You Don't Want a Website

A lot of people come to me and tell me they want a website. However this is quite often not really what they are asking me for. When people tel me they want to build a website that's code: What they really want to do is:

• Express their thoughts
• Make Money
• Make an online game
• Make Money
• Create a social network
• Sell their products (i.e., make money)
• Create a dating site (i.e., get laid)
• Do something creative (and make money)

You will notice that there is a recuring theme here. The only site I have ever done that did not have an expicit financial target is manateebay.com. All the rest of my time has been spent on commercial vehicles. However wanting to make a website is not the same thing as wanting to make money, and it is definately not a plan. So many times when prospects come to me about a website they dive right in to detail like forums and chatrooms and photo galleries and seem to do anything but talk about the most important issue which is WHY. Why do you want a forum; why do you want to chat or show photos.

In technical terms its called a "Business Proposal". In lay terms its a "Plan." Without a plan a website is nothing - and in some cases worse than nothing. A plan is:

1. A concrete goal or series of goals (hopefully something more specific than just making money.)
2. A summary of the environent in which these goals can be achieved
3. Audience (likely collaborators, users, clients)
4. Entities (companies, groups, social circles)
5. Rules (Laws - institutional or governmental)
6. Systems (known causations, rules of thumb, etc.)
7. At least one hypotheses as to why this plan will work; this can be a combination of precedent, research and a leap of faith but it is important to know what you know and to know when you are just guessing.

The Internet is an exciting and wonderful thing and in many circumstances a lucrative one. However all that means nothing if you don't have a focused drive to accomplish something and moreso, accomplish something that might be intetesting to other people.

The great thing about the internet is that it is almost impossible to have an interest so unique and specific that it is not shared with someone else somewhere else. There are billions of people in the planet. If you make wooden buttons shaped like Spanish Galleons, odds are there are enough people who collect those to float you if you are good and make your wares available.

However the Internet doesn't create value: it communicates and transports it. Your plan must have intrinsic value and you must understand and believe in it.

But that doesn't mean you need to create a website from scratch.

You still do not need a website if:

• You can sell your stuff on someone elses site (ebay, yahoo store)
• You can use a social network site to establish your identity
• You want to create a basic group or club (on meetup.com)
• You want to show your groin getting kicked in (I'm sure you know where to go)

So if you are still reading, maybe you actually do need a website. This might mean:

• You are invested in having a full blown self contained corporate destination site with HR, products and other fully featured elements
• You want to build a web APPLICATION whre you can create and manage interesting content online (for instance, manage a custom wine and schedule activity - and yes there's a site for that.)
• You have a built in community and perhaps secure content and want to create a self contained web space for it. (potentially an intranet).
• You want to manage, generate and control custom data.
• You want to manage, generate and contorl porn.(Facebook don't roll that way.)

All of these things require custom web property. So if you have gotten here, you probably do want a website: let me know... its what I do.