A Little Homework
I’ve spent a pretty significant amount of time over the last few weeks putting together the formal business plan for 10 Notes. I’m proud of my whopping 17 pages, but the doc still feels about half finished to me. This weekend, I squeezed in ~13 more hours of me-time and hacked through some of the scarier parts…namely “Risk” and “Primary Competitors”.
10 Notes’ business model isn’t a new one by any means, but it is I believe, something that is unique among the dozens of new media and custom web development firms that have made a name for themselves in the District. You know, the ones touting AARP, ACS, NPR, the National Geographic Society, XM, PBS, Your-Acronym-Here as clients. Naturally, I have no intention of exposing any of my secrets to ye folde, but having worked for, interviewed with, and generally kept tabs on most of the local, post-dotcom startups here for the last couple of years, I can confidently state that our model is not like theirs. So watch out, there’s a new kid in town ;)
Yep, I’ve done my homework on the firms that I hope to be competing with, why I feel that we’ll be successful, and what it will take to get us there. Then I started digging around for other local startups out there that may possibly be taking the same approach as us…
So far, I haven’t found too many newer companies that are actually gunning for a local client base. What I have found are scores of 20-to-30-somethings that want to create the latest and greatest Facebook widgets or blog plugins, continue promoting UX as a legitimate discipline, be recognized as “Web 2.x Visionaries”, and generally enjoy the all-around respect and admiration of their peers. Not a darn thing wrong with that; I just found it surprising that there seems to be so little going on in the way of traditional business development, analysis, or even (gulp) creating a sales pipeline that doesn’t revolve around finding an angel.
Which is sort of the point for a lot of new startups I suppose…everyone with an ounce of entrepreneurial spirit wants to be innovative, super-creative, and generally change the business environment that they work in. 10 Notes is no different in that respect, but we do feel that there’s something to be said for researching your immediate marketplace and taking formal steps towards breaking in to it. Sure, we’d all like to get swallowed up in a wave of VC capital, crank out a beautiful new social networking site, or get invited to speak at some Innovator’s Summit…but don’t forget that we’re all living and working in one of the richest cities in the world too. In our humble estimation, it’s in a D.C. startup’s best interest to live in it, love it and cater to it.
Just my 2 cents. Thanks for reading.
