My first official deal, advice needed.

[on_way_to_fame@hotmail.co]

I had a totally new web site idea, and I needed a designer-programmer partner who can help me make the site, as my budget didn’t allow me to afford an official company. I presented my idea to several web site designers and they all seemed to love it and were ready to be partners too, but some of them were not too good at programming, while others were only designers, so I finally found one, who knew all kind of programming and was also a fine designer, and we sort of unofficially struck a deal. Now there are many questions related to the deal, and some legal issues I would like your suggestions on.

Some information regarding his and my background. Firstly i am from a service class family, my dad is a senior officer in a government department, and although he has a lot of connections in the city, as he isn't in the business line he can’t help me with information regarding agreements and all. Secondly, as this is the first official agreement i would make, i have no idea how to carry on the agreement process and how it should be drafted, this is the first time i am doing an official business specially on the net.

Now about the designer, he is Only 16 years old, but he claims he knows all kinds of programming languages and can easily make the sort of site i want him to make, i saw some of his sample sites, they all looked good, but not excellent, his colour choice didn't seem that good, and none of those was an interactive website, most of them were small little business website.

Now this is the deal he offered me, he said he would host the site on his server for free, he would set up the site all free, and he would also update it as and when required, he would also set up a database system, where i can easily build pages myself, in return he would like to have little advertisements on those pages, not the banner ads, just a little link saying " powered by so and so co." and once the site starts generating revenues, a little bit share in the revenues, and i asked him much he cautiously asked " would 10% be ok, i told him i will get back to him. Now if i get the site designed by someone else, it would cost me quite a lot which isn't it my budget.

Now here is the risk i see, if i host it on his server, he can overtake the site, so i was thinking that for the first year i should buy my won web space and even register the domain on my name, after one year as i get more experienced and gather some more knowledge about how these businesses work, i can think about shifting it on his. What’s your opinion on this?

Secondly as he is Australia, and me in India, can you please tell me how to go about the paperwork, how should we exchange papers, and what should be the content on them?

About he 10% share he asked for I was thinking i would tell him that he can take 10% for the first say $10,000, then 7% for the next $10, 00 and so on, but i am not sure of what the figures should be, as i am not at all experienced in terms of what sort of revenues can be generated and how do advertisers usually pay, what do you say ?

To end this long message, i would just like to say that i really believe there is good scope for partnership with this person, but legal issues are the ones which i want to cover well, i don’t want to loose control at the same time want good quality and a trust worthy partner

Regards.

[peterjhale]

Be very careful.

What happens if he decides to pull your website down because he wants 15% ? Doesnt matter if you have an agreement - he can just pull it down.

You can get very cheap webhosting try:

http://www.betterwebspace.co.uk/ just £1 per month

You need overall control

If you website is just a forum you can do it all yourself. Sign up to betterwebspace, activate the forum (it comes free) and away you go.

[on_way_to_fame@hotmail.co]

Hey mate i am allowing him to host the web site, but i have found a solution to this, i will take a daily back up of the site on my comp. do u think that should work ?

Regards
Ashish.

[peterjhale]

All I'm saying is you don't need a designer if you are just running a forum

Choose any host that runs something like cpanelx - you literally click a button and hey presto you have a forum

Have a look at www.businessplanexpress.co.uk

It's a site I put up but have done nothing with. This is hosted by betterwebspace and it took 2 secs for the forum to appear