If we are not going to charge for the essays, and the fact that the essays have a bit of a negative connotation attached to it...should that still be our cornerstone? If the site is going to be marketing based, we just need to generate traffic...we don't care how!

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Answers

My rambling reasons for questioning the essays are:

- NetEssays isn't currently charging for essays, is it? - charging for essays may work, but this is not a "new" model and the source of income may be overshadowed by... - the negative connotations with attaching the brand name to the essay game which isn't the most "clean cut"

- my feeling is that advertising revenues from creating a valuable site and then taking the user demographics (very narrow) and selling to advertisers will FAR outstrip any amounts that we can make by selling essays - this type of marketing to a NARROW demographic which comprise of the HUGE number of members which you mentioned and can also be further resolved by geographic location is unheard of...what other group can be so clearly identitifed, is involved in so much consumerism, is so receptive to marketing, AND has the HUGE number of members?...I really think this is the goldmine...more so than my initial idea to do local student actions or even your essay idea - I want to be THE SOURCE to go to if anyone has a product that they want to sell to students - what we need is TRAFFIC to sell the ad space to potential advertisers--if essays will bring us traffic then great...but we don't care how we get it as long as we get it...and giving the essays away using a not-for-fee model may help with the numbers and the return visits, lenghth of stay etc. numbers - this site will be different than any other because of the quality and quantity of that stats that we can generate (number of visits, length of stay, pages used, etc.) - we should have someone that specializes in this area alone!!!

- not sure if it will be easier to raise money if we DO sell essays or not - I think it may make us look small time, but then again, it does potentially provide revenues - we have no statistics that selling essays makes REAL money-- how much do you think these guys can make from it...is it beer money, is it enough to live from, is it hit the jackpot and retire...? - this is unreleated but there ARE numbers for porn and the numbers are good...they also are the leaders in using bleeding edge technology to provide their form of entertainment

However:

- sellings essays, MAY actually provide revenues to offset some of the starup costs

- it is easier to start on one service vs. having to come up with a lot of value added services...

Then again:

- GO BIG OR GO HOME!

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Also, not sure about your message regarding not charging for essays. As I see it that is what makes us different and allows us cashflow that is not driven by advertising. I think we have a good chance at getting financing if we look at the acquisition we spoke about of netessays.net and perhaps a second one that would bulk us up for the start-up period where we could softly introduce the name without making any changes, but simply by having an automatic transport to our portal. Then when we have had a chance to go through the essays on the acquired site, we can then have the full pay version up by 1st October in time for the first round of papers due at the various universities in time for the end of first term. Meanwhile at the beginning of the school year, we start the advertising campaign (I am working on a quick and dirty budget for that) and we can then start the recruiting campaign (I was thinking that perhaps we could send recruiters t-shirts with our logo on after a certain number of essays have been uploaded with their reference. This piece should cashflow from sales - once an essay has been sold we can in theory affort to pay for the t-shirt, almost regardless of what financinal model we choose. Anyway, instead of me rambling on, I will put all this in writing and send it to you. I am expecting us to hit the bricks and look for money starting in early June as previously discussed with a neat short business plan, a NDA and a powerpoint presentation. I have a couple of people in mind as does Madleine. I am thinking individuals are probably better than incubators at our level (not real-big dollars yet). Maybe if we need more money later we can head for the venture and incubator companies.

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000

Does this work for you - are we on track and on the same page. SH

-- Anonymous, May 08, 2000