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| Details |
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| Location: |
New York
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| Company: |
New Social Networking Venture (name is still secret)
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| Email: | newventure [at] mailinator.com |
| Posted on: | August 28 |
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| Description |
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The Market Opportunity: Social Networking and Online Advertising
Social networking web sites are currently one of the most promising types of Internet business out there. There have been many headline-making transactions:
---Microsoft paid $240 million for just 1.6% of Facebook
---News Corporation's acquired MySpace for $580 million
---Google purchased YouTube for over $1.6 billion
---Sony acquired Grouper for $65 million
All of these companies were in existence for just a few years before they were purchased. Moreover, social networking sites are part of the ever growing online advertising industry. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online advertising spending revenues in the United States for 2006 are estimated at $16.9 billion.
I have an idea for a social networking site with a particular niche that has very broad application. As far as I know, the features and capabilities that I have in mind for this startup are not currently offered by any site on the Internet (social networking or otherwise), and the concept has tremendous potential to "go viral" in popularity.
The plan for this business is initially to create a Facebook API, accumulate a user base, and then direct the user base to a web site that offers even more features and benefits, at which point advertising dollars can be made and certain user fees can be charged.
More details about the actual business can be supplied to the right candidate under a non-disclosure agreement.
I have been working on this Facebook application for almost a year now. The application currently presents two big opportunities:
1) develop a similar application on other major social networks (Open Social, Orkut, Hi5, etc.) and generate advertising and other sponsorship revenue with minimal cost.
2) create a larger company by raising money from angel investors (including several with whom I met last year who are very excited about the business idea and are just waiting for adequate proof of concept, which this Facebook application could supply).
Virtually all of the back-end programming is finished for version one. The HTML design is also complete.
Here is what still needs to be done in order to launch the application:
1) finish two features (publishing information to a profile, and automatic publishing to Facebook news feed)
2) integrate all of the business logic (which is in PHP code) with the presentation layer (the UI is in HTML code)
3) create an admin tool that will enable me to manage the application with these features:
------show which postings received abuse reports and approve or deny them (with some automated warning that gets sent to the offender and keeps track of repeat offenders)
------replace the home page with some kind of downtime message (if there is a major problem with the application or the hosting)
------delete a problematic or offensive posting, comment, or category
------suspend (or re-activating) a user's account.
4) select the best hosting platform (assuming the one currently being used is not as good as the alternatives)
5) convert text to be drafted by me (FAQ, legal terms of use, etc.) into HTML pages, using HTML templates that I have ready.
6) testing and bug-fixing, pre-launch
I have over 1,600 people signed up to receive the application and I have a viral video that was professionally produced and is almost ready to go, and this video will also help to promote the application and spread the word. So everything is in place for this application to succeed in a big way.
Unfortunately, however, my technical partner is unable to continue with this venture because of family-related issues and because he is based in India where he must constantly contend with long electricity and internet outages that make it infeasible for him to run the day to day technical operations of an Internet business). So we have amicably decided that I need to find a new equity partner, and he has agreed to give up some of his equity in the project to bring a new technical partner on board.
Here is what I am looking for in an equity partner:
1) top technical skills in a variety of languages relevant to complex database programming (note that the code is in PHP and HTML but other languages/skills will be helpful as well).
2) experience with and a good understanding of related technical issues (hosting, general troubleshooting, etc.)
3) the ability to manage an existing application and an ever-growing user base while developing new features for the next version release and/or managing other developers who have been hired for this purpose.
4) someone ambitious and entrepreneurially-minded, with an understanding of the true potential that social networking ventures have,
5) someone who either has a day job that isn't too demanding, or has enough savings to work on a venture like this.
More about me: I am a double Ivy League, serial entrepreneur with about 11 years of experience in technology, business, and intellectual property law.
NOTE: there is no cash compensation for this. There is only an equity participation in a venture that could quickly generate substantial revenue and has huge potential for being acquired for a large sum. The equity partner will also have the opportunity to invest money in the venture in exchange for a larger stake in the company. Once there is enough of a user base to justify building a parallel web site that will involve additional costs (for hosting and building the site), I will likely cover most of the costs, although my partner may need to contribute either additional work and/or some of the cost, if I am unable to find investors to pay for everything.
If you are interested in exploring a partnership with me, please send me the following details:
1) an introduction that addresses the specific details mentioned in this ad, including any relevant experience you have with:
--- Internet startups in general
--- programming Facebook applications
--- programming complicated database computations and other features
2) your resume (please just copy and paste the text of your resume into the end of your reply)
3) your availability for this project, in terms of how soon you could start and how many hours per week you could devote to it.
4) what sort of equity interest you would expect to receive as my partner, coming in at a relatively late stage of the core development process.
5) what your current work situation is, in terms of your ability to take on a project like this.
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