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I am wondering if I should pursue a new business idea that has no immediate revenue opportunity. I would like to develop a web portal (I cannot divulge the exact business idea) and it will require some investment to get it going. The service will have to be free to start until we gain traffic to the site, then we should be able to monetize it with ad-supported revenues or subscriptions. I believe it might be 2 years before the site is fully built and there is any decent traffic. Any ideas on how to go about getting funding for ideas with such a long time span before any revenue is generated?

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3 Answers

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Why does your site take a couple of yrs to build? You should take an iterative approach and built a minimally viable product, which you can grow as your user base grows. if you wait two years, your product may be outdated by the time you finish it, and then you may need to start over.

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Yes that is what I plan to do - I will not wait two years to launch it. I am starting to realize now that 2 years is too long. I will need to find a way to get it to go viral much faster... – Ninon Apr 4 '10 at 23:24
be careful with basing your app on its ability to go 'viral'. making a product that's viral isn't as easy as it sounds. from my experience, user acquisition is probably the most difficult part of the process. which is why building a product and getting it in front on customers as fast as possible is the best approach. the less time you waste on unnecessary features, the better. – David Wang Apr 6 '10 at 13:31
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Taking 2 years to build traffic sounds a bit far but still within reason; but 2 years to build the site up is not.

You gotta build in features into the product that will viralize it without you spending marketing dollars.

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Thanks for the suggestion. – Ninon Apr 4 '10 at 23:24
up vote 1 down vote

If I read your question correctly... you've got a super-secret idea that might make money in a to-be-determined way after a couple years of development?

I'd say the best chances of you getting money to build this is to buy a lottery ticket.

Alternatively, there's a small chance that if you built it, and it became popular and generated revenue, someone would give you money for it.

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Ok I really need to rethink this whole idea! Two years is way too long... – Ninon Apr 4 '10 at 23:27
do you mean that a business projecting to make losses in the first 2 years will not get funded? I thought the cap was 3 years. – simpatico Apr 12 '11 at 16:46

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