A Partnership and the Early Stages of a New Site

By
Kirsty
– October 18, 2010Posted in: Web Development

For the first time I’m about to work on a website with one or two other people and I’m just a little bit excited about this whole idea. Normally I’m a control freak with my website business and I enjoy taking on all the work involved. But this time around it makes complete sense to bring some buddies on board, mostly because they know their stuff but also because they have lots of potential advertising contacts that will make the difference between an interesting and helpful site and one that actually makes us some cash.

The website is about living in Kigali and it’ll be aimed at the expat crowd here. It’s a site that I think will fill a huge gap, help a lot of people, and be really fun to work on. At the moment the only decent information available about living in Kigali is found in an unruly Yahoo Group. It’s really popular (and needed) and I’m pretty sure every expat it town knows about it and uses it. It’s how you find a house, buy and sell anything, learn about events and so on. The problem is that Yahoo Groups suck as a platform for this sort of thing. Old posts are buried and replies don’t match up with the original posts which means a lot of digging for the full story. It’s serving its purpose, but not very well.

So me with my internet marketing brain spotted this immediately and a few days after I arrived, I registered the domain, brainstormed a few ideas, set up a shell of a WordPress site and forgot about it because I have a zillion other things to work on. Plus I didn’t know (and still don’t know) enough about the city to be able to write a good enough site. I’ve had the idea in the back of my mind since I got here and, after a meeting with a couple of people who work for a small NGO here about how to improve their own website, I mentioned the idea casually. They were both impressed and wanted to work on it with me. We had a bit of a brainstorming session of ideas but then I went to Kenya, one of them returned to the US and another went on holiday back to the States to return in November. So nothing happened but I’ve still been thinking about it on and off since then.

Last week I mentioned my site idea to some friends who were like ‘what about us?’ After thinking about it for a bit I was amazed I hadn’t thought of them in the first place. The idea is that I’ll be the person who will set up the site, build links, make sure it ranks with Google, come up with ideas for how to monetise it and all the behind-the-scenes stuff that I love so much. My partner in crime is a friend who has lived in Kigali for a year, plans to stick around for awhile and knows loads about the city. She’s also an aspiring writer, super creative and hilarious and I think she’ll be able to come up with some fantastic content and make the site something that is informative and interesting but also really fun. Plus another equally hilarious friend is keen to help out as well and has lots of great ideas.

We’re also trying to rope a third friend into the mix who will be our advertising guy. He’s Rwandan, he knows lots of people and he’ll be able to pull it off, I think. The only sticking point is that he’s working on a similar site idea (although aimed less at Kigali expats and more at locals Rwanda-wide) so it’s sort of a conflict of interest for him. But I’m hoping that once our site gets going, he’ll be eager to jump on board.

The reason I think this site will work so well is because there’s just such a huge, gaping hole where there should be lots of information about moving to Kigali. True, the market is small, but people are arriving and leaving Kigali all the time and there’s really not a lot of information for them beyond what they ask on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree or the Yahoo Group. There are a few blogs and other sites around but people have so many questions when moving to a new city (let alone a city in Africa) that a dedicated site for this sort of information will be well received.

Plus, anytime you have a stranglehold on a market, that’s a powerful thing. I have no doubt that I can get everyone coming to Kigali to stumble onto this website either through Google or word of mouth. The expat market here is a lucrative one and if we can get them reading and returning to this website (which I think we can) then that’s a huge selling point. I know that there are potential advertisers out there because there’s already an expat-oriented quarterly print magazine (fortunately for us, their website sucks) that’s packed with ads that we can use as a phone book of sorts for finding our own advertisers.

I’m not under any illusions that this will make any of us rich but I do think, based on the ad rates the magazine charges, it could eventually bring in an extra thousand or two between us each month. Plus I’m also excited at providing a great source of information for a city I really like and working with friends on this project will be something new for me that I think could be a lot of fun.

So that’s how my brain works when thinking up a new project. This is all early stages and it might not be wise talking about it until the site is more established (and built!) but I also wanted to let you guys see how the site takes shape from close to the start. From idea to build to filling it with content. Plus the thing is already miraculously ranking on Google’s first page so people are going to find it regardless. Letting the cat out of the bag is a great way to motivate us to get moving.

What do you think about the idea? Any thoughts? Concerns? Advice? I’m hard at work and hoping to have it up and running with some helpful content in a couple of weeks so if you’re considering a move to Kigali (although I’m fairly certain that none of you are) then stay tuned!

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