Member-only story
Evolution of the online business idea.
The work that goes into taking your idea from paper to reality.
Please note: This is part 2 of 6. You can read Part 1 here.
WHO”S GOING TO BUILD THIS?
In order to build the site, I needed to find people who could get it done. I was bootstrapping this so there was no budget per se. I had to be creative.
I interviewed 3 different web development companies. I showed them my idea and tried to get a sense of what their skill set was. All three had different price structures.
The site had to be totally custom. One company wanted $100,000 to build it. Another said they charged $5,000 per iteration and he estimated we’d need only 2 iterations to get it live.
Yeah right. I knew better from my own experience that it was going to be way more than 2 iterations.
One day I called a Colombian friend of mine named Andres who knew how to build things online, and he had top-notch design skills. We went to lunch. I showed him the idea and said I was looking for someone to help me build it out.
He said… “dude, I got the guy for you”.
You know when your friend starts the sentence with “dude” in that deep intonation “dude” voice that he is serious.
My friend set up a meeting with his Colombian friend Alejandro. We met over lunch and I showed the high level idea to him. He was curious and interested.
Alejo was also a Foodie and a world traveler like me. We both new many countries and were both in tune with a wide array of food experiences from low to high. This was looking very promising.
I invited Alejandro to my house to go a bit more into the detail of the idea, the math, the market, and see what sort of interest there was on his end to build it out.
Alejandro said to me “I love this idea and I have launched over 600 websites in my life, but they’re all owned by other people.” He went on. “I can build this custom site but I don’t want to be a vendor to you, I want to partner with you on it”.
