Question from a reader: “Kim, I am thinking about starting an educational web site where I actually train people to repair certain machines. Any advice on how to approach this?”
My answer is: I would approach it as I would approach any other business. First question would be to ask if you have a business plan. If you don’t, please don’t start until you have one in place. Think of it as a road map to guide you on your business path to making money. There are enough things to worry about when starting up a business and if you want a shot at trying to stay profitable, I would suggest that you know exactly what you plan to do, what are your expectations for your return on your investment and how do you plan to get the word out to the world that you are ready to go.
Second series of questions – Are there any similar businesses out there already? How are they doing? Is there actually a market for what you are going to show? Is it something that people will pay for a subscription service or registration fee? You may be offering videos on how to make cigarbox art and they may be spectacular but if there isn’t a market for people wanting to make cigarbox art (leave alone try to find stores to get decent cigar boxes from) you are wasting your time.
If you are trying something new, have you thought about throwing some examples up on a social video sharing site like You Tube. In fact, take some time and see if what you want to offer is already up there for free. Is there any kind of volume to indicate that people will pay you for your energy and skillsets in demonstrating and teaching to them to how to do what you do. Always remember that it is tough to compete with free so you will have to offer something that will add value to what you are showing that is different than what they are getting for free.
Third series of questions – How are you going to deliver your educational materials? Streaming video? Flash? Still pictures? Text? A combination of many different techniques? How are you going to provide certification and feeback? Bulletin board system? E-mail? Somebody ready for instant message customer service support?
Are you willing to pay for 24/7 support on the internet for a live person to answer realtime questions? If not, how many hours will you want to devote to the project to support it? Are you going to have a finite class or series of sessions? If things will be going on a continuous basis, you will need to work at developing content. There is no way around it if you are trying to develop an informational database of relevant, unique content. It takes work, work and more work!
Fourth series of questions – How are you going to raise start up funding? How are you going to collect money from your clients? You don’t need anything elaborate. If you plan on offering a lot of things for sale to supplement your site, you may want to look into an online store. Most of the time something as simple as Paypal would work.
If you are finding that from your business plan that you cannot start small, be ready to draft documents and contracts to bring in partners, shareholders, you name it. Just remember that you are adding another level of complexity that you might not want to get yourself involved with. Also remember that you may end up with another level of tax complexity that you don’t need immediately. Remember my motto – keep it simple.
This is to just get you thinking. If you have anything else to add (of relevance) please post your comments below. Remember – any comments more than a week or so will not get loaded onto the post.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Kim Greenblatt answers a question on how to start an educational web business in his blog, profitable.
Tags: Business, educational, entertainment, Kim Isaac Greenblatt, online, profitable, web, Web 2.0