Hi.

I'm interested in your oppinion: being in the web hosting business, what would you do if someone would contact you and offer to sell a valuable and/or new marketing idea?

Would you agree to pay for the idea itself or you'd rather pay for the implementation?

Would you agree to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement? (Promise to keep the idea a secret)

Would you prefer to "pay-for-performance" instead of paying a fixed amount of money?

How much would you agree to pay in a pay-for-performance model? (in percents)

Thank you.

I would go with pay for performance. As to the fee, it depends on the services I was offering.

i think its going to be very hard to get people to pay you for ideas, itd have to be a very unique idea, because there is a lot of information on marketing to be found for free....

Thank you for sharing your thoughs.

I'd be extremely suspicious - certainly ideas are worth not much, but if it was a risk free share in the benefits then it would be more interesting.

Also would expect to have to sign an NDA - afterall you can't easily protect an idea.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Adding implementation and research into a package on the other hand, might be valuable.

With each successful idea, you can expect a copycat or an even better variant of it within months ... so the only advantage you have is time ... and you gotta leverage that.

Watch out on the NDA-- signing could be the most important decision you make.

You could be signing a NDA for the grand idea of placing banners on web sites.

Zak

Well if you had proven results that your idea will work, then you could probably charge people for the idea....kinda like that guy on TV who says you can "Make thousands of dollars a week just by placing tiny classified ads in newspapers around the country!!!".

That being said, you'd probably generate the most business if you offered it as a consultation of some sorts...where you would actually go and implement the idea yourself using their resources. If you're actually providing a service in addition to the idea, it'd be much more attractive.

It depends on who is offering the idea. If it is just some joe who thinks he has a good idea and wants to get rich selling it to web hosting companies... I would sign an NDA, and prefer to pay for performance.

Now, if it was from a major consultancy firm that specializes in web hosting companies, I may pay just for the idea.