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I'm looking for a list of costs associated with a large internet website startup such as groupon or yelp. Ground floor starting point before seeking seed investment, what startup costs would be portrayed across in the presentation for a major startup such as this?

I'm thinking the web development for the site is going to be in the hundreds of thousands, if anyone has experience in this department and can touch base on this point specifically. Like how to approach large development firms and get quotes, how to outline features and things you want in the website, basic features and then more advanced features to get an accurate quote?

Thanks!

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2 Answers

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You can not. Believe you can get an accurate quote? Look at the statistics how many IT projects fail and are over budget. It is imposible to make a really accurate planning for a large venture. Whole project maangement methods are designed around this fact (scrum: fixed budget, minmum feature set and then order features by priority until you run out of money). Fixed priced projects are over budget in significant percentages (50% or more of the cases).

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You're right, I probably shouldn't of used the words accurate Lol. Im just looking for an outline or guideline to go off of to develop what I need to approach them for a quote. And a guideline for varying startup expenses. Thanks – Matthew Nov 24 '11 at 5:33
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Keeping in mind you've asked a quote for something similar to already existing product, which functionality is well known and learned by many cloners - i'd estimate development cycle cost to USD 25000 (around this).

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Im thinking more along the lines from when the perspective of when they first developed the site though, I know there are clone sites out there for next to nothing, this site would be far far more advanced then that, thanks for the input though. – Matthew Nov 24 '11 at 18:57
I'd say this depends on your choice of developers. Estimate could be equal to your expectations if you will hire US developers, but if you'll decide to outsource this project, it will cost you considerably less. – user14440 Nov 24 '11 at 19:03

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