website creation? cluelessss

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sin01

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
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I am a (soon to be) sophomore engineering student at RU. I have thought of 3 good *I think so at least, and I have asked others general questions to see if they would be interested in such concepts* website ideas, but I have no idea where to go from there. I am doing research over the summer, and am double majors and at least double minors during the school year, thus I have very little free time to go out and learn how to make a quality website on my own.
So here is my question: what do I do now??

I know that there is a computer science department at my school, and I could probably grab the interest of a professor or a grad student to make (at least one of the sites) as a project, since I know it would be very challenging to create. Though there is no almost no way then that I would have the liberties to it.

I could go out and pay someone to do it, or a firm or something to do it (how much does this cost???). 2 of these websites would get reasonably high traffic I presume, 1 of them would need tons of bandwidth and crazy programming, while the other is relatively simple but still would require semi-large bandwidth. The 3rd site is a basically rudimentary site based around a good concept, so that wouldn’t be too demanding.

I could not do anything, and just wait till after college, and hope that I have time then. But of course the more time that goes by, the higher the likelihood that someone else will come up with the concepts.

OR.... I could do another option I’m not thinking of that you guys could recommend.

Please help me with this, I have been struggling with it for a while and realized I have access to a huge community of experienced and knowledgeable people that I haven’t addressed.
 
Learn

I wouldn't pay someone else to do it unless this idea of yours is going to be some big money maker and it must be up right away. Google HTML turorials online then download nvu. With nvu you can use html and wysiwyg.

my 2 cents
 
sin01 said:
I know that there is a computer science department at my school, and I could probably grab the interest of a professor or a grad student to make (at least one of the sites) as a project, since I know it would be very challenging to create.
Click to expand...

Professors and grad students will probably not be interested in doing 'enterprise application' development for you unless they would be willing to invest in this project. In this case, they'd be investing their time (and expect a share of future returns).

If you believe strongly enough in these projects, you will need to invest your own time/money in starting them up. This could include paying a professional do the web design and backend coding for you. To help midigate your personal risk, you could also seek investment from some of the folks to whom you've floated your concepts.

It might be wise to just start with one, as a large percentage of startups fail within the first year (and the rate is even higher for .coms). Having three 'lottery tickets' isn't going to significantly increase your chance of success, and will probably just speed up failure as you won't have time to focus on three things at once.

Also, have you really developed a business plan. Have you asked yourself why no one else has started a website offering a similiar service already? Profitable innovation makes up a small subset of technological advances. Take the Segway for instance (how many industry execs went on record stating that ginger was going to change the current world?

However, if you haven't really worked on developing the business part of your ideas, learning enough to do the coding/design yourself would be a considerable investment in yourself. Web-design and some large-scale programming experience can really spice up a resume, even for a ChemE, ME, or PoliSci major. If the business venture fails, at least you would have taken away, personally, a new skill set.

Anyway, good luck with your endeavors. I hope at least one of them does carve out a virtual niche for itself in ever-expanding cyberspace.

David
 
If you are bereft of graphic skills, a template can sometimes be the best way to go.
 
So you guys generally agree then that I should try and do most of this on my own? It is ok, it was an option I myself put forth, and I am just deeply interested in what experienced persons think.
 
im in a similar situation. I know how to code, but I find that I dont have an eye for design. I have a project that Im about to start that will require complicated code. In my opinion if the website is for profit I would bring in professionals.
 
How much would something like that cost, getting professionals in on it. Are “professionals” a large firm type thing? Or… ?
 
Im probly gonna spend around 2k for everything, which is dirt cheap for what im trying to get. I wouldnt go to a website design firm or anything but get someone who knows what their doing. Im having two recent college grads do work for me on the side. They have day jobs but do some freelance work on the side. It really depends on what your trying to achive with the site. Local colleges, or evening paying your fellow classmates who may be working on their degree in that area is always a good place to start
 
winuxgeek said:
Im probly gonna spend around 2k for everything, which is dirt cheap for what im trying to get. I wouldnt go to a website design firm or anything but get someone who knows what their doing. Im having two recent college grads do work for me on the side. They have day jobs but do some freelance work on the side. It really depends on what your trying to achive with the site. Local colleges, or evening paying your fellow classmates who may be working on their degree in that area is always a good place to start
Click to expand...

Just be careful to hire qualified people, especially if you're doing a commercial site. You don't want a cobbled-together barely functional e-store that is easily compromised...it's sort of a damper on repeat business when your customers' credit card numbers are stolen or something like that.

And it's worth the investment to have a lawyer draw up a contract to spell out exactly what is expected of them, and how IP will be handled. That way if they don't follow through you've got documentation that they didn't and so can withhold payment if necessary, or if they do something later that causes problems you can hit them for breach of contract.

The last thing you want to do is invest a chunk of money into something and have it fall flat because a developer you hired is incompetent or malicious.
 
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