Love it, I never thought of an angel network for marketing your website. Maybe multiple angels also and angels can promise a certain amount of traffic to your site.

Thanks HereNow .. yes i agree multiple Angels and traffic would form part of the assistance. I also envisage a dedicated Angels honour page both on the Bootstrapped business website and also on the main BackScratcher website.

Including a section on the BackScratcher website that holds referal comments as to why we, the Angle, promoted this business, who the Angel is, date of bootstrap, success measurement, back links to the Angel's site etc.

Just a thought .. what do you think about a multi-level type of assistance .. Groups of Angels promoting groups of startups which promote new startups on a success basis? .. haven't quite got that clear in my mind yet but discussion could clarify the idea:)

Good idea, but how would you make money off of it?
Would start up companies pay a fee to take part in this?
And would the angel companies get compensated as well?

Thanks kshex, to embelish on the revenue ideas i mention:-

1. Startups would pay a registration fee for a listing on the website and even a higher fee for a more prominent listing.

2. Startups could be encouraged or contracted to pay a success fee on a "no work no pay" basis. This could be a percentage of increased turnover on the first year or a fixed fee.

3. Angels could be made to bid on startup selection. This would make sense where they see good synergy and cross marketing opportunities with the startup. A minimum bid fee could be set.

4. Angels i don't think should be compensated other than the marketing awareness they would receive through the Angel Honour pages and Angel Awards. They would also be able to maximise their benefits with cross marketing opportunities they introduce to the startups they adopt.

5.The good old advertising and sponsorship revenues would apply as well.

1. Who wants to polute their page rank by linking to crappy sites?
2. Who wants to associate their good & successful site with crappy sites?
3. Since when did angels give stuff away without expecting MAJOR ROI?
4. Who polices and weeds out spammers from submitting their sites?

Your idea is like the only marginally OK idea I have seen so far in the top 10.

Are you talking a pyramid structure from the Angel on down? Top Angel promote groups, groups promote sites, successful sites promote newbies and each tier link back to the Top tier in return, this would be a great incentive to be an Angle(not haivng to market to fill the pyramid A+). As success occurs the Angel links and popularity and click thru grows.

The only aspect I dont like is that this appears to serve only Angel Companies and business start-ups. I'd prefer to see ideas come out of cambrian house that benefit a greater proportion of web-users.

That being said, I like ideas that promote good-will on the net, rather than blatant marketing opportunities. Done right, this could help some young businesses get some exposure. I have noticed though that blogs, sites like neobinaries, etc are starting to push good traffic towards smaller companies.

Mixed opinions on this one - but Doymarn, I admire the sentiment in your idea and attempt to provide an alternative route for success of small startups.

Thanks tublius, in answer to your questions:-
1&2. The Angles would review the website, mission and business of the startups that look interesting to THEM and they are the ones that will select which startups THEY wish to adopt. So, if in your words the startups and their websites are 'crappy' then they just wont get selected will they .. so i see no damage here in regard to these two points. Also, Angels could withdraw their sponsorship at any time should a startup turn out to be contrary to the expected quality envisaged.

3. I would like to think that there will be some unconditional goodwill appearing but not being too naive i think the Angels will receive their ROI in the form of increased market awareness through the Back Scratcher website's Angel pages and from the back link traffic and awareness that will flow from the startup websites as they become more and more successful. If we implement a pyramid structure as detailed in herenow's comment of July 29th then the potential of traffic could be an enormous ROI for the Angels.

4. The fact that startups will have to register and pay a registration fee will automatically weed out the spammers but additional spam reporting measures can also be put in place to cover any possible abuse.

With synergistic selection of which startups they adopt, the opportunities exist for agreed crossmarketing and product affiliations between Angle and startup, which can greatly benefit both parties and increase ROI.

With a multi-level type implementation of an Angel network, the traffic explosion could be huge.

PsychSplash, thanks for your input .. the number of business startups around the world is huge and each one invariably employs or benefits people, so the domino effect can benefit millions .. a good thing, even if some of the beneficiaries are not web users:)

Thanks herenow .. yes i think the multi-level aspect of this idea should be seriously considered because it can create a huge traffic engine that not only benefits the Angels but also explodes traffic to the startups at every level.

However, I don't think this should be allowed to be a "run away train" multi-level growth. Startups must register and pay registration fees and some filtering mechanisms put in place.

For example: It would be critical to have quality control measures in place so that associations do not become a thorny problem for the Angels .. an obvious example being the Adult industry ,which should be excluded from the structure, but we should also be aware that image and quality of adopted startups would be of prime importance as well as some competitive issues.

In the process of appointment of adoptions, each Angel or startup associated at a higher level should be able to reject an association to themselves if they feel it will be counter productive to their interests.

This will not result in a veto or adoption rejection at the first level of adoption but only at the linkage to themselves. This will be an interesting problem to surmount but not impossible:)

So its like a personals web site, but for... websites O_o (Bringing websites together for true love)

This is a giant link exchange program. the biggest problem I see is that the success of this program relies on it BEING giant before BECOMING giant. The author states:

I would like to think that there will be some unconditional goodwill appearing but not being too naive i think the Angels will receive their ROI in the form of increased market awareness through the Back Scratcher website's Angel pages and from the back link traffic and awareness that will flow from the startup websites as they become more and more successful.

Here, the author reveals that the SOLE incentive for Angels to participate (aside from goodwill for complete strangers) will be the increased market awareness through "Angel Pages". Now, who is going to look at these Angel Pages? Backscratcher employees?

The Angels can get money from more traffic and web presence but they also get a rep for helping others out and they can also get a good supplier out of it.

Also, a small sizes(but with enough traffic) or mid-sized site can be an Angel. The Angel would choose what type of startup to help out. A non-profit can help a non-profit or for profit.

Maybe the Angel want to begin a presence in a different country that they haven't stepped foot in yet, they can begin a form of brand building.

This is such a great idea and it would be nice to get it done. There is more than monetary ROI built into this.

Sorry AJ but i think your comment is rather like that of a journalist who takes one aspect of an interview and then makes that the main headline, quoting it out of context for effect. I would respectfully suggest you read the entire context from idea description through to all of the subsequent comments before making a conclusion on just one section of one reply comment. Comment replies are progressive and are not there to repeat previously stated subject matter and therefore they should be read and applied in totality to all context not isolated to support one aspect of conclusion.

Specifically, the comment you quote is from a development of ideas comming forward from other contributing comments .. it is NOT the complete description of intent but your comment infers it is.

You also isolate and misquote the context of this particular comment by stating that "the author reveals the 'Angel Pages' are the SOLE incentive for Angels to participate .." did you forget so quickly (mentioned in the same paragraph) the back link traffic, the Angel awareness pages on the startup websites? .. did you not understand the previous suggestions of product synergies, product affiliations and cross market selling opportunities .. or were you just too quick to put in a negative comment without bothering to read the complete context!

Your comment that this is just a giant link exchange program also underlines that you did not read or perhaps understand the other context and its subtleties which plainly differentiate it from link exchange programs.

It will need a lot of work and planning but it's good.

Check out my product and rate it if you can.

http://www.cambrianhous...oter/ideas-id/6IZCrwx/

Cool. The problem with the idea is that one hard working angel can cover the whole spectrum of start-up that is out there. To have multiple (maybe freelanced) agents, i.e. a congreggation of agents under one hat, you need a critical mass of webapps-gone-startups, and we're not there yet IMHO. Revisitation, maybe in two years? :)

In the mean time, there are angels like John Batelle with his its-already-been-done Federated Media. Notice the word federated. Cambrian House is using it, so it must be good ;-)