May 27, 2007

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Startup #1: Echonote.com - The Web 2.0 App

The idea behind Echonote spawned from having no central place to keep in touch with my family as well as my friends. Email is too cumbersome. Social networking sites are too public. Family and genealogy sites do not cater to friends. Echonote aims to provide a flexible way to communicate with who you want when you want. The end result can best be described as your own personal and private blog crossed with intermingled private forums. Have I confused you yet? Yes, well stick around as I will be sharing much more as we get closer to release.

Below is a very brief and light business plan:

The Moviegoers: Friends and family who need an easy way to stay in touch with each other.

Goals:

• Provide a platform for me to communicate and share with my entire extended family as well as friends.
• 10k active users by year’s end.
• $500/month in revenues by year’s end.

The Dough: This startup will involve the most amount of capital by far. The logo and front end design alone have accumulated to just under $3500. Throw in hosting, marketing and a few other miscellaneous items and this project could push close to $5000.

The A-Team: I will providing most of the back end PHP development. David Pache has come up with a brilliant logo and Igoo will be developing the front end user experience.

Say it Loud: Echonote is built upon the fact that users will invite friends and family to the site so that they can share and communicate with those people. Thus, word of mouth will be the primary means of gaining new users. Secondarily, online advertising will be targeted at women 35-50 years old.

That about sums up Startup #1: Echonote. Be sure to subscribe to the feed to keep tabs on echonote as well as see what other startups I come up with.