Basantji,
Ultimately, you're the knowledge bank and I (or anyone else) would surely respect it if you personally did not want to start a subscribed service which talks about which stocks are good at what levels and the right time to enter/exit, brief discussion on the company, etc.
However, in case you're mulling on whether this really is a good idea or not...I would like to try and convince you here. For starters -
1. Why not put up a poll on TED asking how many TEDdies are willing to pay for the subscribed services that reflect the thoughts of Basantji? I'm sure that all TED members will vote very honestly because you can ensure that the poll is completely anonymous (you can put in a disclaimer attesting to the fact that the results and voters will be kept fully anonymous).
2. If you talk of scalability - this idea is basically a fixed effort from your side which will serve 1 person and will serve 10000 persons just as well. All you would need to do is to think aloud, i.e. type out your thinking and your vested interests to your thought process subscribers. Since this would happen only after you have yourself entered/exited the said stock, you would not be affected by it.
3. Regarding
subscriber base, as I mentioned before, even if 20% of TED members subscribe and pay an annual fee (say Rs. 1000, I'm a management consultant by profession so in my humble opinion that would be a
very competitive fee) that would still mean around Rs. 29 lakhs a year in revenue at absolutely no additional costs in terms of infrastructure other than what you already have in place here at TED. Yes, it would mean around an hour of your time every 3 weeks or so (we're all long-term investors here so we don't mind not hearing from you everyday
).
4. I would love to describe the wave effect that word-of-mouth marketing could have on this service, but I'd rather not. I'm sure TED members could vouch for that better than me.
5. To some, the idea may sound capitalistic. I would like to point out here that while imparting and enabling knowledge that TED does from many years, is something outstanding and should be held in the highest regard, enabling wealth for someone else should also be held in equally high regard (if not higher). TED forums can always continue to be the sea of knowledge to anyone interested in learning. However, the subscribed service can be a wealth enabler for several people. I think this itself is as noble a thing as imparting knowledge.
6. Lastly, if this idea does materialize, do let me know if you're planning on issuing shares. Because I would like to buy into this perfect business model
.
I also request other TEDdies to share their views/opinons on this.
Regards,
Ram.
Edited by ramsey123 - 26/Apr/2011 at 12:17pm