Re: Looking for a site? Read me. If not, delete and dont flame.u

From: Jeremy Elson (jelson@blaze.cs.jhu.edu)
Date: 06/26/96


> > If you don't have the money to advertise through more conventional
> > means, you shouldn't be trying to run a business, and I certainly
> > would recommend that people avoid your "business".
> 
> So in other words, if you do not have lots of money for an ad campaign
> before the business gets off the ground, then you shouldnt be running a
> business?

That is correct.

> That's a bit of a cach 22 wouldnt you say? Need money to advertise
> to start the business, but need the bisuness to get the money.

That's silly.  Everyone knows that IT TAKES MONEY TO MAKE MONEY.  You can't
expect to start a busines without any money to start it with!  If you have no
money at all, it doesn't make any sense to start a business.  Take out a
loan.  You have to *start* with money, and use it to create a business
that will hopefully make more money than you started with.

I have been running a business for 6 years.  For the first 3 years we
did not want to spend any money on advertising for fear that if the
business failed, we'd lose all the money.  Guess what?  We didn't get
any customers.  Then we realized that the old saying is true: it takes
money to make money.  We got $20k in loans, bought the equipment we needed,
spent a lot on real advertising, and got customers.  If you're even halfway
serious about trying to start a business as a MUD-oriented ISP, you'll have
to do the same thing.  You can't expect to start a business without spending
any money in the process.

Also, why are you simply brushing aside people's questions about reliability
guarantees of your system?  You simply said "well the system will never go
down."  Wrong.  It will.  Will people get reimbursed if it's down for an
hour?  How about a day?  How about a week?  Will you do backups?  How often?
How will you compensate people if you fail to do backups and a disk dies,
and your clients lose a year's worth of code?  (Remember you have to spend
money to buy a backup drive!)

Jeremy



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