Create a Social Networking Site and Monetize it

Bill Attinger spent twenty years helping small businesses grow, whether by founding them himself, or by consulting with other companies to help them acquire financing and to grow. He wanted to convert this wealth of knowledge into an online community that entrepreneurs could use to prepare their business for market, secure capital and attract talent. With this, Actseed.com a social media platform focused on removing barriers to Entrepreneurship was formed. The following is from an interview with Attinger, CEO of Actseed.com.

“I was almost ready to write a book about the experiences for other entrepreneurs. A few months later I realized that I could help many entrepreneurs simultaneously in a much more involved way by building an entrepreneur-centric community dedicated to new business creation”, said Attinger, CEO of Actseed.

“My business model crystallized when I recalled one of my favorite Chinese proverbs that go something like this: “Teach me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” I’ve dedicated many years of entrepreneurship to the “show me” stage. Writing a book would have reverted to a “Teach me” stage, but launching ActSeed will be stepping forward into the most valuable arena for entrepreneurship: “Involve me.”, Attinger continued.

“We were planning to build a custom application within the social media construct when we discovered the rSitez platform. Once we determined that rSitez gave us a solid head start on the basic components of a community based platform, we were able to focus on customizations to the base rSitez platform that drives ActSeed’s unique value to its members.

We did extensive research on open source platforms and commercially available social media platforms. I believe we first noticed rSitez in a comparative study of various social media platforms. rSitez seemed to give us the best opportunity to build our unique data model and customized community platform; other social media platforms didn’t seem to offer the same customization possibilities. Another appealing factor was that rSitez’ CEO, Rohan Hall, was also an entrepreneur who quickly grasped ActSeed’s vision and has been very open minded and innovative on how to approach the uniqueness we’re building for the ActSeed community. Rohan embrace our business goals was an encouraging sign that he and his rSitez team weren’t just interested in getting paid for a random customization project.

The general approach for the rSitez development team seems to be what is known as “agile development”, which really suits those who don’t have a deep technical background; the rSitez team seems able to take a concept and translate it into delivery for less technical clients.

We are investing heavily to enable our defined member groups to engage and interact in a very structured manner within ActSeed. While the overall combination of features is most important to us, the ability for our entrepreneur members to use ActSeed’s custom profiling, scoring and searching tools to evaluate their preparedness to launch a new business and then efficiently identify investors, workers and service providers who can provide the necessary support is the most critical. Why? Because this is the core value we’re trying to drive into the entrepreneurial community.