Need opinion on an idea

DKLS

mkooo wrote: »

Sounds good, I just need a bit more support at the moment like funding etc.. for those kind of things.

You may be surprised at how little you need to run one.

BobQ

Mistral001 wrote: »

Sorry why are you sorry? Anyway apology accepted.

I mean that you do not understand the mentoring process. It is where people who have a reputation for being good at what they do and have a proven track record as well are invited to help out giving young people a leg up. They do it for no money except maybe expenses. The young people usually already have the idea, but just want help with general things you need to know in business as well as perhaps strategy and marketing etc.
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I have no idea if its a good idea but its you that does not understand what mentoring is about.

"Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be." Eric Parsloe, The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring

It does require expertise and experience in a given field but the idea that it cannot be done for money is absurd.

mkooo

BobQ wrote: »

I have no idea if its a good idea but its you that does not understand what mentoring is about.

"Mentoring is to support and encourage people to manage their own learning in order that they may maximise their potential, develop their skills, improve their performance and become the person they want to be." Eric Parsloe, The Oxford School of Coaching & Mentoring

It does require expertise and experience in a given field but the idea that it cannot be done for money is absurd.

I know that what is the issue? That is what it would be....
I am not offering to give someone a holiday to france, we are offering to mentor someone, and who said it had to be paid in cash?

intrench

To me, its a great idea in principle and i think you are right trying to reach parents with your message to get to the kids.

If you can develop some income alongside your campaign, then more power to you.

It would be far better to get a celebrity on board to offer mentoring if you can, but in reality may be very unlikely unless you put yourself in the same space as them (conferences/exhibitions) etc

I would concentrate on a campaign that targets parents in your local community, rather than bothering with online.

Start local, test your concept locally and then broaden out from there.

Good Luck

S

mkooo wrote: »

Hey guys,

The below drivel is regarding a site that aims to help young people to build their own websites, apps, games, instead of playing them! Make money online legitimately and start web-businesses.

So we have an idea of a competition on our website whereby the winner of the competition would win mentoring over skype or msn etc.. for 3 months 1-3 hours a weekfrom an experienced entrepreneur who has experience and knowledge, now the entry method we want to use is to buy our hosting which is £1, £3, £5, per month, so they can pay monthly or for a year, now the idea behind it is to encourage young people, probably more teenagers but I guess it applies to anyone that wants to start a web-business/project, is that we want to encourage them to invest their own money as the entry method, either way they get web hosting for a website and some other extra features, and they get support in our forum if they win or not.

We will be giving away a few other bits and also some helpful resources for a runner up.

What I want to know is do you like the idea and what advice would you give as regards to getting support from people that have authority with parents/teenagers/news publications, I have had trouble in the past with news publications however I think I just did not get my message across correctly.

A main message to parents is, instead of consuming games, websites etc.. is that their children/teenagers can make the stuff themselves, and they often have the skills anyway!


The mentor is not a celebrity or anything but I don't see that as an issue.

paddyrg

mkooo wrote: »

It is to sell hosting but they get support in our forum anyway, the competition is a bonus.

If it is a sales incentive, will the cost of the sales make the competition worthwhile to administer properly? Are you hoping to get say 2000 teenagers to commit to a pound a month? Or 200? Or 20? A fiver a month is a LOT for hosting, even three quid seems unattractive compared with a free hosting package from one of dozens of options. Is the competition attractive enough?

Were I still a teenager, I wouldn't be interested myself to be honest unless you had a proven track record in business yourself, in an industry I cared about.

Also, bear in mind, not many under-18's will be able to pay online via credit card, paypal, etc., and also you cannot hold them to contractual terms, so a 12-month signup may only be a one off £1 payment in exchange for your offer to mentor for a few hours a week...

Honestly, I think the idea is a total dud myself. Hope you prove me wrong!

mkooo

True but free hosting shows non-commitment, and teens need to be encouraged to invest their money, or is it better to play around with free hosting to host illegal/unethical sites and not commit?

Go and set up a highstreet shop with £5 a month then if you think that is a lot of money.

Mistral001

mkooo wrote: »

True but free hosting shows non-commitment, and teens need to be encouraged to invest their money, or is it better to play around with free hosting to host illegal/unethical sites and not commit?

Go and set up a highstreet shop with £5 a month then if you think that is a lot of money.

I think paddyrg has a good point about the credit card as usually the parents will have to be asked to pay the money through their credit card. Even if it is only a few £'s, they will still want to know exactly what it is for and they will definitely be wary.

In fact I cannot see any parent allowing their kid to use their credit card for what you are proposing as it is something that firstly they will probably not understand and even if they do understand it they will immediately be suspicious of it because it is so cheap and might look like a way of getting people sucked into bigger things or a scam just to get credit card details etc.

There might be a way of making it work and you just have not hit upon it yet. I would keep trying. in fact I would not be too afraid to try things and fail a few times. that is the way most people in business do it. however, as long as you do not make any long term commitments. I see that as maybe a problem here. If you spent a lot of time and effort setting it up and only got a few people involved you would be compelled to still provide them with what you promised them which I understand is a service lasting months or maybe even years.