Protoscopic

We are approaching this endeavor as something of an experiment or game. As such, we must have a list of rules of what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Essentially our goal is to apply our knowledge in other areas to the field of “Net Business” and test its feasibility and methodology. To do this, we want to conduct an experiment to see if we can grow from relative neophytes with limited capital, to success. In doing this we will apply several standard paradigms:

Start Small
Our goal is to test the efficacy of various business models, tactics and tools. To do so, we’ll start with what we consider micro-businesses. By this we mean businesses that can be started from next to nothing. There seem to be many opportunities for this out there, and we’d like to see if through sound application of principles we can yield a return that is worth our time.

Grow
As we become successful (note the optimism) in each level we will try larger scale businesses. These may be related to the original ideas or may even be the original ideas expanded. Our goal is to progress up the ladder, however. So even if we don’t have the capital to advance these original phases, we reserve the right to move on to new ones once we’ve proven out initial levels.

Create Value
We will not pursue any business models that involve tricking customers. We want sustainable, passive income, and we don’t feel that taking advantage of people is a good way to achieve that. As such, we will be trying to create valuable Internet properties based on providing goods or services that people actually want.

Operate Ethically and Honor Intent
Similarly we will honor the intent of our partners, suppliers and clients. For example, we would not make a website dedicated to inflating a website’s PageRank, as that is contrary to Google’s intent. We would instead recommend relationships that improve PageRank by providing valuable content, a sure way to improve PageRank.

Try New Things
While we may not be interested in every single kind of Internet based business, we will go out of our way to try out different ideas—seldom sought as well as high-trafficked areas—in order to have a broader spectrum of experiences to share.

Affiliates
On both the blog and our businesses we will make use of affiliate programs and other advertising. However we will not advertise or endorse businesses we don’t think add value.

More rules will certainly follow as our experience grows, but these seem a good starting place.