Building A Website Is Not Building A Business

One of the frequent conversations I had at the domain conferences was about developing websites. Due to the Missouri.me launch and some of my other projects many people had questions about how to develop the sites, tools used, where we get content, etc. I am always happy to share as much as I can but there was something that I would preach to anyone who would listen and it seems to escape many.

There is a huge difference between building a website and building a business. In most cases people can have many great ideas about what they would like to do with their great domain name, they may even have all the technical abilities to create an amazing e-commerce site or content rich geo site but in so many cases there is no plan for what to do once the site is up.

If you put 50K into a wonderful website, do all the hard SEO work, if you do not have a plan on how to generate revenue after the site is up it is really just a website, not much different than a parked page, I can imagine if you spend 50K or even 10K on developing the perfect website you would want to have a plan for something more than Adsense for revenue.

So, when talking about domain development you need to think about taking it past the web development phase and how to get it into the business development phase.

To understand what I mean take a look at what the Castello Brothers have done, they understand business. With sites like Whisky.com and PalmSprings.com they have created businesses. I have really enjoyed my conversations with Michael and David and love the fact that they focus so much on the business rather than just the website. That is the difference between successful domain development compared to someone just building a website.

Now, everyone has different skills, I know many people much smarter than myself that can create amazing web sites but they lack the skills necessary on the sales and marketing side. This is where partnerships come in. If you have a great idea and have all the skills to implement the product and technical side then you may want to look for partners for the sales side. I know I could not of come close to creating everything my development team did on our state geo platform.

So, what is the point of this post?

Well I have heard so much talk of domain development, as we all have heard over the past year or so, I want to see people be successful. In most cases people will not be able to do it on their own, if you plan on building your domains into real businesses and not just websites you need to evaluate what you are good at and determine what pieces to build a business are missing from your skill set. Find people that you can team up with to fill those gaps. You may find that 1+1=3 when you do this.

Benefits Of Having A Business Partner

As more and more domain investors are looking towards developing their top properties into real businesses I thought I would share my experience with working with a business partner when launching Localtek.

From the very beginning of the Localtek launch it was a team effort. My current business partner and I had been discussing various projects for a year or so but never quite found the "one". At Christmas of last year I started talking about the success I had been having with domain investments and, hard to believe, but yes PPC traffic and also the fact I had been direct selling ads on one of my sites without even making calls, they just came to me asking to buy advertising.

Based on this, very long story short, we ended up coming up with what is now the Missouri.me and Localtek concept. As with most businesses the initial idea is not where you end up but hopefully you build from that initial idea and not subtract from it. In this case it grew but at the core it is the same idea and business, just better than before.

Now, about the benefits of why I started a business with a partner, lets outline them:

No one, and I mean NO ONE, knows everything - Lets face it, even the most confident people in the world do not know everything. It is always valuable to have other people around that have experience you do not have. The reason a good team works is because everyone brings something to the table, various pieces of knowledge being a key piece of that. I talk to people or see people daily that have no intention of ever learning from other people, and that in the end, will be their downfall.

Brainstorming - When launching a business there can be alot of time spent brainstorming ideas around certain pieces of the business. Whether it be marketing, product pricing, growth plans, etc. It is useful to have someone else to check your ideas and build off of them.

Push or Pull - It is always good to have a balance between the partners. In our case I tend to be the fire, ready, aim person and my partner is the pull me back guy. It works perfectly, that balance is always needed. Virtually every successful business launch I have witnessed has had the same combination. You cannot have both people pushing without some checks and balances put in place. But you also cannot have two people both pulling back all the time. Both together is the way I have always found it to work best.

Detailed vs Not-Detailed - Along with the push/pull concept is the detail oriented vs. non-detail oriented balance. Once again, in most companies I have seen launch successfully there is a balance here as well. Just last week I witnessed it while in a meeting with a very successful company local to myself. One person was focused on T's & C's in the contract while the other was focused on what the next phase would be without worrying about the details on the first phase. You need both sides of this.

A Different Viewpoint - This one is very important for us, my experience is business development and sales along with technology. My partners is small business operations and small business marketing. You put that together and in our case you have the perfect balance of what is needed to launch a business doing what we do. Both pieces are important. This comes back to no one person knows it all. If you are starting a business keep in mind it takes multiple areas of experience. This is why many developers have a hard time taking a great idea to market. Being able to make a great looking and functional site is only the first step, being able to take it to market and close a deal is a different story.

I could probably list another 5 but the point I really want to end with is that when building a business in many cases it is very important to have a partner. When selecting a partner in many cases we tend to gravitate towards people that are exactly like ourselves. That is the first mistake you will make. It is important to bring a wide range of experiences together to build a successful team. Although my business partner and myself are alike in many ways we have a different knowledge base that we pull from and a good balance when it comes to the push/pull balance. Make sure you select a partner that balances the partner ship and not tips it over from being out of balance (in other words do not pick yourself).

Domain Development is Web Development is Business Development

OK, first off let me say I am guilty as much as the rest of us domain investors when it comes to calling the development of a domain "Domain Development". My question is why do we continue to do that, can I ask why is it any different for a domainer to develop a business on a domain name than it is for any other business owner to buy a domain name and build their business on their name? I can say for sure they do not call it domain development.

Short answer. There is no difference. We in the domain industry coined the term domain development when in reality there really is not a difference between a domain investor with a vision of growing a business on their key properties. The only difference is now you have become the end user of the property, you just got the name at wholesale value rather than end user value.

I am sure we as an industry will continue to call it domain development, but do not fool yourself. It will benefit us all to realize that we are just like anyone else with a domain name and realize that we move into business development (instead of domain development) as soon as a business plan is put in place and web development is complete on our properties.

I am sure I will slip up and call it domain development at times but I myself am going to make a conscious effort to move past the term domain development and start to use web development or more accurately business development when describing the building of a business on my own properties.

Also, we in the domain crowd need to start realizing the selling of a business that happened to have a great name is not the selling of a domain name, it is the selling of a business that happens to have a great domain name. Kudos to that business for having the vision to acquire a great name, but a company like Mint.com did not sell for the price they did purely on their name, it was done based on a business model.

Last thought, I watched with much interest all the discussions around minisites, their value, good or bad, etc during the past month. I have had success with minisites and will continue to use them in some cases. I know alot of people like to talk about the lack of value to the end user in them. I am a believer it is not the amount of pages on a site that matters, its the quality of the content. I am not saying all my minisites are the best of quality when it comes to content but my point is I believe their are times someone could have a one page site and if it has the data someone is looking for does it really matter to the end user if it does not have 100 more pages to look at. Now, I will say though that the real business model to make real money on one domain is not a minisite. To make real money on a domain it needs to have a business plan and full blown development behind it, but each business can have a different level of development required on the site, some one page, some one hundred pages, some just a form to take info. Every business is different.

All that said it is impossible to have a full plan on each an every name you own if you own one thousand names, it takes capital, time, and a lot of effort to get a business off the ground. Rick Schwartz got it write in this blog post. It is impossible to build one thousand businesses all at the same time. This is why I do think its unrealistic when every time people show support minisites people start to bash them and say the only answer is full development, it is just not realistic to think people can build a full business on everyone of their names.