Help me fundraise £1/2 million for charity

[markswall]

Hi,
I'm trying to be the first individual in the world to fund raise £1/2 million for charity through one single webpage. The site is http://millionpoundwebestate.com and you can advertise your online business there for as little as £100. Proceeds goto charity and supporting the site for 5 years +.

Please send me your feedback and vote for the charity of your choice. Its been going since Sunday 15th Jan, so early days.... !

Good luck !

Mark

[Alpha]

OK so the 1/2 million pound question then and correct me if I'm wrong as maths was never my strong point but.................


there are 1 million pixels at £1 each which I think makes £1 million pounds.

IF you get the full 1 million pixels you will be giving £0.5 million to the charity that is voted for.


Who gets the other £0.5 million ??????????????

[Jayne]

Something fishy there Alan, doesn't add up.

[Faith28]

There is a serious flaw in your comment. "Proceeds go to charity" is a false statement. It is important to highlight the fraction that goes to charities otherwise are you saying that all of it goes to charity?

I presume 1/5million goes to you. Well if you do it why not? Just make sure everything is put correctly.

[thekitchendesigner]

blimey, your site is virtually identical to that of Alex Tew's (we know who he is dont we!)

[Faith28]

Mark, I've noticed peopele can buy them on ebay i.e the website design.

[creacom]

Welcome to the forums.

I have a couple of questions concerning your proposal.

What share would go to charity if you didnt sell all the pixels ?

Where is the other half of the amount raised going ? Would it not be a lot better to run the site in your spare time and give even 90% to charity ?

If this was the case I would consider buying. However, to pay £100 and then only £50 goes to charity I would rather donate in another way.

Im not picking at your business here but these are the type of questions you will get asked in the future and that people would expect to see answers to on your Q&As page.

Jacqui :D

[markswall]

OK so the 1/2 million pound question then and correct me if I'm wrong as maths was never my strong point but.................


there are 1 million pixels at £1 each which I think makes £1 million pounds.

IF you get the full 1 million pixels you will be giving £0.5 million to the charity that is voted for.


Who gets the other £0.5 million ??????????????

Hi Alpha - very good question and thanks for raising it. Its a widely known fact that Alex Tew spent $40,000 a month on PR for his site. Its all quite a well known fact in this forum I see, that some ecommerce sites managed by one individual member here, spend £28,000 per month on web advertising. I hope this added input into the equation will make you realise that this is a non profit organisation.

What I have learned from your post is that I need to make this fact clearer - does it make sense or do you think I am talking rubbish?

Anyone else??? THANKS EVERYONE SO FAR.

[clairemackaness]

Looks too fishy for me. I'd prefer to make my donation directly to the charity, why should you get 1/2 of my money?

[markswall]

There is a serious flaw in your comment. "Proceeds go to charity" is a false statement. It is important to highlight the fraction that goes to charities otherwise are you saying that all of it goes to charity?

I presume 1/5million goes to you. Well if you do it why not? Just make sure everything is put correctly.

I agree - I need to make this clearer. The other 1/2 goes into running it. Its a well known fact that to keep we traffic up costs serious money. One member of this forum who runs a series of ecommerce sites is qoted as saying as much as £28,000 a month.

Does this help? :?:

[Faith28]

Claire - Isn't it a service he is offering. I mean why would you ask that?
In return he will advertise your website for you on his page.

The only issue I have is I'm unconvinced that 'it's non-profit making'.

[Faith28]

Don't get me wrong I'm all for making profit :lol: but I don't think it's something to hide (sorry if that is not the case)

[clairemackaness]

My issue isn't with paying for a service. I'd do it even if I didn't get much traffic because it's a good cause, but unless his running costs were detailed to the penny I wouldn't touch it.

[Faith28]

But did you give your financial summary to people when you donated some money (was it 5%) to charity?

I'm sorry if I sound harsh - I promise I don't mean to :wink: , I'm just curious why you should expect a different standard in this case.

Or is it the sum of money involved?

My issue is the fact that it is unconvincing that absolutely no profit will be made from this. I believe that if there was no profit to be made then the charity that it would go to would be a personal charity of his choosing not ours because if it were me I would want my charity to benefit from my voluntary project. However because it is a choice of international charities we can vote on and that 50% is stated to go to one of them then I believe at least the rest will go towards partly the business to run i.e marketing, salary and the rest will be profit. Unless of all the rest goes to salary then it truly is non-profit making.

[clairemackaness]

I am giving 5% or proceeds to charity and have never said I am not for profit the other 95% comes to me.

This guy is saying that he is 100% not for profit, so if only £50 of my money goes to his charity I'd want it written clearley where the other £50 goes.

[Faith28]

Claire - Yep I'm on the same wavelength now. That's exactly what I'm saying.

Over to Mark to clarify then.

[markswall]

Welcome to the forums.

I have a couple of questions concerning your proposal.

What share would go to charity if you didnt sell all the pixels ?

Where is the other half of the amount raised going ? Would it not be a lot better to run the site in your spare time and give even 90% to charity ?

If this was the case I would consider buying. However, to pay £100 and then only £50 goes to charity I would rather donate in another way.

Im not picking at your business here but these are the type of questions you will get asked in the future and that people would expect to see answers to on your Q&As page.

Jacqui :D

Great - thanks for the feedback Jackie. I realise there are alot of questions in there. In answer;
>>What share would go to charity if you didnt sell all the pixels ?
- half of all turnover would go to the nominated charity at the end of the year.

>>Where is the other half of the amount raised going ? Would it not be a lot better to run the site in your spare time and give even 90% to charity ?
Ok - another good question. It costs alot of money to fund traffic - upto £28,000 a month in extreme cases. If you look in these forums, a well known member has stated that sites he manages spend this amount of money to promote the site. Without traffic, a website is like trying to show a photograph in darkness.


>> If this was the case I would consider buying. However, to pay £100 and then only £50 goes to charity I would rather donate in another way.

So am I right - you would consider buying if 90% went to charity. Please can you let me know if this is the case based on the answer to the questions above... i.e. I expect the other 50% to be spent on pushing web traffic through over at least 5 years, maybe depending on funding. Basically its darn expensive to "buy" traffic. Alex tew got lucky due to TV appearances after making the front page of digg.com - a highly respected techzine.

>>Im not picking at your business here but these are the type of questions you will get asked in the future and that people would expect to see answers to on your Q&As page.
8)
I completely understand - this is great feedback for my questions and answer pages. Maybe I need to review the plan.

[markswall]

blimey, your site is virtually identical to that of Alex Tew's (we know who he is dont we!)

Hi there - well noticed. Yes ALex utilised a template which he modified for his own purpose. After the site filled its aim, he effectively franchised it to a web design company that have added to it further. I am further adding to it by modifying it for charity voting, feedback etc etc.

- Let me know if you think I'm cheeky and why specifically this irritates you? - hopefully it doesnt!! :?:

[markswall]

Mark, I've noticed peopele can buy them on ebay i.e the website design.

I believe the ones on ebay are single template pages, not the crude web content mangement system I purchased from a source ($60) I can send you if you like. :roll:

[ewan]

I could so easily set up one of these sites and make a wild charity claim like this guy has.

Please can people just drop the idea that they can make millions from pixel sites, its really getting on my nerves. I don't see pixel sites as a professional and viable business venture unless there is something fundementally origanal about them and they are well made. Do something better with your time.

[fastfences]

Hi Mark. I have no objection to your scheme, and I am a prolific advertiser, but how does the relevance of another member spending £28,000 (which you've highlighted at least 3 times) on a commercial enterprise correlate with your venture? Have you committed yourself to that amount already?
Cheers, Nigel

[creacom]

So am I right - you would consider buying if 90% went to charity. Please can you let me know if this is the case based on the answer to the questions above... i.e. I expect the other 50% to be spent on pushing web traffic through over at least 5 years, maybe depending on funding. Basically its darn expensive to "buy" traffic. Alex tew got lucky due to TV appearances after making the front page of digg.com - a highly respected techzine.

Well based on the answers you have given me I still wouldnt buy. Like I said is 90% was to go to charity then that would tempt people more. But In this case I would rather give directly to the charity of my choice.

Jacqui

[markswall]

Looks too fishy for me. I'd prefer to make my donation directly to the charity, why should you get 1/2 of my money?.

Because I can get you one click away from 700,000 people for £100. Ok, it will take me a couple of months, and I realise you may now need some credentials. I have worked on some of the leading .com sites during .com and know how to generate large volume into websites. I

If you owned an ecommerce site or revenue generating site and I gave you my word I could put you on a web high street with nearly a million people a day passing it, would you like that?

[markswall]

So am I right - you would consider buying if 90% went to charity. Please can you let me know if this is the case based on the answer to the questions above... i.e. I expect the other 50% to be spent on pushing web traffic through over at least 5 years, maybe depending on funding. Basically its darn expensive to "buy" traffic. Alex tew got lucky due to TV appearances after making the front page of digg.com - a highly respected techzine.

Well based on the answers you have given me I still wouldnt buy. Like I said is 90% was to go to charity then that would tempt people more. But In this case I would rather give directly to the charity of my choice.

Jacqui

I just want you to take a couple of steps back. Take out any doubt for 2 seconds and listen to this.

IF I could put 1 million people past your advert and 1% of them into your Design studio. Suppose you have a 0.3% conversion ratio. Thats equal to 3000 people a month - a prudent estimation. If you spend more and make the advert bigger you could increase that.

Tell me honestly that doesnt sound appealing. Pooling web resources together to unite in advertising space and take on the costlier on line marketing offerred by google (I dont know your market to do this through google ads would cost you between £300 and £10,000 per month) AND you are helping charity too.

I realise you dont know who I am and you are taking a big risk, but if I could deliver this AND 50% goes to charity, 30% goes to ongoing maintainance of this promise 10% contingency and 10% salary, which after Employer and employee NIC and taxes would be about £6,000 per annum take home.

Is that even if I could put a large volume of traffic past your site every day for the next 5 years... or more? Please let me know.

[Faith28]

So you're setting it up as a limited company then?

If so then there are ways to maximise the income much more than what you suggest.

[markswall]

I could so easily set up one of these sites and make a wild charity claim like this guy has.

Please can people just drop the idea that they can make millions from pixel sites, its really getting on my nerves. I don't see pixel sites as a professional and viable business venture unless there is something fundementally origanal about them and they are well made. Do something better with your time.

Do you have a background in .com startup and Internet marketing? How would you generate 100,000 - 1million visitors. Is that an easy thing to do then to make this an interesting proposition? I helped build ww.virginwines.com in 1999 which Richard Branson purchased after it was successfully market to around 2 million people in 3 months.

Read the post I replied to Jackie. If the idea of 100,000 to 1 million people passing your advert a month doesnt appeal to you then why do you have a website?

[markswall]

Hi Mark. I have no objection to your scheme, and I am a prolific advertiser, but how does the relevance of another member spending £28,000 (which you've highlighted at least 3 times) on a commercial enterprise correlate with your venture? Have you committed yourself to that amount already?
Cheers, Nigel

No but I will commit to generating a very large volume of web traffic looking at your ad. The equivalent amount would cost you this figure (approximately - i just used this because it was a relevent amount mentioned through this forum). If I could do this for just a one off £100 (no recurring charges AND 1/2 of this goes to charity).

How much would you pay to get a very large volume of traffic in front of your site? I think the real issue is here, what are my credentials and how do you know that I can do this? Am I getting any closer?

[Faith28]

So how will you be able to generate this number of people.

I don't think people are convinced still...at least not me. I will need to know more than just the idealised theory i.e how will you do it practically.

P.S out of curiosity where does the £6k figure come from?

[markswall]

Claire - Isn't it a service he is offering. I mean why would you ask that?
In return he will advertise your website for you on his page.

The only issue I have is I'm unconvinced that 'it's non-profit making'.

Hi Faith, thanks for posting this back. Yes thats essentially it "uniting advertisers in cyberspace on one page to put your site in front of high volume of traffic for a very low one off fee". Alomost my elevator pitch!... ok slightly slow lift elevator pitch! :P

[markswall]

So you're setting it up as a limited company then?

If so then there are ways to maximise the income much more than what you suggest.

Yes the "web real estate" that this site is built on is purchased and owned by my company... (Ltd). And I know.

[markswall]

So how will you be able to generate this number of people.

I don't think people are convinced still...at least not me. I will need to know more than just the idealised theory i.e how will you do it practically.

P.S out of curiosity where does the £6k figure come from?

I am committing to marketing this site to every periodical, newspaper, local regional national that I can AND couple with 10 years of technical training I have a lot of experience on how to market to the web. Last .com endevours that I helped build were virginwines.com and warranty-ex which sold. Its one of my (many) lines of business... I jsut wanted to do somthing that would help charity. Maybe I should have called it YES I'M A GREEDY B*STARD GIVE ME YOUR MONEY... that would have reflected the very cynical attitude on this forum.

I just want to point out that only 8 people voted so far and 225 people have looked at this forum messgage so far... I'm discounting it on the basis that only objections would be posted and that 8/225 gives me a 3.5% certainty that the vote is representative.

£100,000 for salary over 10 years = £10k/yr gross
- Employer, Emploee NIC and Tax is roughly 6k.

[markswall]

Something fishy there Alan, doesn't add up.

Janye, can you read the rest of the post and tell me if this moves any way toward making more sense to you?

[Faith28]

Sorry, but I'm not clear on your company name. What is it?

Also your estimate of the salary assumes a linear income over the course of ten years. I thought, like the milliondollarhomepage, that you aim to get in all your advertisers within a year and thus the IR will take it as £100k (at least if you are successful) for that year. They will certainly NOT average over ten years so the £6k is actually wrong assumption.

[markswall]

Sorry, but I'm not clear on your company name. What is it?

Also your estimate of the salary assumes a linear income over the course of ten years. I thought, like the milliondollarhomepage, that you aim to get in all your advertisers within a year and thus the IR will take it as £100k (at least if you are successful) for that year. They will certainly NOT average over ten years so the £6k is actually wrong assumption.

Thanks for pointing that out. How much tax do you think Alex Tew paid for milliondollarhomepage.com? Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site...

My company - its the one advertised on the pixel page.

[Faith28]

----------
Thanks for pointing that out. How much tax do you think Alex Tew paid for milliondollarhomepage.com? Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site...
-----------

I'm not sure what you're telling me here?
That most of the money is spent on maintaining it or what. What I don't get is how this answer refers to the salary issue?

-------
My company - its the one advertised on the pixel page.
------
Ok.

[markswall]

----------
Thanks for pointing that out. How much tax do you think Alex Tew paid for milliondollarhomepage.com? Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site...
-----------

I'm not sure what you're telling me here?
That most of the money is spent on maintaining it or what. What I don't get is how this answer refers to the salary issue?

-------
My company - its the one advertised on the pixel page.
------
Ok.


I just want to point out there's a difference between profits in the company and salary paid out to you.

[markswall]

----------
Thanks for pointing that out. How much tax do you think Alex Tew paid for milliondollarhomepage.com? Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site...
-----------

I'm not sure what you're telling me here?
That most of the money is spent on maintaining it or what. What I don't get is how this answer refers to the salary issue?

-------
My company - its the one advertised on the pixel page.
------
Ok.


I just want to point out there's a difference between profits in the company and salary paid out to you.

https://www.linkedin.com/profile;jsessionid=CD28A4C7C898D00CC62222F49DFB327 6.app07?trk=tab_pro


I will be writing up more information about what I am doing and how I am recovering from lymphoma 2 years 2 months in the clear!! Watch my millionpoundwebestate.com charity info for more information.

[Faith28]

Mark - are you serious...I do know the difference between salary and profit!! The comment I was referring to does not explain that at all...care to clarify because this comment:

"Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site... "

You're only talking here of expenses not profit/salary

[markswall]

Mark - are you serious...I do know the difference between salary and profit!! The comment I was referring to does not explain that at all...care to clarify because this comment:

"Did you hear his site has been hit by denial of service attacks? That costs £10,000's to fix.... involving leasing heavy duty servers and load balancing AND leasing all kinds of firewalls... very expensive. He's a brave man and I wonder if he will be able to continue the site... "

You're only talking here of expenses not profit/salary
Faith, sorry my intention is not to patronise or point out the obvious. Let me explain: You wrote:

"I thought, like the milliondollarhomepage, that you aim to get in all your advertisers within a year and thus the IR will take it as £100k (at least if you are successful) for that year. "

You said take "it" as 100k - do you mean it is salary or profit? I was referring to the ambiguity in your statement NOT what - you thought - I assumed to be your ignorance - far from it. I respect you! :roll: Please clarify if you meant IR will take "it" 100k as salary or profit? if you spread salary over 10 years its 6k a year after NIC's and tax. If you take out the 100k straight away you would definately pay more tax because you're hitting the £38k barrier. I really hope I havent offended you again... its really hard to explain over the web...

I mentioned the other stuff about DOS attacks aswell because I wnated to indicated the ongoing operational costs. I would suggest that after 5 years, Alex Tew would be left with - after taxes and operating costs, his net worth in 5 years time would have only been increased by about £50k -£100 k after operating costs and taxes. (Thats if he manages to keep his word and gives the people that bought pixels the traffic they deserve).

[Faith28]

Hi thanks for your message :P

Ok, what I meant was that if the income was taken within the year wouldn't the IR take the Income less expenses as profit?

But in your case profit = 0.

So the £100k would be salary as you stated but given over 10 years. My point was that this amount would not be taken over the ten years by the IR unless you're looking at accounting methods, which I am ignorant of BTW :oops: , that will allow you to do this. If this is the case then I apologise for my assumption.

I still don't know if it's viable as you haven't clarified how you will get the traffic.

BTW why are you doing this if you are not receiving much of an income?

[Faith28]

P.S will it really cost £400k to maintain over 10years?!

[markswall]

P.S will it really cost £400k to maintain over 10years?!

No not to maintain... probably about £200k to maintain (assuming he keeps to his word and markets the site to keep traffic up..)

but of course how will you get the money out of the company, you have to pay tax.

He has alot of work ahead of him. I admire him though, but the idea was not his own. A german chap has been doing it for 5 years and there was a famous site that sold pixel space for $10,000s a block which in turn purchased virgin rainforest. I will try find link if I ever get off this site!!! Wife is thinking I'm ignoring her!! :D

Find yourself a good accountant. I just got rid of one that gave me very bad advice. Lawyers too - some are utter sharks...

[Jayne]

Ok i'll comment,

Whether it's for charity or not, I wouldn't buy a Square. Not because of lack of trust or anything like that, but i'm pig sick of bloody pixel sites, getting very old hat now and need something more new and exciting.

If you say you can get this site quickly to number one spot, why on earth are you doing a pixel site. You could be earning good money helping other businesses on here and on the net to get better ranking etc and help improve there businesses. You could still earn lots of money if you are as good as you say, then you can donate what ever you wanted to charity.

Jayne :D

[markswall]

Ok i'll comment,

Whether it's for charity or not, I wouldn't buy a Square. Not because of lack of trust or anything like that, but i'm pig sick of bloody pixel sites, getting very old hat now and need something more new and exciting.

If you say you can get this site quickly to number one spot, why on earth are you doing a pixel site. You could be earning good money helping other businesses on here and on the net to get better ranking etc and help improve there businesses. You could still earn lots of money if you are as good as you say, then you can donate what ever you wanted to charity.

Jayne :D

Thanks for replying - True and this is part of my day job - see my linked in profile (link is pasted in this site somewhere...) I recommend the tool by the way.. for networking :roll:

[markswall]

Maybe a better name for the site would be... big breath...

www.united.inwebspacetosaveonwebadvertising.com/whilstdonatingtocharity.htm


Any thoughts...

[Jayne]

Well I think you'll do much better as a business helper instead of those pixel things, do it as a night job, as well as a day one :D

Jayne

[markswall]

Well I think you'll do much better as a business helper instead of those pixel things, do it as a night job, as well as a day one :D

Jayne

Trust me... I have about 8 jobs and my wife is constantly telling me to calm down anbd stop doing 8 things at once. I reckon 6mths og chemo gave me hyperactivity dosorder or something, Or maybe I just dont want to waste 1 second of my short meagre existance on this planet!!

[Jayne]

Well don't waste it doing business stuff 24 hrs a day, get yourself out with the Mrs and start to enjoy every second. Some things are more important than money :D

And always do what the wife tells you to, she knows best :D

Jayne

[creative-keyrings]

Your site wont work,

a copy cat of alex tew, this idea simply doesnt work when its remade. its no different to alex tew's!!!

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

£100 seems a lot considering the advert space you get don't you think?

[creative-keyrings]

Alex tew pulled it all off but this is simply a 1 off idea which CANNOT be copied!

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

He must have made a mint from that!

[markswall]

He must have made a mint from that!

After tax and operating profit over 5 years its probably raised his network by about £50k - £100k (from turnover of £535k. If you think what I'm doing is unethincal check this out

http://www.krohm.net/bernd2.htm

[creacom]

No Mark I dont think the other link you just gave us is as unethical as your set up its just stupid.

Jacqui

[markswall]

No Mark I dont think the other link you just gave us is as unethical as your set up its just stupid.

Jacqui

Is it? He's making alot of money... how can that be stupied? He has a captive market in its millions who are all ready to part with a Euro. I think its very clever, but pschycopathic, therefore unethical.

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

Can't beleive someone is making money from saying he's gonna eat a rabbit if you don't pay up!!!!

[markswall]

Can't beleive someone is making money from saying he's gonna eat a rabbit if you don't pay up!!!!

Hes made EUROS71k. Sick

[markswall]

Well don't waste it doing business stuff 24 hrs a day, get yourself out with the Mrs and start to enjoy every second. Some things are more important than money :D

And always do what the wife tells you to, she knows best :D

Jayne

I do! :-D

[creacom]

Is it? He's making alot of money... how can that be stupied? He has a captive market in its millions who are all ready to part with a Euro. I think its very clever, but pschycopathic, therefore unethical.

Which is then proof that there are a lot of stupid ways to make money. I also doubt that suggesting that site has helped with the credibility of your business.

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

Still can't get my head round that! some people don't have any kind of morals!

[Jayne]

Morals Bingo man :shock:

Get those boobs covered up :lol:

Jayne

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

Do you think they are that bad. If you think they are, I'll change the banner. Somehow seem to be creating a lot of click through rates compared to the normal banners i've got.

[Jayne]

That's better :D

We have children on here too :D

Jayne

[TheFreePlayBayinc.]

Cool. I'll stick to that.

[clairemackaness]

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah pixels Blah

[markswall]

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah pixels Blah

What is a pixel anyway?