Starting up a business – Step 2: Brief concept outline

Moving on from my last post about step 1 of starting a business and getting the general idea together, step 2 is about getting together a concept outline. So what we know after the first step is that the Youtube model seems quite easy to replicate and has proved a ‘relative’ online success (slightly understated!).

How will it work and what exactly will I be doing? The basic concept outline would be very simple and go something like this:

Service outline: The site will be a video sharing site designed specifically for mobile phones where users can watch and download videos directly from their mobile and also upload videos from the web or via their mobile phone.

1. People visit the site

2. People can search a large number of video’s.

3. After conducting a search, site users can have the video streamed to their mobile or download download the videos directly to their mobile in several formats depending on the phone they are using.

4. Site visitors can upload videos directly from the net or via their mobile phone.

5. Visitors come back and hopefully tell their friends about this cool service.

Now this seems unbelievably simple and it is. You might even think why would I even bother to write this down as it’s just so obvious. Well the reason why I would do this is because it provides an outline of what I’m aiming to do and puts it down in a formative state. Each step here represents it’s own individual story. Each story has its own complications and issues but the goal is to get the story breakdown on paper so you have something to flesh out.

If you don’t quite understand let me use some other reasonably complex websites and give them a brief concept outline:

Facebook:

1. Users create an account

2. Users edit and customise their account.

2. Users can search and/or invite friends to join their network

3. Users can share information including photos, texts and videos with their friends

4. Users come back to see what their friends are up to and to share more information.

Ebay:

1. Users can choose to buy or sell good online

2. Buyers search for goods they like and bid on items they wish to purchase

3. Sellers advertise products they wish to sell.

4. Once an auction is finished buyers and sellers exchange payment and shipment/pickup details.

5. Buyers and sellers come back to buy or sell goods in a safe online environment.

Its excrutiatingly simple but each heading can tell quite a complex story. The task now is to flesh out each story heading in order to form a successful business.

This will move us to step 3, working out an appropriate revenue model.