Web Sites Fail To Click

Why they're not helping entrepreneurs

About a century ago (in 1999), I was involved in building an online portal for small business. It would be a one-stop information resource for Canada's entrepreneurs: A place to access news, information and specific advice on running a business, as well as a networking forum to help beleaguered business owners learn directly from each other.

There was just one problem. We had no evidence Canadian entrepreneurs wanted such a site.

Sure, we knew they needed it. Running a business is a demanding and lonely task, requiring expertise in so many different specialties: production, sales, marketing, accounting, finance, hiring, managing, coaching, negotiating and so on. Who can claim to be an expert in more than a few of those areas?

Personal experience has taught me that when entrepreneurs get together, they immediately start trading notes and filling in their knowledge gaps. I believe they find the intelligence they gain from each other more credible than similar information gleaned from books, consultants, newspapers or magazines.

So how could you go wrong using the connective magic of the Web to let entrepreneurs talk shop with thousands of peers across the country? It turns out Canadian entrepreneurs aren't keen on discussing business problems with strangers. If they meet at a conference or Starbucks they'll start jawing - but only once they've sized each other up. It's harder to do that on the Web. Other posters may be smart and well-intentioned, but they might be crackpots or worse, competitors - which makes Web forums, to use a phrase that peaked last week, not worth the risk.

Portals may be easy to build physically, but they're tough to pull off. CanadaOne.com , a national small-business information site based in Gormley, Ont., shut down its chat forums two years ago to focus on its news and "Ask the Expert" features. Founder Julie King says many forum members weren't getting timely answers to their questions. With increasing spam attacks and excessive promotional postings from fly-by-night multilevel marketers, the forums became more trouble than they were worth. However, King says they will be back at the end of the year with a new format she hopes will work better.

Evan Carmichael, a Toronto marketer whose site, EvanCarmichael.com , has enjoyed fair activity on its new forum, is one of a few site entrepreneurs beating the odds. Last week, entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic were using his forum to discuss new business ideas, share hiring strategies and look for search-marketing consultants.

Warning

You have to wade through stacks of ugly pay-per-click ads to read through the postings.

Despite the middling success of online forums, new players continue to surface. Last week saw the launch of wikiworkforce.com , a Canadian site that encourages business people to share management challenges and solutions in a securely anonymous environment. The site has managed to attract an intriguing "masthead" of core contributors, but they seeded very few conversations before launch - and at press time, new members didn't seem to be breaking down the door.

Memo to management

The concept of "If you build it, they will come" went out of fashion in 1999.

Another new portal, which launched on Oct. 1, is TheSiteforEntrepreneurs.com , from a Toronto marketing company called Silver Lining Ltd. It offers some basic entrepreneurial advice and links to a few useful business resources, but still feels unfinished.

Memo to marketers

When launching a new web site, fill it with content and services before the launch. If people's first visits aren't value-packed, they may just never come back.

Maybe there's something in the water. I know at least two other organizations planning to launch small business portals in the next few months. They understand that entrepreneurship is a demanding, lonely job, and that Canada's underappreciated entrepreneurs need support and information, et cetera, et cetera. But is that enough?

During Small Business Month, every entrepreneur is allowed one unselfish wish. Mine is that all these people launching half-baked, underfunded entrepreneur sites put their heads together and build one big, multi-functional site with the potential to attract sufficient visitors and achieve critical mass.

They don't have to merge everything they do, but they can co-ordinate their efforts to avoid duplication and ensure that they only do things that they can honestly do well. They can hang on to their individual applications and cute names, but they should link generously to each other and share the traffic in the best interests of the user experience - and their own survival.

Now that's an entrepreneurial solution. But why should Canadian entrepreneurs expect any less from people purporting to give them business advice?