How to start a website startup in a recession (Part 2)

You’ve come up with a great website startup that you believe will be a great hit, you’ve done enough research and found that it’s a great target market and have more chance of success. And you’ve finally decided whether you do it alone or with a team… What’s next?…

4. Plan your idea

Think about how you’re going to develop your idea, dissect it into modules and divide the tasks between the partners or whoever is involved. Usually this involves brainstorming of what functions you would like to have on your website. You then plan what the basic (crucial / must have) features vs. advanced (can be implemented in the future) functions. My advice is try to make the first version a very basic version and try to release it as soon as possible to get the ball rolling (beta release).

As Nicole Wehden from SwapaSkill mentioned:

“…highlights the skills you will need and the steps you need to take to make it successful.”

Take into consideration on the ability of your website to scale up in relation to website traffic. It might be too late to do it in the latter stage, as databases become more complicated and hard to tweak. Try to make your system more efficient, just like how plentyoffish did. Set timelines and milestones to have a clear understanding between each other when the deadlines are.

Keep the designs up to date by researching what’s best in designs right now, one great resource is Go2Web20. It’s good to have a look at competitors’ designs and designs that you particularly like and mix both concepts to make it more unique. Try not to make you website too graphical (unless your website is about graphics or designing) and be minimalistic, as web 2.0 is all about minimalism and simplicity (vibrant designs yet easy to understand).

Look for Domain names, which is either short and easy to remember or keyword rich (keywords that relate to your idea), if you can have both that would be even better. This will greatly motivate yourself and your team, it gives everyone something to look forward to and keep their interests on the project. I suggest checking out these free domain name generators to help you find better and great domain names that would suit your need. I also recommend registering with Godaddy, I found it the best amongst all registrars.

Look for Web Hosting as well, that is affordable, reliable and great customer support (to initially start with). Problems with most web hosting these days is the unlimited web hosting which usually overloads the server and cause the system into going down (some seconds, some minutes…). Try not to buy from really cheap ones but go for middle priced, also read reviews on how they are to know their level of customer service. I personally recommend a2hosting, which I’ve written a review about here.

5. Develop your idea

Implement the tasks for each partners, make sure to have regular updates on the progress to make yourselves more productive. Also motivate each other, as the project development stretches from 1 to 3 months (depending on the complexity of the system), it could get demoralizing. What I found, was people starts drifting away from the initial plan and wants to do another idea.

As Jude Gumila and Immad Akhund from HeyZap stated:

“From idea to launch it took around 4 months of hard work. We are continueously releasing cool new features though, so its a really exciting time for us!”

Also discuss potential problems or issues each partner is having to quickly resolve the issue to decrease possible delays caused by major bugs in the system. Keep up with the milestone and try to decrease the delays.

Continued on the next post (Page 2 of 3)….