Here's a really interesting
question from Syne
in Australia.
Syne asks, the UK recently ran
the "Make Your Mark With A
Tenner" competition, where
students were given 10 pounds
and challenged to make a
profitable business with it.
How would you bootstrap
a business if you
were given 10 pounds?
Wow.
That's a really good question.
I have to say I would probably
then that 10 pounds to buy one
domain name and as much
hosting as I could get
with that one domain name.
I could probably get
about a month's worth.
And from there on I'd
try to bootstrap it.
And I think whether it be doing
something with AdSense, or
whether I tried to make a
really great site that would
have affiliate links-- but
still added value --or whatever
it was, I think I would
probably start with
the domain name.
Because if you can come up with
something that's a really good
idea-- think about the million
dollar home page where you pay
a dollar for each pixel, that
sort of thing --whatever it is,
if you come up with a website
and a good idea, you can
reach the entire world.
If you're thinking about
something like, I'm going to
buy equipment to shine shoes,
you can only reach 5,000
people who live in your
immediate vicinity.
So that's the beauty of the
web-- you can start a business
for very little money, and you
can often make a big impact
across the entire world without
having to go and see each
person around the entire world.
So I'd have to think about what
specific business I would try
to tackle, but I think that if
I only had 10 pounds I would
probably use that to buy a
domain name and then
go from there.