Net for Business has been involved in many 'pure play' Start Ups. A 'pure play' is a pure Online business in that the whole business is on the internet. Sometimes from the "good idea" stage, other times at the "We need a VC" stage and of course the "we have the cash, now what do we do?" stage. All our experience with Start Ups tells us that nothing beats a functional specification. Our methodology comes from hard experience and using it has helped us grow.

The first rule is don't build anything until you know exactly what you want on every page on the whole site. This may sound a little too disciplined to allow creativity, and it is true we only do this with Start Ups. Our reasoning is simple,
often in the course of developing an idea and getting funding there are still holes in the business model and many of the business rules have not been completely thought through.

We recommend taking the company management offsite to talk through the project in fine detail. We take our CEO our Technical Director and a Creative Lead Designer.

We use a site map methodology that sees the home page as the center of a wheel and together with the client's management team we work from the middle out to the far extremities. Often we find that our job is simply to listen as the management team work through their individual versions of the structure, wait until there is convergence of views then document it.

The creative lead distributes a list of links of competitor sites and others relevant to the project a week prior to the conference. Once we have progressed the site map past the first three layers we include the designer and work through the sites we highlighted and any others the management team are keen on and properly brief the designer. Over a three or four day period the design is developed to the point of sign off.

During the same period the site map is developed into a functional specification and the job is ready for programmers to get started. There are several key benefits to following these guidelines:

The business itself becomes more stable because when the management team agrees on the structure and the business rules they have also agreed on the structure of the business itself along with the rules that govern it. It is impossible to specify a workflow process without a clear organisational structure.

Often development projects drag on and go well beyond budget expectations. The advantage of this planning process is that all the functionality is known and understood by the developer and the management team rather than developed ad hoc along the way.

Another advantage of "on-time on-spec" delivery is that a Start Up company can properly plan its employment strategy, its cash flow and manage its commitments to investors.

The design having been finalized so early means that marketing support material and documentation may be produced for the site from an early stage rather than at the last minute.

In general being on time and on budget makes everything easier to plan. In fact it allows a company to be proactive rather than reactive.

Good ideas are one thing but funding to support it is extremely rare. We have the experience to help your Start Up through this critical time.

We may also be able to assist with advice on funding and planning and we have significant experience as an incubator. For more details click here and select the Start Ups Manager from the pulldown menu.