Assignment 5

Assignment 5: Business Plan

William han 5/18/11

Overview

“The Car Culture” is a website that focuses on a wiki-style format combined with a discussion forum in order to be both a discussion and information resource about automobiles. This website hopefully can educate readers and community members about various aspects of automobiles for all makes and models, from classic to modern cars. “The Car Culture” will become not only an informative site but also a community for which both hardcore car enthusiasts as well as curious newcomers to mingle. Hopefully, “The Car Culture” will be able to spark an interest in cars among many who had never before had exposure to the field.

Description of Service and Opportunity

“The Car Culture” provides a wiki-style format that is familiar to many internet users. The wiki targets those who are educated and experienced in various aspects of automobiles to share their knowledge. Furthermore, the wiki will also compile information from other already existing websites (similar to wikipedia). This allows newcomers to easily find information that they are looking for. Furthermore, the various nature of a wiki helps spark curiosity about its contents in its visitors. The discussion forums allows newcomers to ask specific questions unanswered in the wiki as well as ask for general advice. To auto enthusiasts, the forums allows them to discuss trending news in the world of automobiles.

Target Market

“The Car Culture’s” target audience includes people of almost all ages. From 10 year old kids who want to learn about the Bugatti Veyron - their favorite supercar – to adults who want to restore the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro sitting in their backyard, the car culture can offer something to nearly everyone. The discussion forum is aimed towards both experienced as well as budding car enthusiasts. The only prerequisite is an interest or motivation to learn about something automotive related. Most importantly, “The Car Culture” is able to integrate seemingly heterogeneous members of its target market into one large community.

Qualifications and Experience of Team

I have had a longstanding interest and involvement in the automotive world. From an early age, my father had involved me in various mechanical and automotive related activities. For example, I had always helped him do maintenance on our vehicles, whether it was a simple oil change and tire rotation or a fuel injector replacement. Furthermore, I often read many internet articles and watched many videos about various aspects of automobiles. I am subscribed to a few car blogs and forums, including www.jalopnik.com and www.automotiveforums.com. I also have past experience in contributing to both internet forums and wikis, thus giving me a good understanding of how they operate.

Marketing Plan

Primarily, I plan on marketing my website through word of mouth as well as mentioning it on the various automotive website that I visit. This is because these are the primary areas in which automotive enthusiast groups interact. In addition, I plan to write articles for my wiki and link to these articles from other information websites, such as wikipedia, yahoo answers, and other content farms. If enough articles are written, this will direct users of other websites to “The Car Culture”

I also plan on using social media to advertise my website. In addition to posting links to my website on general social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook groups, I also plan on mentioning my website in automotive blogs such aswww.Jalopnik.com and certain automotive sections on www.Reddit.com. Finally, I also plan on commenting and advertising on various automotive related videos on websites such as Youtube, Streetfire, and Vimeo.

Competition

Currently, there are many websites that cover various portions of automotive culture. For example, there are strong automotive enthusiasts communities that exist on websites such as www.autoblog.com or www.automotiveforums.com. Similarly, there exist very informational websites that provide general information about automobiles (such as wikipedia) or specific repair information about specific cars (such as autowebrepair.com). However, none of these websites are able to offer both a strong information resource as well as a strong sense of community. By having both forum-based and wiki-based sections, “The Car Culture” hopes to create this unique mix of community and information. Furthermore, as a byproduct of this, we hope to have a community that includes both newcomer and experienced automotive enthusiasts.

Features and Organization of Website

The primary homepage of the website will be “The Car Culture” wiki site. The wiki will have organizational subcategories as well as a search bar. The various subcategories are as follows.

“The Future of Cars” contains information about emerging trends in car technologies, whether this includes alternate fuel sources, self-driven cars, etc.

“Modern Cars” will contain information about almost all makes and models of modern vehicles. This is section is similar to most of Wikipedia’s current information on automobiles. It discusses their lineage, performance, and general information.

“Classic and Obscure Cars” is essentially the same as the “Modern Cars” subcategory, except that it focuses on vehicles made before 1975 or lesser known vehicles.

“How Cars Work” goes into more detail about the specific mechanics about cars, including engines, suspensions, and even somewhat proprietary technologies such as Rotary Engines.

“Car Repair” includes various articles about general car repair as well as specific car repair.

“Automotive Racing” discusses both professional automotive racing as well as tips on amateur automotive racing.

The forum part of the website will have similar categories to the wiki as well as a “General Discussion” Subforum.

Implementation Plan

At the beginning, I will create the website using a mix of the Wikia sites platform as well as the Proboards discussion forum platform. I will help contribute by writing articles based on personal knowledge as well as information on automotive websites. I also plan to link to guides and articles on other websites. Primarily though, I expect that once enough users join “The Car Culture” the community will generate information about various aspects of automobiles by itself. Later, I hope to switch from the free Wikia and Proboards platform to my own domain name and better integrate the wiki and forum sections of the website (as opposed to having one link to the other).

Initial Projected Costs

At the start, there website will require little to no financial cost, as the Wikia and Proboards hosting platforms are free. Furthermore, I will be the only creator. To develop a strong base website on which others can build upon, I plan to spend 80 hours generating the information unless I am able to hire or persuade others to help me generate this content. Once I switch over to my own domain name and rent hosting servers, the cost will likely increase dramatically, especially if the site has heavy traffic.

Financing Model

At the beginning, the website will likely generate little revenue until a large userbase is developed and it switches hosts. At the same time, before this occurs, there will be little cost as mentioned earlier except for the value of my labor. Once “The Car Culture” has its own domain and host, I plan to generate revenue (and possibly profit) in two ways: relevant automotive-related ads in the website, and sponsor sub-forums in the discussion forums. The aim is that the revenue generated by these two methods will be greater than the hosting costs of the website.

Possible Problems and Risks

The largest risk for the website is the inability to generate a large enough userbase. The issue with wiki-format websites is that they require a large userbase to be successful. Enough users must be willing to contribute and edit the website so that others are willing to read it and possibly contribute. This issue is tied to the risk of not generating enough information. Without enough initial information on the website, visitors will likely not be inclined to sign up and contribute. The second issue is the inability to generate a strong enough community. Because “The Car Culture” aims to be a resource for a wide range of car enthusiasts, it may be hard to unify all of them.