to charge thats why i want it to be better it might take time but thats what all the fun is about as its only being going under 2 months i think it as got a better start then any other new auction site so far

Quick stats not bad for only 2 months old what will it be like in a few years

Number of Auctions 946
Open Auctions 582
Closed Auctions 363
Suspended Auctions 1
Featured Auctions 655
Starting Bid Total 32923.76
Start Bid History 65449.54
Buy it now Total 3623354.29
Buy it now History 3648979.61
Current Total Bids 5654.00
Total Bids History 6456.99
Active Users 571
Suspended Users xxx

 

Excellent, I love it when someone challenges me! With good reason.
Nice stats, and now I have had my eyes open to your "enterprise"..noted

 

Thanks just doing my deeds for my customers and users best i can. My theory is that if you look after your customers they look after you which seems to be working so i look forward to a successfully auction site i hope but like any internet business time will tell and as they is some big auctions out there ebay, ebid, qxl etc they all had to start from somewhere.

One think other auction don't do is that mine does is which i feel is a good tool is BCC Emailing to Admin all information sent to customers regarding a sale is sent to the auction first and 8/10 most are ok but you get a few from the scammer from Nigeria etc which the sellers does not receive until i check the message if its legit i send it if not i delete the message and the scammers accounts so its a trouble free site.

 

OK 14th May, any supreme plans to take over the world or improve it or just bring something fresh that wasn't in the public domain.

Impress me, please.

 

You could get $150 if you are doing something/innovative or are improving your website/coding/service.

 

Talk about a nice guy

 

OK, maybe everyone's bright ideas would prefer to be kept a secret, shame.

As it stands I guess E10's mum gets $150
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=168283&postcount=2

Unless anyone else is doing something cool/interesting and needs some cash to expand/progress by the 14th.

 

In for a penny i guess,

Name of site/url/business

- www.VisitDevonandCornwall.com

Age of business/ idea

- Business launched August 2004 - Idea 1998

Reason for start up and general business plan.

- I am totally fed up of being a lap dog to bosses who benefit (selfishly) from others ideas and ability. I am prowed of putting froward daft ideas because sometimes they spawn great ideas and people are not prepared to think from a new angle. Many friends are laughing at me because my site is nothing new, there are 100's of sites working for the same buisness as I am seeking, to me this shows the money is there I just need to get it for me and my family.

Any other information as regards why this is a good idea and why you are a good person to do it, or why there may be a market for it.

- I know there is a market for it because there is lots of strong well established sites but I can do it better, better support, better navigation, better information, faster download time - my innovation is my belief in my self. I have no money so chicken and egg syndrome here - adsense pays for hosting, but after some help from DP members now looks like I will have lots spare - lots spare is going to pay for Cloths for a local riding club to get new kit (they compeate at nationals and get written about in the papers loads, say no more) I have sold a couple of banner slots, this will pay for articles which in turn will be sent every week to local papers until they are so pissed of with me they give me a monthly/weekly slot and so on I have lots of ideas (daft ones)

What would you spend $150 on - My wife and two little boys, because with out them and thier support and belief I would find the hard times harder and have no-one to share the good times with.

Anyway my written word is poor and I find it hard express the emotion I now have for making a success, and this is probably more about positive mental attitude than innovation (I do have 1 invention I amtrying to fund though) I am sucessful today compared to 2 years ago and I will be more so tommorrow than today.

While I am here "thanks to DP for all the help I have been givn in making my dream into a reality"


MOTTO The more I try the luckier I GET!!!

 

Looks like you have put a lot of work into that Jimbob, just for info I think you are using frames on some pages with a fixed width that hides some of your navigation for 800x600 browsers
http://www.visitdevonandcornwall.com/town/Lynton

Very commendable to be promoting your location though.
What invention are you trying to fund? Feel free to PM me.

 

Thanks for your feed back - I have an issue with the footer position, I want it to be at the bottom of the left nav or lower relative to content.

 

I'm not entering the contest but I think it's an awesome gesture by sji and I hope the gem is found and rewarded.

 

Shame so few people participated

Username E10
PM me the paypal email address for the $150.

As a bonus;
Username: Prowler
Site Bidup

I have a pop under on a popular area of my site that gets opened once in a session, it would generate a few thousand views per day so if you want I can set the pop under to your homepage for a couple of days, mainly US traffic, as long as you have spare bandwidth let me know and I push some free traffic your way to see if it helps you out.

 

Also:

Jimbob, I have a PR5 site thats a .co.uk, general humour site, it gets around 400-800 uniques per day, if you wish I can put a banner/text link to your site on its footer.
http://www.nametranslation.co.uk/names/meaning/index.asp

Just PM me details of what you would like put there if you want.

Everyone's a winner!

 

Thats very kind indeed, I will PM you.