Cliffski's Blog ? crowdsourcing a small business

Here is a crazy idea for a website that I wish existed.

Say you had a small business, probably a one-person affair.? A corner-shop, or maybe a hot dog stand, or anything where there is just one or two of you. An indie dev would be fine, actually.

Imagine a website where you could go, and anonymously (in terms of not saying exactly where your business was, or what it was called) you could lay bare ALL of the facts about your business, in terms of finances. Every day, you would upload your current sales figures. All your expenses and bills would be online (anonymized).

the site would have forums, and you would need an account to post. The idea, would basically be to help run peoples business. You could comment on their sales, and their plans. You could suggest new pricing strategies, refer them to data on other businesses you thought appropriate, and the owner could decide whether to take people?s advice or not, optionally awarding karma to people who provided decent feedback.

What?s in it for the business owner? It?s like having 1,000 varieties of the ?bloke down the pub? who has an idea on how you could do better. This time you get advice from all over the world, from all kinds of people. On the whole, people will be genuine and helpful, and if they aren?t they will get modded down anyway.

What?s in it for the forum posters? Entertainment. There are a lot of armchair experts and business-obsessed stats geeks like me. I?d love to wade through the sales stats for my local shops. Maybe I?m sad, and unusual, but I bet I?m not the only one. It?s a big internet.

What?s in it for the website owners? Money. A site like this would be a magnet for small business owners. High-value advertising screen-estate for people flogging business books and accountancy / marketing services.

Why isn?t there a site like this?

Source: http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=1245

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