

Looking for advices, ideas...a partner maybe? - MarcoITA

Hi all guys,
I'm the founder of www.pet-files.com, a social network for pet lovers. It currently allows users to create profile pages for their pets, with unlimited photos, videos and facts. It also allows to create slideshows you can embed into an existing blog, or keep a blog directly on pet-files.<p>I'm currently looking for new ideas and advices to make it evolve and become more popular. I'd be also interested in establishing a partnership with someone that likes the idea, and want to expand it.<p>What do you think? Is there anyone out there who likes this?
Thanks for your time and consideration, I hope to read some answers soon!
Best,
- Marco (Italy)
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marc_fawzi
Hey Marco,

Why are you looking for 1 person as a partner when you can "crowdsource" it?
i.e. get as many people as possible (your friends, family, friends of friends,
random strangers with pets, etc) to contribute ideas.

Make the target users your partner.

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MarcoITA
Well, I'm already doing that :) But people with experience in growing an idea
from the entrepreneur startup might have more insight on this...

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ideas101
congratulations for beautiful web-site .... though there are too many things
on the home page - you may want to tweak it so that it doesn't look crowded
... also if u r in italy then may be u will require someone to do off-line
marketing for u in north america (the biggest pet market) ... by the way u
need to provide ur email add so that enthusiast can contact u.

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MarcoITA
Tanks for your post. I'd actually need someone in the USA that can take care
of the marketing. Interested people can contact me through the website's
Contact page

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ideas101
what's your marketing strategy for offline and online? u may also hire a small
mktg/pr firm but they need to be paid in cash ... which i dont think u will
opt for???

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MarcoITA
The offline strategy (which I haven't started yet) would be marketing the site
at dog/cat/pet shows, competitions and meeting.

Online would be maybe sponsoring a few good sites, but mostly relying on the
word of mouth of pet enthusiasts that discover the site, and embed thier pets'
slideshow into their blog (the slideshow links to their full profile page of
course). I'd also like to grow the number of people blogging on pet-files,
which would bring new readers, and possibly new writers

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ideas101
do u have budget for these strategies? are u generating any revenue at
present?

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MarcoITA
The site is pretty new, and I currently have zero ads on it. I plan to put
Google Ads on it in the future, but only when I'll have a bigger traffic.

Budget for the marketing is one of the things I'd like to get from a partner,
besides some help on strategic guidance :)

