Project Christopher

The Seed of An Idea

Introduction

The study of Internet marketing has been my primary activity for the past four years now and has been integral to the evolution of an ‘original’ project idea of mine. The ‘specialized’ knowledge I’ve gained has given me the confidence to put a project outline together and approach people like yourself who are interested in helping others succeed and making this world a better place for all.

THE SEED OF AN IDEA

About ten years ago I held the position of Business Analyst for a large book distribution company based in Oxfordshire. One day, while preparing a monthly report detailing all worldwide sales and distribution transactions during the previous 4 weeks, I imagined what it would be like to own a database like this, full of individuals who all shared a similar interest.

I wrote down on a large piece of lined paper, three main directivestions I felt needed answering in order to plan out how I’d go about ‘building’ such a database.

THREE PRIME DIRECTIVES

1. Building A List

• How big did I want the list to be?
• How long did I want to take to build the list?
• What method would I use to build the list?
• How would I monetize the list?

Front end

• What would I use as a ‘front-end’ to rapidly build my list?
• How much would it cost to develop the ‘front end’?
• How soon could it be developed?

2. First Find A Market

• What were the most profitable markets to get into?
• How would I choose the right market?
• How would I enter that market?
• Could I build a large, responsive list from this market?

Back end

• Did this market support ‘back-end’ products & services?
• Did ‘back-end’ products already exist in this market?
• How much would ‘back-end’ products cost to develop?
• How long would it take to develop ‘back-end’ products?

3. Don’t Re-Invent the Wheel

• Were there any existing business systems and models I could incorporate into my original project design?
• Could I set up these systems and models on my own?
• Could I operate these systems and models on my own?
• How much would these systems and models cost to acquire and implement?

DRAFTING THE OUTLINE

Using my three prime directives, associated questions and the answers they generated as guidelines, I began to get a clearer picture of what it was I wanted to accomplish and what it was going to take to achieve these goals.

I’ve drafted the following outline a number of times (probably won’t be the last) and I hope this latest version will inform and excite rather than overwhelm and confuse.

Project Christopher

The Market

As I continued my research into the ‘mobile phone user’ market, I realized this was an ever-growing market with a vast number of products and services available for ‘back-end’ marketing.  With over 3.3bn active subscribers worldwide, I felt this was an opportunity not to be missed.

I personally contacted Tomi Ahonen,* industry expert, 3G consultant and author of definitive publications documenting future technologies within the mobile phone industry and he provided me with the results of his research into industry-related statistics.

Here are links to these eye-opening documents…

• AhonenThoughts-MobileIndustrySize2008.pdf
• AhonenThoughtsMobileCommunities.pdf
• Ahonen-Mobile7thMassMedia-Excerpt.pdf

Note – Industry statistics reported in numerous leading mobile industry-related journals, books and reports are usually quoted directly from Tomi’s own research.

Tomi invited me to and attended ForumOxford – Future Mobile Technologies Conference (1 day – £225) where the latest advances in the mobile telecommunications industry would be discussed, future advances postulated and the previous year’s predictions analysed.

http://www.vimeo.com/3789169 and http://www.vimeo.com/4383359

THE BUSINESS

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Web Portal and Community Site

The business will be a web site portal to all things related to the mobile phone industry with ‘back end’ products offered through third-party providers (affiliate programs).

There is a great deal more to this project that I cannot reveal here on an open webpage however I’m happy to discuss this further via personal messaging.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far, if this sounds like something of interest to you and you’d like to learn more, please contact me with details of how you feel you could contribute to this project.

Respectfully,

Dorian