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Ask HN: Review my business idea please.

6 points by user080142 ↗ HN
So I have a small idea. I am not going to get rich on it, but this will be my first business so I am OK with total failure too.

Please tell me if this is stupid or what. Also, please give me any other comments or thoughts you have. Is this similar to some other idea? If so, which one?

The idea: Pay $1 to promote your business to 1,000 people. So you go to my website, pay $1 to tell a joke/anecdote/story to 1,000 people and your product/service is advertised to these 1,000 people. The people reading the joke pay nothing. They come to the website to read good quality jokes.

Here's an example:

Hello, I am Janet Wooster from Brooklyn, NY. I have been building iPhone Apps for small business since 2009. Many satisfied customers. Please call me at 555-5555 for a free consultation.

Here's my joke for you: A train was crossing America. One of the engines broke down. "No problem," the engineer thought, and carried on at half power. Then, farther down, the other engine broke down, and the train came to a standstill. So the engineer made the following announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed, and we will be stuck here for some time. The good news is that you decided to take the train and not fly."

So, bottom line question, will you pay $1 to tell 1,000 people about your product/service in exchange for telling them a good joke/story/anecdote?

17 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 51.2 ms ] thread
codegeek
How would you ensure that I, a business, is getting something in return ? Yes I can pay that dollar and even come up with a joke. How does that relate to what I do as a business ? Why would a consumer select me just because I shared a great joke ? What value am I providing ?
user080142
It's definitely not targeted advertising like AdWords. It's kinda like the billboard on the highway. Everyone sees it and some people will find it useful.

I have a suspicion that if you told 10,000 people (completely randomly) about your product/service, 1-2 might want to learn more. No? Or, am I completely off base here?

civilian
How would you find the joke-readers/potential-customers?
user080142
Through word-of-mouth and social media.

My thinking is as follows: People naturally want to share a good joke/anecdote. If I make the sharing frictionless, then good jokes should multiply viewers organically. No?

I have a feeling that people will return to a good joke site habitually.

The big "if" for me (I know, I know. Like all entrepreneurs, my Achilles heel is that I am too optimistic!) is how we get the good, the very best jokes on a regular basis.

For example, I don't know if you have read any good jokes lately, but I read the "the waiter and the spoon" joke on Slashdot a few days back and could help guffawing:

yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2988669&cid=40695313

mapster
It sounds like you want to create another social Ad platform and your marketing plan is based on social media and word of mouth (because it will go viral, right?). Sorry, I'm out.
aragnu
I think this could work, if executed well. The only way to really know is to try :)
user080142
So, would you pay $1 to tell 1,000 people a joke and then a bit about your product? Would you pay $2? $3? $10?

Just testing the possible price points.

volandovengo
$1 is really not much to pay for your time in coming up with it. $10 would be more appropriate.

People spend advertising dollars in weird ways, so who am I to judge what people would pay for. Check out iwearyourshirt.com to see just how haphazardly they are spent!

cmaxwell
Boiling this down you are essentially talking about the same business idea that 99% of the internet runs on. Provide content and make money via advertisements.

Only difference is that you have to go through the legwork of finding your advertisers where as a typical joke site would just show affiliate ads and/or ad words.

I think the time you are spending finding advertisers to sponsor your jokes would negate any extra revenue you would get vs. just letting a ad network find the advertisers for you.

If your content is actually good and you execute this well and you manage to get traffic then you probably want to focus on your joke writing and not finding advertisers.

user080142
Sorry, you misunderstood. My bad writing.

I am not writing the jokes. I am asking people to spend $1 to share their joke with 1,000 people and then tell these readers about their product/service.

Does that make better sense?

cmaxwell
Understand the idea now. It isn't so much different then the model that article sites use. Content providers post an article (provide content) and get the opportunity to link/ad back to their businesses. Then the article sites make money by having ad network ads all over the place. Maybe consider ditching the $1 and introducing your own ads. That way you will get a lot more content and you won't have to worry so much about building a relationship with your advertisers.
cmaxwell
Also there are a million joke sites out there you would have to either pick a very specific niche that isn't already packed full or you would have to have something that differentiates you from the other million. If you could get a somewhat famous comedian to write some jokes for you and get them to plug it in their shows and/or via their social media then you might get traffic. Would probably cost you more than the traffic is worth though.
true_religion
What you've described is basically $1/CPM ads on a joke site with the added cost of having to come up with a Joke yourself.

I don't think many advertisers will go for this. Currently $1+/CPM is relegated for really invasive ads like popups.

So you'd have to make the site mostly ad, and less joke.

orangethirty
This would work if you could really target people. Example: Women 33-36, have a Visa, married, children below 5 years old, own a house, own a car, work full-time, and make in average $30k a year. I would pay a dollar for a thousand of them.
Mitchella
For me the problem is not so much the lack of targeting the ads for the business but instead the traffic you'll receive. Lets say you call some businesses in your area and they jump on board since it's a dollar, very little to lose if it doesn't produce any results, perhaps 10 of these businesses decide to do it and 10 more randomly from the internet(most of which will be spammers trying to get hits for their site). You've now spent time building, making sales calls, etc. to earn ~$20. You now also have to get 20000 impressions to these jokes. Since odds are that the business owners go the quick route and just nab a popular joke from another site (copied content, google doesn't like that) you're not going to have high rankings and are in direct competition with large humour sites that everyone knows by name because of their high brand recognition.

Point being: regardless of price points, CPM, what business advertises, etc. it's highly unlikely that you'll get large amounts of people looking for jokes traffic as well as business looking to advertise this way. Don't get me wrong though, if you want to build it then do just that but do it because you want to or keep working out some of the kinks until you have a strong model. At this stage though it is not really a 'business' and is a flawed model when it comes to CPM prices and potential revenue.

captaincrunch
Sounds like a Reddit you'd have to pay to post on.
imtu80
lol...it depends how funny your jokes are. I would pay $1 to spread words about my app to additional 1000 people.

I like all the $1 app ideas. Just for the fun I made $1 site http://www.mostpopularpicture.com. Change the picture for a $1.