Unofficial Stanford Technology Review
Business Plan:
My mission for my website is simple; yet, with a little advertising also potentially profitable. Stanford Students need a place where they can get information about what type of computer, digital music player, and electronic work best on campus. As a tech savvy Stanford student I have the unique opportunity to provide information to prospective freshman, less knowledgeable students, and perhaps faculty. I plan to accomplish this by creating a website, which through weekly updates and an extensive archive; will provide a comprehensive summary of technology options.
Because advertising only generates revenue if there are a large number of users, there is no point to adding ads to my sight until it becomes highly trafficked. As a result, I will need initial capital to purchase web space and hosting for my site. It will take approximately six months for my site to reach a volume of traffic necessary to start creating revenue through advertising. At that time, I will start using Google Ads, and attempt to get a deal with Dell to get money for referrals. Although this site is meant to generate profit, profits will not come at the expense of giving bad advice. All the information will be unbiased, and advertisements will be clearly marked, so that users can easily identify them.
After one year, the site will be fully functional and self sustaining, in terms of generating profit. However, because of the nature of the site, continual updates will be required in order to assure that the information is up to date and accurate. As a result, continued reinvestment of advertising revenue will be required in order to assure the site will be maintained. Depending the amount of revenue generated, it will become possible to pay students to write for the review. Also, once established as a reputable website, another means of generating revenue would be to sell articles to the Stanford Daily.
The next five years should offer significant profits as usage rises. Increased hosting costs will be offset by increased ads revenue because ads generate revenue based upon the level of traffic. Once I graduate, I will either have to sell the website to Stanford, other students, or an outside business because I will be unable to properly manage it.
