Hello everybody. Today's topic is quite a flasher: How to get rich in 20 days. That, it seems to me, was the idea of a young entrepreneur who contacted me through a mutual friend.

As you may or may not know, I am helping startup-companies with know-how, contacts, advise and, sometimes, even cash. I am receiving several requests a month, mostly pretty boring stuff. Not that boring stuff wouldn't sell, but, well, who needs the third "Twitter" copy or another "Facebook" lookalike.

The idea of a business, as I understand it, is to make money. It's simply not enough to have a great idea, a vision, without a concrete business foundation. And no, selling ads is not what I would call a strong business proposition. It's me too - and a proven concept only for failure.

So - what am I looking for in a venture? The fundamentals have to be realistic. Whenever I see a business plan suggesting revenues in the vicinity of 100$/user and year, I am getting nervous. Don't get me wrong. There are a few services out there that have managed to get that much money from users. But "community" websites or browser gaming systems will most certainly not cut it. If your business case predicts a nice cash flow with, say, 3$/user and year, you've got my attention.

What's the next important fact? Data security and privacy. I have developed a system called "PURE" - or "Protected User Record Environment" - which is currently being deployed, among other sytems, in a Human Resources environment. PURE encrypts and protects all of the users private data against unauthorized access - even the system administrators are not able to circumvent the technology. Why is that important? Because people are starting to take care of their data. They want their data to be protected. Authorities are beginning to take notice and sooner or later, laws will be handed down to the online-sites forcing them to abandon their profiling methods and, in some case, their businesses. If your business plan relies on detailed user records (i.e. for advertising, to sell or lease out), you most certainly haven't got the feeling for tomorrows markets.

Also important are the team, the vision, the USP and the sustainability of the business idea. It's not easy to create a good product on todays Internet. But, I am sure, there are quite a few hotties out there.

Back to my "make money fast friend". He had an idea about a browser game. His papers (it wasn't anything one could call business plan) suggested an ROI of a stunning 5000 percent in two years. WhooHoo.

"Just give me a 100,000$ and I will lauch a product that not only makes you filthy rich, but also helps mankind"

... or so was his argument. He obviously hadn't done any market research (a similar game was available on three! different websites), he wasn't able to predict the costs of hosting his envisioned 2 Million gamers, all in all he just had a dream and was looking for somebody stupid enough to pay money for it.

Now - I want people to get filthy rich. I will do anything in my powers to help entrepreneurs to get into and to survive in today's tough markets. But please: Do your homework first.

Just needed to blow some steam ..

Michaela