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Currently, I am listening to Dharmesh's interview on Mixergy.com. I really like making websites, made tones of them, but to get them off the ground, is what kills me. Right now, I have a small Youtube channel which gets a lot of spikes because of getting embeds. All I do is upload whats hot, specifically in Games' market. I want to widen the scope - translated, niche - later on to technology, but I started with the Youtube page for now.

I actually just recently got my first sponsor and am working on a big event which would get their product, www.gamergrub.com, some exposure. So, I am thinking of starting a blog. I've spoken to some entrepreneurs (Neil Patel). Neil told me to just blog for a couple of months and then follow an SEOBOOK at www.seobook.com.

I know that technology, specifically games' niche now a days is very very saturated. I am thinking of using the unsaturated, mini-market as I like to call it. I am wanting to start a blog which is run by its community (User generated). Each user will write a review of a product, firstly games, and get payed for it.

I know this idea is not very different, and even sounds as if it was a scam. When we Google that term, "Get paid to review games", we get around 95 million websites/articles that mostly fake.

I am confused right now. Should I start blogging and do SEO there after and then worry about getting funded for this (the money required to pay the writer only, other costs will be covered by me) or should I start finding investors right away? If so, how should I approach an investor. Do age matter in the eyes of an investor? what about the way you talk (English isn't my first language, I am Gujarati - A language spoken in western part of India).

Help much appreciated, I will go back to listening the interview.

Thanks! Bhargav Patel.

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4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

What you need to do is have a plan. I would recommend writing a brief business narrative that will make it clear what you are building. It's critical that you have a solid idea before you do anything. This is how I usually build these narratives:

  1. Name Your Business
  2. Describe What the Business Does
  3. What Makes the Business Special?
  4. What Market Does the Business Address?
  5. Who Are Your Customers?
  6. What Customer Pain/Benefits Do You Cure/Provide?
  7. What are Your Long Term Business Goals?
  8. What Resources/Actions Are Need to Achieve the Goals?
  9. Summarize Why You Will Succeed

Write about a paragraph for each question and then string it together as a 3-5 paragraph narrative. This way, you will formulate your ideas so that you can go to the next step. If you need an example of this, just let me know.

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up vote 1 down vote

If you aren't familiar with Steve Blank's Customer Development process, first thing I would recommend is get his book Four Steps to the Epiphany and read it.

Before you start spending time and money on executional things, your focus at the idea stage is to find out if anyone cares enough about it to pay you money. If not, all the other stuff is a waste of time and money.

Of course, you're going to need to deliver some minimally viable concept, proto, etc. to start gaining that feedback, but the key terms here are MINIMALLY VIABLE and FEEDBACK. A blog may not be a bad way to start.

With respect to investors, you have little chance of raising investor money unless you can prove to them that you have a product that people will pay for first. SELF PROMOTION DISCLAIMER: See my blog post on this subject. The possible exception to this is friends and family who if they do give you money, will be doing so because they are investing in YOU.

Does age matter? Not really. Language? I depends. In Silicon Valley, where I'm located, there is a strong Indian entrepreneur community; speaking Gujarati might even be a plus!

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up vote 0 down vote

I've made the plan here. Could you revise it for me?

You can view it here. http://bit.ly/59Ipwd

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up vote 0 down vote

Thanks Edwinoh, for raising my hopes. I am reading the article right now but I am not sure if you misunderstood or something, I want to make a blog that Pays its customers for writing content and even for videos.

So basically, I need a blog where people would come to read and even write. That is basically it. I need budget to pay the customers to write for me.

You can even look at www.psdtuts.com. Also, check out the page on information about writing http://psd.tutsplus.com/about/write-a-tutorial/

Edit: I am actually still going to read your article.

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