What Would You Do? December 8
Being the hardcore bootstrapper I am, I’ve turned down every opportunity to borrow money (Although, recently I’ve been told that borrowing money doesn’t make you a non-bootstrapper). The thing is I have about $6000 in mutual funds and I’m having a hard time deciding whether I should borrow money as opposed to selling the mutual fund shares. I know it seems like if I have money, why not use it? However, at the same time, it’s a lot less liquid and will take some time for those funds to become usable. So if you were me, would you:
1) Borrow money and pay interest in the end
2) Sell the mutual funds (Already with gains of 24%)
Concerned Dec 9
Seriously, do not waste anymore money on your Walamu website. Your business model doesn’t work on paper or in real life, and your mutual funds will just be wasted.
Just because you work hard at something doesn’t mean you’re a “Hardcore Entrepreneur.” An experienced business person has failed many times, and knows when to accept failure as a lesson learned.
Even if you get 10,000 people to your site tommorrow, it doesn’t translate into money because of your constricted demographic (only Rutgers) and the fact you have almost zero relevant traffic.
Anything that tries to be “The Craigslist of…..” or “The Ebay of……” will fail, and has failed over and over again. That concept is an old one now, and there are many highly established outlets serving that area already.
Can you make this succeed? Perhaps, nothing is impossible, but you’ve got a lonnngg uphill battle that will (not might) end in meager results.
RohailR Dec 9
Concerned, I want to thank you for your input. I always appreciate it when someone is trying to give me the “red pill” side of things.
I don’t agree with some of your points, not just because the site is mine and I want it to work out.
Not all business models call for an immediate return. The key to this business is volume. It isn’t until I get a lot of people coming to the website that there will be a need for upgraded listings for which there are fees (Even though some people have already upgraded their listings). So please don’t be so short-sighted as to saying there is no business model.
I have never referred to myself as a “hardcore entrepreneur.” I also know it’s not about working hard, it’s about working smart. If you have a problem with me trying to learn and grow as an entrepreneur, then that’s your problem. I will consider this a failed project when I’m unable to pay the bills. What gives you the right to tell me that I have failed?
Your “constricted demographic” is my model for organic growth and focusing on dominating a particular area before expanding to the next. I have a reason why I don’t want to get on TechCrunch or Digg. That’s because I want to grow slowly and have a good “product” before millions of people get to criticize it. The way I am going to do that is by letting it gain traction at Rutgers and listening to people’s input here.
Are you serious? Maybe you haven’t gotten your head into business as much as other people. Or maybe you’re a pessimist combined with little knowledge. The fact that you can’t grasp the idea of anything other than a site with AdSense with immediate returns as having a business model, makes me wonder why I am even replying to your comment.
Adam Dec 11
Wow Concerned, that’s a bit harsh. I would say though, Rohail, that I would advise doing neither. I don’t know exactly what you’re going to do with the $, but from what I’ve seen so far, try to focus as much as you can on dominating Rutgers. Keep everything extremely low cost, and don’t tap into the start of your retirement fund…or take on debt at your age. Maybe that means taking on a side job, or even a full timer once you graduate, but if you keep at it you should be able to make Walamu popular at Rutgers, and when that proves itself maybe then you invest more resources to growing it nationally. And if you fail, you won’t be digging yourself out of a big hole.
I’ve made many mistakes with my biz’s, but the best thing I’ve done was to never take on any debt or tap into savings too much. SportsLizard is profitable only b/c I spend so little on it. In many ways, it’s failed my initial goals, but at least I didn’t dig into debt, and I still get some solid extra cash each month. I’m not saying I wouldn’t take on debt down the road, just that I think you should only do that when the biz is proven profitable on a small scale and you are relatively certain you can scale it larger and be profitable.
RohailR Dec 13
Thanks for the comment, Adam. I agree with you entirely. I only intend to spend what I believe will be a reasonable amount and borrow only what I feel I will safely be able to pay back. Right now, it probably makes sense to find some side income in order to be able to pay for marketing Walamu and I should stay away from taking on major debt. Marketing seems to be a little more expensive in the offline world than online and so I’m going to have to think of smart ways to do this.