Go It Alone or Partner Up?

"Two heads are better than one."

Or so they say. In our case, as we set out to learn everything we can about developing profitable websites from the ground up, I frankly can't imagine going it alone. It's becoming more and more evident that we've embarked on a journey that will take us into all kinds of new territory.

So, if you can find someone with talents and knowledge that complement yours, I would highly recommend partnering up in your web business. Of course, it helps if you get along with each other, because you'll be working together closely and sharing ideas and discoveries at all hours of the day and night!

Of course, you will want to consider the pros and cons, and some people may find they just work better alone. In our case, the concept for Web Market Journal developed through lots of conversations that eventually turned into major brainstorming sessions. So working together was a natural for us. Here's why:

• We each have different talents to bring to the table.
  
  
• We have each other to bounce our ideas off of.
  
  
• We can divide up the responsibilities and jobs.
  
  
• We can share our knowledge and learning as we go.

Bottom line, by working together towards a common goal, I believe we will accomplish some remarkable and creative stuff! Stay tuned...

Our new WebMarket Journal motion logo!!

Designed using Adobe After Effects and Photoshop

Week One - Creating a Mission Statement

One of the first things we did, in setting up our new web business, was to create a Mission Statement, and we recommend doing this for a few reasons. First, we knew it would help us focus on exactly what we wanted to achieve -- both our short-term and long-term goals -- as well as how would would get there.

In coming up with the right wording, we wanted to think broadly. We didn't want it to be an exhaustive list of what we do. What we DID want it to include were:

1) A broad description of our business and its purpose.

2) A list of our most important goals.

3) A statement of the business ethics to which we are committed.

Since we plan to eventually post our mission statement on our site, we wanted it to be clear and direct, which we believe will give our customers or clients a feeling of trust in our credibility.

We also hope our Mission Statement will provide motivation to us whenever we need to re-center our efforts and remind ourselves of our goals!

Some good resources I found when researching how to write a mission statement are:

ActionForChange

Nonprofit.About.com

NonProfitManagement.suite101.com

Go for it, and good luck!

Learn With Us!

It can be pretty intimidating to see all the information online about website development and marketing! That's why we decided to record our progress -- every step of the way -- as we design, create, develop and eventually make a profit from our own website. The plan is provide a "road map" for anyone else who wants to do the same thing but doesn't know where to start and which way to go!

WebMarketJournal.com, the website, will launch in about two weeks. In the meantime, we'll be sharing all the steps we've taken so far to get our domain name, design our web page, find a place to host our website, and much more.

So watch for daily posts, and please share your comments with us.