Business Catalyst Killer

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I've been looking at Business Catalysthttp://www.businesscatalyst.com... (a/k/a GoodBarry, which some others of you may knowhttp://www.goodbarry.com and their ridiculous pricing structure... even for reselling, they have a huge profit margin, and I can hardly see how anyone reselling their services can make any money. I suppose you would have to do it in bulk (in the tens of thousands of customers) to make a good living!

Any way, I have come to the conclusion that providing the same sort of service MYSELF *could* be a profit-making enterprise, and think also that Concrete5 could be a good foundation to do so. These companies are charging about $2500 JUST to sign up as a reseller, then they only kick back about 20% commission on their inflated, unreasonable pricing. I would be willing to pay that out for someone to develop a competing "Business Catalyst" killer! If we can match the functionality, it would go a long way for me, or for many others.

Just to sum up what their system does:
• E-Commerce (I know this is in the works, right now)
• E-Newsletter system (for setting up subscriptions, managing lists, and sending the emails -- tracking, like campaignmonitor.com would be a great bonus)
• Lead Capture database (we're halfway there, already)
• Blogging (I've seen blocks already developed, or in development, for this already)
• Communities and Forums
• Detailed reporting (site-wide)
• Integrated customer database (which records and shares information between all blocks mentioned here)
• CRM System
...for full details, see the list, here:http://www.goodbarry.com/features...

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I will hereby commit $2500 to developing this enterprise suite on Concrete5, if anyone is game to develop it... anyone else want to join in?

dihakz
 
enque replied on at Permalink Reply
enque
I have also been looking at their system and yes you would need a large number of clients to make a decent living. They have done a great job integrating all the features though.
C5 is the friendliest CMS hands down and to be able to provide these extra features will make it the only CMS to work with.
I'd throw in $500 toward the development of this.
dihakz replied on at Permalink Reply
dihakz
Up to $3,000 -- who wants to develop it?
liminal replied on at Permalink Reply
Lets get an idea from the C5 team of how much we'd need to make this happen.

maybe we can create a donation pot or something that to help keep the final product open for us all to use, after all we are all making money with C5 , and give too little back!

Love the idea about though.
dihakz replied on at Permalink Reply
dihakz
Thank you, both, for expressing your interest. I'm thrilled to see I'm not alone here, and hopefully we can raise enough to get this done! Any other takers?
johnnyNui replied on at Permalink Reply
johnnyNui
under a couple of conditions
- that it would have an installer (no complex setup)
- only available to the initial investors
- would be nice if investors could resell it (perhaps even on marketplace)
...comments?
Remo replied on at Permalink Reply
Remo
Imagine I'm building this thing and would sell it to 3 people without having the right to do anything with it.
These 3 people are then trying to sell it on the marketplace?? The same product?

$2000 sounds like a quite few bucks but isn't a lot at all if you don't have any rights for the software after it has been built.. If I'd get the exclusive rights, I'd be willing to pay an amount with 5 numbers..

But since my investments aren't software related, I prefer to be the one who builds software... But if I'd do that, I'd also sell it on my own for sure and not be depend on someone else.

Building a blog, newsletter, shop, forum for only a few thousand dollars and without having any rights sounds like a pretty bad deal to me.
frz replied on at Permalink Reply
frz
I've kinda let this thread sit but here's the official view:

Everything listed in the original post is in the works by us or other developers as stand alone add-ons that will work with one another.

They will all be available in our marketplace which will allow for centralized support, translation services, and easy distribution, etc.

If concrete5 is a lego set where the basic building blocks are free, these would be the wagon wheels, castle walls, spaceship thrusters, and other custom specialty pieces - and they'll cost a little something (hundreds not thousands.)


If someone else makes one of these add-ons (ie: blogging which I know several 3rd party developers are working on) we will sell it for them on our site and take a commission comparable to the iphone store.

Eventually there will be a reseller type dashboard for people on concrete5.org. You will be able to manage all of the domains you have purchased from one location, get referral kickbacks, etc.

The code for these add-ons will be owned by the developers under various licenses.

And that's that. I guess the shorter version is, "uhh, yeah - that's what we're shooting for." Remo is right however, it's taking thousands of man hours to get to the destination described above, so while the willingness of people to contribute money is awesome, the sums we're talking about here are nowhere near what's reasonable to expect ownership. Personally my investment in concrete5 is well into 6 figures and still counting. But yes, we get the goal here and couldn't agree more. Next up, forums - then ecommerce.
amigacooke replied on at Permalink Reply
amigacooke
I make 'not for profit' sites and while Concrete is an interesting CMS, charging for a large proportion of the add on blocks is certainly going to give me pause for thought.
Remo replied on at Permalink Reply
Remo
even if you just build "non-profit" sites. You need to earn money too right? It's easy to ask for free stuff but think about it - you're asking people to work hundreds of hours for free just because you don't want to pay like 50 dollars for a blog addon..

Build it on your own and you'll quickly realize that it's still a lot cheaper to pay 50 dollars for an addon and maybe 200 for a shop..

If you don't agree - I'd be happy to see such an addon developed by you, published for free under MIT license.
ylluminate replied on at Permalink Reply
ylluminate
What ever happened to the feature set described here in terms of implementation for C5? I would like to see a comprehensive set of plugins presently available that would stack to fill these needs in such a way that it's a near 1-to-1 or better alternative to BC if someone could list them out.

Thanks!