Have a Great Business Idea and Need to Raise Funding?

One of the things I’ve noticed about domain investors is that they aren’t short on ideas for businesses on their domain names. People seem to buy domain names with a specific idea in mind for them, although many either lack the funding to build out the idea, the drive to build it, or they lack the experience to move forward with their project.

CNNMoney.com has a neat article about 6 startups (which I had never heard of), and the article discusses where the founders came up with the funding to bring their idea to fruition. There are some neat ideas on where to turn if your business concept needs some start-up capital. The CNNMoney.com article covers:

  • AirBnB
  • Makerbeam
  • Boutique Larrieux
  • Everlater
  • Measy.com
  • The Extraordinaries

If you happen to be someone with a great idea that just needs some capital to make it happen, hit me up. I am interested to learn about your idea and may be able to help with funding – or may be able to put you in touch with someone else who can help.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

30 COMMENTS

  1. Elliot,

    Would love to discuss PostRetirementJobs.com FindaCollegeLoan.com even two sites that are currently live, have real merit and potential but that are currently not being fully monetized and a third site YouAreDiscovered.com in desparate need of outside assistance and funding to launch as a your-tube like talent agency/portal.

    You have my contact info. Would love to hear from you

  2. Hi Elliot,

    I have domain name Falsifications.com, which I think could be a nice online portal for falsification facts all over the world.
    What do you think?

  3. Elliot,

    I am involved on two fronts on the internet, one is virtual currency and asset trading which I have been involved with now for 11 years and have a very well known business in this space now which has been live for 6 years. The other is the adult industry which we are pushing a totally new product out that will prove to be very big. We are looking for funding and networking, please drop me a line if any of this is of interest.

  4. Elliot,

    I own realestateinspection.com. Currently I have all licensed REI’s in the page. However, the potential for this domain name and website are infinite…

    I would be interested in talking about a deal to build this and expand it.

  5. Elliot,

    I applaud you for this effort and post. My company has owned JvDeal.com and JvDeals.com.

    Many years ago I developed it into a deal maker site where just this type of meet-up could occur. I have since taken both offline due to lack of market and lack of time.

    Still interested in doing such a venture if you or anyone has time and interest in the project.

    SA

  6. Great read and blog post Elliot. I think you are on to something.

    Couple of interesting responses. Hope you can find a winning partnership!

    All the best

  7. Hi, Let me toss my project into the hat:

    AlgebraAid.com – my father’s project, but it’s a family affair. 3GR would manage the project and administer the funds; LouiseMarketing (“cooperating party”) will offer domains:

    ArithmeticStudy.com
    Arithmetical.net
    GradePointAverage.net
    SumLovin.com
    GeometryGuide.com
    TrigTutorial.com I think there’s one I left out . . .

    13% is finished; a quote was offered by a programmer for shared copyright: $6,000; plus many NDA’s signed by Rent-A-Coder members to work on project, but I had canceled the proposal, because I like the first guy. His vision of what the software could be was way above what I thought I requested, plus, he can do the job. I’ll email you with some specifics . .

  8. @ Everyone

    Thanks for the comments and emails. I want to be more specific in this comment.

    If you have a business plan that you think will be successful, but you are just lacking the funding to make it happen, please be in touch. IMO, ANY domain name can be used for a business. However, it’s the business plan and the person/people behind that plan that will make it a success.

    You would obviously have to be 100% committed to this particular project to make this business a success. I am not looking to invest in a project so the person can go find someone else to run it. The person/people should absolutely be passionate about their business but just lack the funds to see it through.

    I have enough of my own domain names that could be built into great websites, but I just don’t have the time to see them through or manage them once they are launched 🙂

  9. Elliot,

    While your funding concept is strong it won’t work …here is why

    (speaking as an experienced lone business person that has enjoyed a fair amount of success).

    What entrepreneurs need in most cases is

    a) funding
    b) specific skills that compliment their own or fill knowledge gaps i.e. accounting, sales, etc.

    The person or people that understand this and can provide both will win.

    One specific reason that I havenot prsued funding is that I lack the skills or time to do anything beneficial with the new found funds.

    To better understand my point consider what the entrepreneur will do with the funding they receive. Most often it will be to hire or emploees or contractors or consultants to perform duties that they cannot.

    What would I do with a sudden influx of funds? Hire telemarketers, sales people and cuomer service reps to handle the increase in business.

    All skills that I consider paramount to our companies growth but activities that I do not hve time to engage in at a level of comittment which would bring measurable results without negatively impacting my performance in other business roles that I hold.

    I suggest to you that within the domain industry there are multiple people with skillsets they are not using since doing so individually would not lead to any outcome.

    The real opportunity here is to connect people wih skillsets with othrs that need those skill sets for a piec of the finished profitable business IMO.

  10. “People seem to buy domain names with a specific idea in mind for them, although many either lack the funding to build out the idea, the drive to build it, or they lack the experience to move forward with their project.”

    All of the above, Elliot.

    OK. Here are a couple targeted DIRECTORY/SERVICE type names crying out not to be just parked pages.
    (In order of preference.)

    JusticeofthePeace.com
    ContactOwner.com
    FourStarRestaurants.com
    AlPorMayor.com (Wholesale in Spanish)
    Printouts.com

    • @ Tornero

      I don’t think it’s worth anything to be honest. Maybe WelcomeToTheInternet.com would be worth something, although its kinda long, but the other name doesn’t make much sense at all in my opinion.

  11. Thanks Elliot.

    I have several travel websites as examples in my mind.

    Though I am looking for some one who can take care of all this plans and funding if possible.

    I don’t know if this is possible.

  12. you seemed to have opened up pandoras box and are destined to have almost everyone with a domain send you a request to build them a great business…good luck with this, it was a noble effort to start with….

  13. @ don

    Very true… but I am pretty clear that I am looking for people with a solid business plan who just lack the funds to see it through. It’s similar to when I ask for a specific type of domain name and get a ton of other names that aren’t close to what I requested.

  14. How about a development firm dedicated to serving domainers and all the people in this post? :). I have the marketing strategy, business plan, and client base. Just no time.

    It seems like any time a business opens up, geared towards the domainers, it doesn’t last long. And if it does last, often times they produce lowest common denominator/outsourced work. I figured someone would have capitalized on this by now. Who is the go-to development company in the domainer world?

    Maybe that should be saved for another post!

  15. Hello Elliot,

    My name is Adi. Wow…this is great idea. I have a domain apparel related domain Apparel Ratings (dot) com. May be you interesting for this one. Just email me and we can speak about idea behind this domain. Thank’s before.

  16. @ Elliot, I get maybe it’s not your league to invest $10,000, but it doesn’t follow everyone’s suggestion lacks a solid business plan. I asked you for feedback why my idea isn’t a good candidate, and since you didn’t respond, all I can conclude is you’re only looking for the easy returns with zero risk.

  17. @ Louise

    That would be an incorrect assumption.

    I have been inundated with replies and unless you would prefer a quick “no” without even looking at what you sent, then it may take some time to do my due diligence.

    In addition, I am taking a lot of things into consideration – especially the person whose behind the idea. If I lack the expertise to contribute valuable insight, the person I am funding better have the expertise. Why would I invest $xxx,xxx in a crapshoot business plan when I can successfully buy and flip domain names as I consistently do? I know my risk tolerance and woudn’t invest in a half baked business idea if I have other, better prospects.

    BTW, as you can tell, I haven’t logged into the site you sent me yet, so I don’t know anything about your idea.

  18. @ Adi

    Like I mentioned before, I have a lot of names that could be developed into something. I buy all of my names because I have a vision for them.

    However, it takes more than just money and an idea. It takes those things, but there’s also a lot of hard work and the proper execution that goes into making a good idea a profitable business.

  19. Great line of discussion. The world of venture capital and entrepreneurship is fascinating.

    It is too bad there aren’t whole episodes of Shark Tank online as this show is a great primer for people seeking start up capital. You tube has many full clips from Shark Tank:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sharktank

    It will be interesting how Test Track does at Traffic as well.

  20. Elliot,

    I am looking for an investor partner for the development of the following domains all registered in mid 90’s

    all have relevance to current needs of large prospective users.

    1) eFreelance.com
    a market, like eBay for freelance talent of wider reach than odesk, guru, elance – with multilegged revenue stream

    2) elderhomecare.com
    3) elderdaycare.com

    lead generation for rapidly increasing demographic

    4) intheknow.com
    super news aggregator for business intelligence, data maning, or celebrity news

    with services and products relevant to focus of sites

    if there is interest in discussing any of the above opportunities, please let me know

  21. @ Elliot, sorry. If you have time, send feedback . . .

    Talk about “expertise,” how could someone with an idea that requires just a small amount of capital to make it a profitable business not appreciate guidance? For example, AlgebraAid might be great math tutorial software that would become a household name, but the inventor couldn’t conceive every marketing avenue or potential pitfall, which gap your expertise might fill . . . Proverbs states, “In the abundance of counselors there is wisdom” – wouldn’t you want to invest where your hands-on direction is appreciated?

  22. Hi Elliot,

    I’m the owner of RaisingSmallSouls.com and I have a fantastic idea to expand my site’s stickiness factor, viral traffic, and up my relationship with my 60K newsletter subscribers and 25K monthly unique visitors.

    I actually have lots of ideas, here’s the one that’s not letting me sleep at night these days:

    I want to create 2-minute humorous videos on a daily basis giving parents information and guidance about raising children in a fun manner. Something similar to RocketBoom.com. The funds would be used to pay writers to inject humor into my parenting ideas and for the video production and editing. A modest four-figure investment would probably be sufficient to create 2 months of weekly videos to test the market.

    PS A neighbor of mine, Lonnie Borck, recommended your blog, and I’ve just read every post up to this one. Great blog; thank you!

  23. Hello Elliot,

    I might be able to help you and others. My numerous funding sources fund projects worldwide, for startup and existing companies, daily.

    Please go to my web site, http://ifindfunding.blogspot.com/ and read through it. There is deliberately advice provided by the funding sources to help applicants before they apply for funding in addition to detailed criteria from the funding sources as to the types of projects they are seeking for profitable investments. The more you know about the funding process, and the better you understand the process, start to finish, the higher the probability that you will receive funding, I cannot stress this enough, it makes an enormous difference.

    I help businesses receive funding they need to create businesses, purchase businesses or grow existing businesses. I also help sellers close their sales by providing financing for their buyers. You can see some of the projects I have available for funding.

    You can also see advice and criteria if you wish to apply for funding. There are no maximums for project funding.

    Send an e-mail to me at the e-mail address listed at the web site.

    Thank you very much.

    Brian

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