Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Some time ago, I was asked to take over and transform an online dating and matching service.  Its web site was still typical Web 1.0 style which was almost dead with very few members and traffic.

Trying to keep to my principle not to do what others were already doing, I proposed a new strategy to the owner.  However, I didn’t proceed in the venture as we couldn’t agree on the right business model.  At the end of discussion, the owner still preferred a business model 90% identical with the existing one!

Nowadays, many youngsters look for friendship and relationship on social network web sites, But besides casual relationships, there are others who look for serious life partner.  So there are many offline dating and matching services around.  Naturally, some of them get online and here come these online dating and matching web sites.

The problem is that, do people trust the Internet to look for their future husband or wife?  Most do not.  They don’t think Internet as a safe place.  Instead, they consider it full of cheaters.  The trust for the channel is just not there.  We may disagree, but this is the market perception, at least for my (older) generation.

Internet presence might work for an offline matching service using the Internet to promote their service, automate some business processes and value-add to their offline offerings.  But how about a purely online matching service?  Will it work?

If you were to operate such an online matching service, how do you make it big on the Internet?  Difficult, if not impossible.  This calls even more badly for a blue ocean strategy.  Let’s not be so bounded and bondaged by the same old thought just as other competitors in the industry.

I had a conversation recently with friend on the famous Million Dollar Homepage owned by Alex Dew from England.

Alex, a student years ago, intended to raise money for his education. He thought of a very good idea, to sell advertisement space on Internet pixel by pixel for $1 each. He successfully sold all pixels in the 1000 x 1000 pixels space on his web site, and became a millionaire!

Since then, many web sites surfaced hoping to copy his success story. Any similar attempts from Malaysia? Yes, Million Ringgit Malaysia is one of them.

Two years ago, a teenager contacted me and would like to partner up with me to develop such an idea. I immediately saw it’s a copycat idea and didn’t go ahead with him.

Years have passed by and I have not heard anyone become another Alex Tew so far, either from Malaysia or around the world.

Recently, I came across TwoMAds.com owned by two young Malaysians. It seems they not only want to go for one million, but two million! I’m not sure how they are different from the original Alex’s idea. But from the statistics they publish online, it seems they are not selling too well as yet.

But just as two years ago when the youngster proposed to me, I still maintain that such idea to earn big money through pixel advertising does not work any more, not without changing some if not most elements of the business model.

But I venture to say that it may work under at least two circumstances. Firstly, the idea is not used for profit making, but to raise fund 100% for charity or a social cause.  How about use it for venture capital for social entrepreneurs?

Secondly, the idea maybe applied to other things that may generate such income. To start with, just list down all kinds of measurements you can think of, and see how you can sell one unit each for $1. But this is still “thinking inside the box”.

Any idea?

Today I attended the “Ideas Generation Workshop” organized in the MIRC KL SME ICT Summit 2008.  All participants should agree that we have been so blessed by the sharing of the speaker David Lo from sixbrands.com, who has a wealth of experience in business, branding and marketing.

I was in the workshop to learn about how to generate and evaluates new business ideas.  Actually I already have some ideas myself,  some even few years old!  I want to know how to choose the best idea to work on, or as the speaker said, which idea to sell my house on!

At the end of session, we were told to submit a one-page summary of our business idea by next week in order to apply to MDeC’s (the organization behind MSC Malaysia) pre-seed fund for up to RM150,000 in order to further develop.  Never did I notice that the workshop was aimed for the fund applicants.

But now I’m seriously considering applying for the fund.  It’s a grant, free money!  The money will help in bootstrapping the new business and shorten the time to market.  Also, I will go through some process and learn things that I never learned.  In fact, I will be paid to learn!

Perhaps most importantly, this will instill discipline in me to act on my business idea now, rather than letting it collect dust for another few years.  Since it is a conditional grant, I must achieve certain project milestones and develop a prototype within certain time period, failing which I will need to pay back!

So now, which idea should I submit?  Well, this is not play play and I think I will submit the best one.  Wish me luck