What skills are needed for a web startup?

Question

Hello,

I am making a team with my friend, my cousin and my brother, I want to make a small group that will create a network of websites on different topics. I am a web developer, thinking more like a programmer and doing mostly web applications(web based programs) than public websites, now the members of the team never worked on a website before, so I would like them each to learn a different skill, I know it doesn't take just a developer to create, maintain, and make successfull a website, so I am asking you what skills should they learn?

• Marketing? promoting the website?
• Content writing? (I am thinking about making web 2.0 websites so content will mostly be generated by users)
• Design?
• Programming?
• User interface?
• Accesibility?
• What else? Wich skills are the most important?

I have already done some websites like:
http://www.rogrup.com/ - Post free advertising/announce (sorry for bad english) - has about 30 visits and 5 posts per day
http://www.crazypoems.net/ - Post poems written by you, I got about 100 members here but there are times when they post and times when they don't

The above were two examples of my websites as a programmer, I don't have much time to invest in promoting and entertain visitors so that is the main reason why I want to make a team, so I can keep projects updated and 'alive'.

Thanks for anyone who can give me an advice on this!

Answer 1

Design and Usability - If a site is not 'nice' looking or easy to find things, I do not use it. I will find some other site that is.

Answer 2

Business Skills
all of those soft skills that no one taught you in college. No one is going to want to work with you if you can't conduct yourself professionally.

Also, you need to have a good sense about money and how to spend it wisely.

I know right now it's just a fun thing to keep you interested in your sites, but these skills are important if you wake up one day and realize you want to do this full time.

Answer 3

Listen to the Stackoverflow Podcasts. They talk extensively about all the issues they went through to design and bring this site online.

Also, in addtion to those issues you have already raised, you will need to learn about:

• Security (XSS vulnerabilities, for example)
• Database Design (especially normalization & optimization)
• Scalability
• Community Building
• Marketing, SEO (search engine optimization)
• Funding (raising capital)

Answer 4

Communication Skills

Answer 5

Funny, there's no mention of footing the bill. One of your partners could be completely hands off, while investing funds to bootstrap your business.

Answer 6

If I read your post correctly, you're trying to build a group of sites in the vein of About.com, right? Somethings you'll need:

• Accessibility -- make the site KISS simple to access and use.
• User interface -- easy to use, easy to figure out what's what.
• Database -- definitely a must for Web 2.0. Pay particular attention to scalability. Marketing -- Need to draw users.

Answer 7

We have a similar setup, me and 2 buddies. What we got and use in accordance to skills are the following:

Me

Development

Server-side programming

CSS / Html / JS (jQuery)

Database management

Friend 1

Business-management

Customer-contact

Marketing

Requirements analysis

User interface

Friend 2

Basic HTML skills

Design

"Slavery-work" ;)

---

Now, this setup works great for us. I can outsource simple development-tasks to friend 2 (last example was a complex HTML map). Friend 1 handles the customers, and derives requirements for the site. From these requirements he draws pictures of how the site should look like, and the 3 of us takes these drawings up for discussion.

What you need is a businessguy, a computerguy and a marketingguy! Someone who knows about economics, taxes, laws, and the likes, a person to handle marketing - That's probably the most important task of all, and someone to develop whatever gets thrown at him. Without all 3 of the archtypes, you got a problem, but 1 person could easily take 2 roles, and 2 persons could take 1 :)

[EDIT] If you want to, feel free to contact me. Just leave a comment here. I'd love to get in touch and exchange experiences :)