Thursday, December 15, 2011

Day 25 - When to Quit

I spent an hour on the phone yesterday with a couple of entrepreneurs.  They have worked for two years trying to create a "tribe" in a relatively competitive internet sector.  On the plus side, they own a premium URL and have developed a decent looking website for not too much money.  On the minus side, they haven't gotten any real traction. 

They are tired and are hoping to get a quick cash hit by selling the business.

The URL is the most valuable asset of the business, but won't fetch too much money in today's market.  They really don't have a business so I am pretty confident that no one is going to swoop in and offer them any real value for their hard work.  What to do?

The catch-22 of their situation is that the business isn't valuable unless it has a tribe and it won't have a tribe until it is valuable.  My entrepreneurs have not figured out their market nor how to satisfy it.  Until they do, I think they will be either forced to take crumbs for the URL or face the prospect of shutting the business down.  I sent them back to look at their market and start testing to figure out what is drawing traffic.

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