Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

It's unlikely a corporation would be interested - they're likely to have their own IT department.

You already have strong competition (such as: https://www.weebly.com/, https://wordpress.org/, etc.) - what will make your offering better/different?

People with websites are unlikely to want to switch to your offering - so you need to target people who don't (yet) have a website. If you're focused on Holland, then start by focusing on a city in Holland, and find out how new companies create websites - their cost, their options, and their satisfaction level.

"We already have a handfull of customers who are pretty satisfied."

To win new business you need to show clients that existing clients are DELIGHTED with their results. To compete, being "pretty" satisfied isn't enough.

Go here, https://www.zeromomentoftruth.com, download the free e-book, and learn.

Three other competitors that offer good template websites at nominal rates are:

www.wix.com

www.homestead.com

www.webnode.com

Another major source of competition is to outsource/offshore website design to India, the Philippines, etc. via www.elance.com, among other such outsourcing sites.

The first two template website firms are based in the U.S., and the Webnode in Slovakia. Homestead and Webnode both have lots of good templates, but there are limits. For instance with Webnode, to move a margin on a template page, you need to know CSS -- or pay ca. $500 for a custom design.

Therefore one could offer the benefit of more design flexibility than with the template competitors. Another benefit could be offering SEO support for the websites leased from you. A third could be to offer a "performance lease," especially for E-commerce sites: a low minimum monthly fee plus a percentage of gross website sales.

A target market to look at would be start-ups, which, of course, need websites. They especially need websites as part of a business plan submission to venture capitalists and to participate in business plan competitions.

Another target market with a multiplier effect could be the VC firms themselves, including business angels. You offer them free website audits of their portfolio firms -- and the opportunity for these firms to upgrade to a better website via your services. The audit might be dual track: a) the design itself and b) SEO. These are funded companies and your competition has now changed to major players such as www.hubspot.com

You would start with local VCs, ideally ones based in your city. Directories to track them down include:

1) Vfinance has a free database of 1541 VC firms (July 2011). It also provides information about business angels.

2) Pratt's Guide of Thomson Reuters lists 20,000 VC, buyout and mezzanine firms.

3) VC Gate provides access to a database of 5,100 angel investors and VC firms for $97 (July 2011).

4) Bloomberg, the reknowned financial services firm, provides a list of about 190 VC firms structured with common stock. (If the link does not work, Google "List of Venture Capital Companies, Worldwide - Bloomberg.") The VCs range from Adcapital AG in Germany to Xenia VC in Israel, with ones in between from countries as disparate as Bulgaria, Finland, India, Poland, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The major countries, as one would expect, are the U.S., with 30 such VCs, and Germany (because of its legal structure) with about 60.

5) Prequin Alternative Assets is an interesting newcomer with offices in London, New York and Singapore. Mark O'Hare and Nick Arnott founded the firm, which is owned by its staff, in 2002. It offers profies on 3,600 VCs, 5,300 private equity firms and 60 sovereign wealth groups. It also has databases about hedge, infrastructure, and cleantech funds, as well as on secondary markets. Its services are pricy though.

6) Keiretsu Forums, founded in 2000, has the largest network of business angels with 850 of them in 21 chapters in three continents. European chapters are in London, Madrid, Barcelona and Paris.

Regards,
JH