Having an idea for a killer website doesn’t necessarily mean you can build it yourself. When it comes to building a website, there are a lot of factors to take into consideration. You have a great idea, however do you have the right configuration to execute and make this dream a reality? Developing a web business is a hard job, therefore you need additional talents or talented people to achieve success.

Talent marketplace Vitamin Talent prepared this handy flowchart to help you decide whether it’s time to build a great website or not.

Paul Graham is a well-known character in the startup world for his past successes and most recently, the launch of Y Combinator. In 1995, Graham and Robert Morris founded Viaweb, the first application service provider. Viaweb’s software, originally written mostly in Common Lisp, allowed users to make their own Internet stores. In 1998, Viaweb was sold to Yahoo! for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at $49.6 million. Later Viaweb became Yahoo! Store. BusinessWeek included Paul Graham in 2008 edition of its annual feature, The 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

Graham’s Y Combinator, founded in 2005, is an early-stage investment firm and boot camp for entrepreneurs. It seeks to find the country’s most promising startups. Twice a year, Graham and his five partners invite several dozen entrepreneurs to move to Silicon Valley for three months.

Y Combinator has a reasonably good reputation for producing “interesting” companies. As such, for those startups that need funding beyond what YC puts in, the fact that they’ve been one of the chosen few likely gives them an edge over a random startup looking for angel/VC money. Paul’s network is also pretty strong and he can “draw in” outside investors. Famous investors Yuri Milner and Ron Conway have started to offer every single seed-stage start-up firm Y Combinator  a $150,000 investment with very favorable terms: a loan in the form of a convertible note with no cap and no discount, the kind of fine print that would make most venture capitalists wince.

Let’s look at the numbers: As Paul Graham shared on his website; in 6 years, YCombinator has invested in 316 startups including this summer. YCombinator has only invested about $5 million, around $15,000 each. They’ve now had 25 companies acquired, 5 of them for over $10 million. As to valuation, the combined value of the top 21 companies that YC has funded is $4.7 billion! The data used for calculation is derived from the most recent funding rounds.

As Paul Graham says, “the numbers look encouraging so far”. I think It’s proved that Paul Graham’s YCombinator has become an absolute success. Congratulations.

(This post is co-authored with Web2INC Magazine)

The most stressful phase of a business is its start-up phase. If starting a business was easy, everyone would do it! You need 5 things to create a successful business: Idea, Courage, Time, Money, People.

Idea

There are billions of creative ideas in our brains, but ideas mean nothing if you don’t follow up by taking real action. Taking an idea into real action isn’t enough; your business model must cover what customers want. If you’re going to do what everyone is doing, you can’t be successful; you must solve a problem and create additional value for your customers.

Courage

A start-up without any risk is a dream. Forget about failure and  if you think you have a great idea, step out of your comfort area and go for it. Failures breed success!

Time & Money

There is a simple rule to calculate how much time and money you need for s startup: ” If you plan to develop in a year, it’s going to take two; if you think it’s going to take $100K, it’s going to take $200K”. So be patient and spend your money carefully and don’t run out of money. Also, growing too fast sometimes means unnecessary stress of a loan.

People

To succeed, the person you hire must do his job well and be success – oriented. In the start-up phase, the best way to motivate your employees and them make them more efficient is giving them your company’s shares.

You need more people who will help you develop your business for no money. These are friends, candidates for testing your product or service, a friends’ friends at advantageous positions for you to make PR and free marketing. This is called business networking.

To read more about this topic, you should read Paul Graham’s (partner at Y-Combinator) “How to Start a Start-Up” essay on his website. This essay is a must-read resource for entrepreneurs before starting a start-up.

Also, Inc.’s “Start-Up Secrets” slide is worth looking at.

A startup company is a company with a limited operating history. These companies are the newly created and are in a phase of operational and marketing research & development. They need time, money, customers and most importantly ambitious, stress-resistant and challenger entrepreneurs.

The feeling of starting and growing a new business is unique and inalienable. When starting a business,  an entrepreneur dreams of changing something, achieving success and leave a permanent mark on the world. It’s a really hard task to complete! Every entrepreneur want to grow their businesses in a short time. But the first thing you need is patience. Sometimes many slow & small steps are better for you than fast & big steps. Don’t forget that “cities grow from towns and towns from villages” . Nobody wants to live in a fast-growing but slummy city!

Eric Karjaluoto is the author of the blog ideasonideas and one of the founders of MakeFive. In his “Why Your Web Startup Will Fail” post, he tells the why your startup will fail based upon their MakeFive story. These six titles are cited in this post:

- You won’t have an audience
- You’re going to run out of cash
- You’ll get frustrated
- The emotional rollercoaster will beat you
- You’ll get excited about something else
- But it won’t be because of the competition

This post is worth reading and a must for entrepreneurs to learn the causes to take action for not failing. Internet is an endless source for entrepreneurs to learn from their experiences and their failures. In fact, a failing is the best way for learning not to fail again but it’s the most painful, too. If you value your time and your startup, please read & learn why others fail(ed) and i wish you won’t fail…

LeWeb is the largest Web event where “Web People” meet in Europe and one of the largest in the world. This year’s LeWeb is on December 9-10th. LeWeb started in 2005 and this fifth edition is in Paris, too. LeWeb helps attendees to meet the speakers, entrepreneurs to meet investors; LeWeb enables web people to enlarge their networks. The sponsor list including Google, Nokia, Facebook, Swisscom, TechCrunch… shows the importance of this event.

The Startup Competition
The Startup Competition event is an important part of the LeWeb event. The Startup Competition enables the startups to present themselves in front of investors and advisors. Seedcamp, the competition sponsor of LeWeb reviewed each applicant project, scored and have selected 30 top companies for the competition. Each companies will have 7 minutes to present their applications in the first day of LeWeb. Three winners will have a chance to present on the main stage in the second day.

The selected companies are (in alphabetical order):

1.    2Win-Solutions – FRANCE
2.    3scale networks S. L. – SPAIN
3.    Apture – USA
4.    Box.net, Inc. – USA
5.    Brozengo SA – FRANCE
6.    Charge Ventures – Malta
7.    Cmune – CHINA
8.    ConTrust – ISRAEL
9.    DoctorSIM – SPAIN
10.  Edicy – ESTONIA
11.  Haploid – FRANCE
12.  IZI-collecte – FRANCE
13.  Kaltura – USA
14.  MyID.is Certified – FRANCE
15.  Nimbuzz – NETHERLANDS
16.  Popego Inc. – USA
17.  Producteev Inc. – USA
18.  Publing – FRANCE
19.  Radionomy – BELGIUM
20.  Samedi GmbH – GERMANY
21.  ShoutEm Ltd. – CROATIA
22.  Silentale SAS – FRANCE
23.  SquareClock – FRANCE
24.  Tellmewhere – FRANCE
25.  Trendiction – LUXEMBURG
26.  Viewdle, Inc – UKRAIN
27.  Webnode.com – CZECH REPUBLIC
28.  Zavedenia.com – BULGARIA
29.  Zipipop Ltd (Zipiko) – FINLAND
30.  Zoover Holiday Reviews – NETHERLANDS

Winning this competition is worthwhile; on the other hand, having an opportunity to participate in this competition is very important.

As I’m working as a Strategy and Business Development Consultant, i want to share the basics of business development to help you develop your own businesses, with you. I’ll post some ”Business Development Series” topics which are about innovation and entrepreneurship. The first topic is ‘What’a a business idea and what is not’. An idea is a form (such as a thought) formed by consciousness (including mind) through the process of ideation. (Wikipedia)

A business idea is a concept which can be used for commercial purposes.

A business idea is about a commodity or a service that can be sold for money. Initially, each ideas has no commercial value. First, you must check feasibility and innovativity of your business idea to get more information about your idea’s chance in the marketplace.

A promising business idea must satisfy these tests:
1-Does it fullfill a customer need or solve a problem?
2-Is it innovative and unique?
3-Does it have a market or create a new market?
4-Is it profitable in long term?

The Internet business ideas don’t differ from other business ideas. Before developing an Internet business idea, you should ask yourself the same questions above. So before you start your Internet business, check your idea worth a try turning into a business.

One of the best resources for “Business Idea” topic is Søren Hougaard’s “The Business Idea: The Early Stages of Entrepreneurship” book which you can preview by clicking-on the button below.

Next in series “What is a Business Plan? – Business Development Series – 2” …