Hi,

 

Not sure if this post is allowed here, but i'll fire away anyway, apologies if this is the wrong place.

 

I'm offering a 30% share in a website opportunity.

 

We have a website that has been running for a while and gets resonable hits (see below).

 

We don't have time to do anything with it and it needs bringing up to date and marketing.

 

It's currently paying for itself (via Google Adsense and a couple of advertisers), but could be doing alot more.

 

We need someone to take hold of this project and bring it back to life, as i said, for 30% of the net profits.

 

the site is... www.askthequestion.co.uk (also supported by www.asktheplumber.co.uk).

 

stats below...

 

 

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

Please contact me on PM - look forward to hearing from you.

 

Many thanks.

What was the turnover for the last 6 months and what do you forecast year on year for the next 3?

that's easy....like i said, it's paying for itself....so just turning over enough to pay for hosting etc.

 

forecast for next 3 years is the same at present hence asking for someone to partner with.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks

so 30% of nothing? Or you're looking for someone to take it over, run it and do all the work for just 30% of the net profit. What are the overheads that change the profit from gross to net?

so 30% of nothing? Or you're looking for someone to take it over, run it and do all the work for just 30% of the net profit

 

that's about it yes.

 

but also bear in mind that we:

 

1. had the concept
   
2. built the site
   
3. got it to Google Page 1 on 'ask a question' search
   
4. got the hit rate up
   
5. found the people to answer the questions (albeit more are probably required)
   
6. provide the hosting and domain(s)
   

 

or maybe you're suggesting that we post all ideas and concepts here for you to take away without any gain to us at all ??

 

You make it sound like you would have to start from scratch which clearly you wont.

 

I'm not suggesting we wont be involved in anything, but we need someone who has the time to take this in a new, fresh direction.

 

Thanks for the comments though, it certainly makes us think a little more about what exactly we have and how we engage with a potential partner.

 

regards.

Oki, from looking at your current website, its very out dated and would need a lot of work. I can see that your using some static pages that link to the forum. hmm

Right, so whoever takes this on gets nothing apart from the 30% stake.

 

He/she will work for free hoping that in the future the site will bring in enough money to more than match the effort. I say more than because it’s a gamble and really wouldn’t be worth the risk when there is real work out there.

 

You don’t expect it’ll make anymore without adding to your team, so you making any money depends on this someone.

 

If your site doesn’t make any profit then it’s worthless. And as Zed said you are offering 30% of nothing. Even if that 30% becomes a large amount in the future that increase hasn’t been made by you.

 

I don’t see any reason why this would be beneficial and it’s not worth the risk, for those reasons I’m out.

WBC - everything you just said is correct, thanks for your constructive feedback.

 

Moving on.... be good to hear from anyone who can see past the day rate and has some spare time, that's all we ask, nothing heavy, almost like a pet project.

 

Thanks again.

I like your attitude good luck with this.

I'm actually a really easy going guy and having worked in senior roles within multi-billion dollar business most of my working life - for the most part, this requires me to get on with everyone I interact with on a daily basis.

 

Unfortunately, when someone like you comes on with a serious case of sour grapes with unhelpful comments you have to assume that you're just here to derail the discussion. I mean, i'll gladly discuss the pros and cons with anyone who is actually interested, but clearly, that's not you.

 

I thought I’d check out your website to see the design and development of someone so vocal as yourself expecting to be put firmly in my place. Alas no, you're not even showing anything in your portfolio, or at least on the browsers I’m using there's nothing there, just a few lines of something I guess should be links or something ?

To be quite honest with you, maybe you should spend your time getting your own website in order before jumping in with both feet at someone you know nothing about.

 

I'm sure this rant isn't going to win me any friends on this forum and might even lose me the talented individual I was looking for, but quite frankly, I thought you should understand how completely tedious and unwelcoming people like you are on forums like these who obviously have nothing better to do than put other people down.

 

Jealously is what I’m putting it down to.

 

I’d like to think that’s the end of it, but knowing the kind of guy you are, you’ll want to be adding some quick witted comment just to get the last word in….be my guest…

I'm sorry for saying

I like your attitude good luck with this.

Which I meant sincerely. I don't see why you have a bee in your bonnet.

 

 

And yes as it says my site is under redesign thanks for noticing.

Sorry to say, but I don't know why people always think a website itself will pay off without any business in the background. Does it matter if you have 3000 visitors / month? Or 30.000?

 

How do you ever want to earn enough money by click-ads to pay for more than the hosting, what's the concept?

 

Usually I do websites for people who have a business running, like a craftsmen, a tailor or people who wanna sell stuff. They have a good reason for having a website, they will get new customers who buy their product, but the product never is the website itself. The only way to make money with just a website itself is having a really unique idea, like twitter. And even though twitter's estimated being worth couple of billion $, there were people in the media asking "how will you ever make money with this?" And they are right asking this question. How does google earn money? They became so important, that they sell the click-ads. Do you think google would be a billion dollar enterprise, if they just showed the click-ads provided by e.g. yahoo on google.com and get 0.1 cent per click? Maybe even that would work for google, but then we dont talk about 30.000 visitors / month but 10.000.000 / day least.

 

Think of a website as a print ad placed on a good spot in the center of your home town. 30.000 people will look at it every month. But this doesn't matter, if your ad doesn't say "call 1-800-joe-the-plumber" but just says "great informational site, now please leave accidently 0.1 cent in the box to the right if you didn't see it's an ad inside the ad".

Just need to add: I really didn't mean to offend you, Hammah, you seem to be nice and reasonable.

 

But I haven't been around in this forum for long and offerings like yours seem to come up here at least twice a week.

 

You said, we should see this like "having a pet". But to speak in such images, we all are running animal shelters already. We take care of the pets of our customers and or own ones, if it's one thing at least I don't need, is another pet.

...well that's bugger all it's turning over as hosting doesn't cost much at all.

 

Whats the plan to generate more revenue with this?

I +1'd a few posts in here beacuse the discussion, although slightly heated, made an extremely good read. Let this topic thread be a lesson to those other weekly "be my partner" posts.

 

it's as if new members think these forums are a dating agency for dormant websites!

What i cant see is why is your website only a pr3.

 

With that many unique people your website should be at least a pr4-5

 

This tells me that people do not stay very long on your website.

 

Which means your website actually is not what people are looking for when they are searching for that keyword phrase within google.

 

Just 1 more thing if i may...

 

 

Have you faked this? have you used the gain traffic script which clicks on your website every 2 seconds with a different ip address?

 

The reason i ask this is alexa do not agree with your stats

 

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/askthequestion.co.uk#

3000 visitors come to your site to realise it's a piece of junk and move on...

 

I suppose you could turn your site into something like Yahoo Answers but there're way too many sites like that around so highly unlikely that you will become the next big "yahoo answers"

 

The way I see it - you only have the domain name that you happen to have to a while now and that's why google likes it.

Apart from that you don't have business idea, budget to hire someone to design and develop the site and you're willing to give 30% to someone that'll do it all for you. What a brilliant plan

Good call on alexa, but pr and the number of visits aren't directly related, that's not how page rank works

 

E.g. you could have a PR4 site tons on quality backlinks and little traffic. Equally, you create a temporary site for people to sign up for say a music concert - thousands of visitors but your PR wouldn't move.

 

The ask site would be higher if people linked directly to useful threads - but looking at the links he's got, the links ar the one's he's manually built himself E.g. dmoz etc.

 

Thats why i said people are going to it and coming straight off it, Else being a forum especially there should be loads of links to it

wow - glad to see this had got some interest, albeit not in the direction i intended.

 

Let me see if i can answer some of your concerns...

 

If it was me, I'd be shouting about page 1 rankings if I'd actually ranked for a worthwhile term, like 'ask a plumbing question' or 'plumbling advice' - both more competitive terms that convert, albeit with a lower search volume - as volume really isn't everything.

 

Good point, and actually when you search for 'ask a plumbing question' #1 spot (after the sponsor) is asktheplumber.co.uk - this is our feed site to askthequestion.co.uk

 

 

...well that's bugger all it's turning over as hosting doesn't cost much at all.

 

Exactly right - i don't recall saying anything to the contrary. I guess if it was turning over a reasonable amount i would be on this forum asking for help ?

 

 

If you wanted everyone to basically love everything you did and not question anything at all, then a public forum really isn't the place to post.

 

I don't recall asking for everyone to love what i've done, i also don't recall asking everyone to provide me with a bunch of egotistical comments about how much better they would do it - i came on asking for help.

 

 

Whats the plan to generate more revenue with this?

 

That's kind of what i'm looking for the help with, but i guess it could be from advertising, supplier agreements, priority assistance and stuff like that.

 

 

An online could have 1,000,000 unique visits per week, if none of these are converting to a sale then it's worth nothing, just a nice little (useless) stat you can thrown into a management meeting

 

I agree, although it's surely a better start than a site with no traffic ?

 

 

From what I can see on the site - that is basically a simple advice forum - nothing new at all (I can't undersatdn this 'concept' he keeps referring to)

 

I guess i said concept because we put this out to the market about 10 years ago. At that time, there wasn't really anything else around that did the same thing, we clearly missed an opportunity to do something better at the time.

 

 

Additionally, the majority of those forums are totally dead (a handful of posts) and seem pointless

 

Yes, you are right - again, 10 years ago we had 20+ domains that supported these forums in the same way that astheplumber.co.uk does now. We decided to drop most of them as they didn't take any traffic worth talking about.

 

 

it's as if new members think these forums are a dating agency for dormant websites!

 

No, new members believe that they will get some sound and useful advice, possibly that's a mistake ?

 

 

Have you faked this? have you used the gain traffic script which clicks on your website every 2 seconds with a different ip address?

 

I'm not aware of any faking of the stats - to be quite honest, i don't understand the mechanics behind all these and (as i'm sure you can tell) am not a seasoned web designer.

 

 

3000 visitors come to your site to realise it's a piece of junk and move on...

 

Thanks for the feedback, maybe people come to the site, get what they need any go away again ? There is certainly something to be done about retention of visitors.

 

 

.... yep, it's basically just a glorified forum. Makes you kinda appreciate how googd forums like webdesignerforum.co.uk really are.

 

Thanks for stating the obvious....once again, I don't recall saying it was anything other than what it is. A forum it is, but, at the risk of repeating myself, this is why we are looking for some help.

 

 

I hope that answers some of the concerns you all have ?

 

Many thanks.

hahahahah...you're an idiot...try actually reading the responses - none are aggresive (unlike yours).

 

vague terms ? you even point out a term to use which we rank #1 for !!

 

i think i understand the problem here - i was assuming (obviously wrongly so) that as a self proclaimed non web designer, i could find some support and sensible reasoning from a team of people who were experts in this field.

 

How wrong i could be... this forum is clearly the home of people uneducated in the art of constructive communication and would hazzard a guess that most are under the age 20 and have some serious growing up to do.

 

I'll be leaving this forum, never to return (to a cheer no doubt) as i can see no benefit staying to be insulted at any opportunity.

 

Good Luck to anyone who comes on here expecting any real help.

i didn't realise you were looking for help...

 

I'm offering a 30% share in a website opportunity.

i didn't realise you were looking for help...

 

I agree. If you just asked how can i improve, i would have said a few things.

 

The reason why you got shot down is because this is a web design forum for professionals and when people come on here expecting us to invest our expensive time for nothing it ticks us off.

 

You need to respect that we all have families and mortgages and what little time we have we will not be doing it for nothing.

 

Also we have these threads 5-6 times a week asking us to work for nothing, thinking that we will be stupid enough to invest in nothing.

 

If its a great thing you have, go to the bank and then come back and state i want to hire someone.

There's nothing like a heated debate on a cold December day .....

 

But increasingly posters to these type of threads seem to compete to post the most cutting, rude replies.

 

You may not like the OP's offer ...... OK don't reply, but he has been open and honest with what's on offer, and extremely tollerant of the rude replies.

 

I suspect he may be put off from posting here in the future.

I wasnt being rude in either of my points.

 

The last point was just giving light why people are not exactly happy with the post.

 

I have not pulled down anyone as i do not believe he deserves it.

 

But good point HogIT

I think this post should be closed :s

i think i understand the problem here - i was assuming (obviously wrongly so) that as a self proclaimed non web designer, i could find some support and sensible reasoning from a team of people who were experts in this field.

...

 

good Luck to anyone who comes on here expecting any real help.

 

The problem was you didn't come on here looking for help. You came on here for free work in exchange for a part of a buisness that doesn't make any turnover. When questioned about what turnover was predicted for the next few years you turned heated.

 

Many people on here have built up their own businesses themselves and know a good investment opportunity when they see it.

 

There is no need to leave the forum, we can simply start again. Post a thread regarding what help you are after and many of the members will go out of their way to make sure you do get this help as this is one of the reasons this forum exists.

 

Good luck

 

 

 

hahahahah...you're an idiot...try actually reading the responses - none are aggresive (

You realise that your sentence reads like an oxymoron?

 

 

 

this forum is clearly the home of people uneducated in the art of constructive communication and would hazzard a guess that most are under the age 20 and have some serious growing up to do.

Calling people childish, foolish or uneducated cause they have a different opinion about working for you for no money I call ignorant.

 

Besides I´m 31.