Ask HN: Is my business idea viable?

[bjoernw]

Hey guys,

I respect your opinions so much that I am somewhat nervous to submit this but I would really like some feedback on a site I recently launched.

www.sponsrme.com is an email list that connects potential sponsors with people seeking sponsorship. It works pretty much like helpareporter.com If you are signed up to the sponsor list you get 1-2 emails per week with sponsorship requests. Right now I am focusing on niche events and podcast sponsorships. The way I add value is by screening incoming requests to make sure sponsors only get quality requests.

The larger idea behind this project is to get people to think about micro sponsorships as advertising opportunities that are cheap and might be more profitable than other forms of online advertising.

Now my question for you: Is this something you would use as a company? As someone looking for sponsors?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[staunch]

I think there's probably a ton of one-man businesses out there that want to buy advertising, but don't have the technical or financial means to do AdWords (or similar) effectively. If those people could risk $50-$100 on sponsoring some content to see what kind response they get, I think some would.

If you can make it so people can generate sales by spending $50-$100 at a time that would be of great value.

A newsletter seems like a very good idea, although I doubt you should restrict yourself to that. Also, I think many (not all) small businesses will want to advertise locally. You should make sure businesses only see requests for sponsorship they might conceivably sponsor.

I don't like the domain at all. I think it'd be much better to find a single made up word that's brandable, or a multi-word domain that's not a misspelling.

I don't know how you're planning to make money, but I don't think anyone would complain if you took a cut of the ad buy.

[bjoernw → staunch]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not crazy about the name/domain either. I'll try and think of something. In terms of making money I was thinking one text ad at the beginning of every email.

[JacobAldridge]

I think this is absolutely something that has potential.

What I would like to see are some examples (fine if they're hypothetical at this stage) that subtly promote the benefits of using the service, both as someone looking for sponsors (which seems fairly obvious) and as somebody who might sponsor an event.

A great example would help me get the product, if that makes sense.

[bjoernw]

http://www.sponsrme.com

[ElbertF]

You can make almost any business idea work if you're a good enough sales person, making a website and wait is not going to get you far. If you get enough people to use it, how do you plan to make money?

[bjoernw → ElbertF]

I'm actually on twitter every day monitoring people talk about needing sponsorship or receiving sponsorship from companies. I then suggest they check out this site in a non-spammy way. I pan on selling text ad space at some point.