I've got the next great idea for a social networking site... But now what? | Hacker News Reader

I've got the next great idea for a social networking site... But now what?

6 pointsdrewbert17 comments

So I've got a million dollar idea for a simple social networking site. The dilemma.. I'm not a developer and I don't know any, or know how to find one thats capable of bringing my idea to fruition. So whats a guy like me to do? I've got the money, time and motivation but where do I go from here?

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I've got a gazillion dollar idea! Eye implants that shoot laser beams! Just need someone to build the prototype for me....

Draw each screen of your system, describing the function of every element on the screen. Deascribe what data you want to store and how it relates to any other data. Then go shopping for a developer (odesk or a local web business) to make a prototype of what you've just specified. If you've really got the money you'll want quality people, so pick some websites that are quality, find out who made them, and get in touch.

If it's a tech co-founder you're after, look out for start-up gatherings or similar in your town.

Thanks. I've never heard of start-up gatherings so I'll definitely have to look into it further.

I'm going to disagree with a lot of these other comments. What does your simple social networking site do? Is it a close clone of another site? For instance, Digg for cat lovers? Twitter for Amiga holdouts? Groupon for Waco, Texas?

There are commercial and open source clones of most of these sites out there of all kinds of quality. That doesn't actually matter so much - what matters is that you can quickly get a prototype of what you want to build in front of your potential users/customers.

Swap out some colors and images and make your clone script look close to what you want to build.

If your idea takes off, then you can start looking at building from scratch.

Hope this helps!

How I see the site is probably more like a dating site that connects service providers with customers based on a geographic location but with a unique twist. Where might I be able to research these open source clones a bit further and do you think there is something that may fit in this realm?

Hmm, I didn't see a lot of good open source dating scripts. That's probably because there's a lot of money in the space, and you can charge good money if you have a clone script.

I saw two commercial options that were a couple of hundred dollars. Search for "match dating clone" or "match dating script" Can't vouch for them though. Drupal's usually another non-techie option to build a web site, but dating support is lacking.

You'll need to get a developer involved if those commercial options don't let you do what you want.

Here's some inspiration from the author of Mingle2. He spent 66.5 hours to build his dating site: http://mingle2.com/blog/view/how-i-built-mingle2

Hire a developer or two and build a MVP to test the idea in the wild.

That way you can see if what you think is a great idea really is.

If not rinse and repeat.

If so add to your team to make it better and keep adding to the product.

And if you are looking for a co-founder zipdog's advice above is a great starting point.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

I see this kind of mail/post all the time. Some business guy thinks all that's necessary for a successful web-startup is a good idea. He then can find a lowly developer who takes care of those pesky details while he ponders whether the header should be more blueish or not... I don't mean to be rude, but these ideas are usually crap and without a technical (co)founder, it's not gonna happen.

Also: Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.

http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/

I agreed up until you said ideas are worthless. My stance is similar to this post which showed up here earlier this year: http://blog.assetmap.com/2011/01/social-web/lets-end-the-ide...

If you've got the money, you can pay for developers

Exactly, but how do I find someone thats qualified in social networking development? Is there credentials or skill sets that I should be specifically looking for?

>>I've got the money http://www.odesk.com

If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time...

Where are you located? People need to know!

Chicago

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