What does it take?

[John Klyne]

Okay there site is https://mycheckfree.com

You can go onto it, and pay a number of your bills all in one site.

What would it take to create a site that does that?
What programming language, and such?

I can take care of the legal issues, and the funding, but when it comes to making the actual site, I don't do much at all in terms of creating a site from scratch.

Anyone know or would be able to help me, and give me some more information on what programming language would be needed.

The site would not require a lot, just a normal home page.
A script where members can log in, and are given unique serial codes, to which they later show it to their company they have to pay bills to, and then the company would need to automatically send the information to their screen for payment.

I could see
1, script for the members making an account
another script for the companies to automatically send billing information to a member who requests it.

There is more to it, but it's basically 5 scripts total that would be needed...

Anyone want to talk to me about this?

Please post what you think, in this thread, it would be greatly appreciated. I have always wanted to run a payment processor company, and would love to actually hire some developers to get this started and finished.

Thank you for your help, and your time in advance.

John Klyne
E-mail: johnklyne@hotmail.com (Please no spam, do onto others what you want done to you.)

[lemon-tree]

The level of security required for any site dealing with real money is HUGE, as the safety of the customer's data is paramount. This is certainly not something I would recommend for someone who doesn't even know what sort of programming language would be needed; this sort of site requires at least a professional input and testing to insure integrity against a wide range of attacks.
Really, this isn't the best place to ask as I doubt any - or very few - of us have anywhere near the experience necessary to design and execute a 'payment processor company' from scratch. What you need here is to spend some money on professional consultation and design from somebody with regular experience in this.

Also, for what it's worth, I would never put any of my personal data anywhere near that site: not only does it look a bit sketchy but it is also an unnecessary complication to money management. If they can't even spend the time to come up with a half decent looking site, then how am I to trust that they haven't been equally as negligent when they were designing the security of the system that holds monetary data? This isn't to say that a good CSS site will instantly win my trust, but lack of it will surely lose it.

[descalzo]

Also, for what it's worth, I would never put any of my personal data anywhere near that site: not only does it look a bit sketchy but it is also an unnecessary complication to money management. If they can't even spend the time to come up with a half decent looking site, then how am I to trust that they haven't been equally as negligent when they were designing the security of the system that holds monetary data? This isn't to say that a good CSS site will instantly win my trust, but lack of it will surely lose it.

The parent company, Fiserv, was founded in 1984 and had 2009 revenues of $4.1 billion. ie, Fortune 500 company.

They acquired CheckFree in 2007. CheckFree had been founded in 1981.

I trust in facts and a track record more than I do in CSS.

Sorry JK, way out of your league. Your concept of what it would take proves it.

[lemon-tree]

Like I said, a pretty site isn't a deal clincher, but a poorly designed site is something that displays a lack of effort or investment to me. Likewise, a scammer could make a brilliant site, but that doesn't mean that I would have faith in it automatically without first extensively looking into other people's experience with the site and any relevant warnings to ensure security. I didn't this in this case because I am not looking to use this service and was simply offering a personal judgement of first impressions.

Clearly, I was wrong with my initial assumptions this time but it doesn't mean that it isn't something that will influence whether or not I will use a site. After all, care with money on any web service is something you can never have too much of.

[Sharky]

Ohh... This makes sense now. Crazy American spelling of "cheque". 'check' is a whole other word.

I wouldn't use it, sorry. Maybe I'm paranoid but only a select few retailers and the tax man get my bank details for making withdrawals.

[essellar]

I have a horrible track record of underestimating projects, and I can tell you that I wouldn't touch it for less than $100K -- and that's with zero coordination or communication costs, where the architect, designer and implementer are all on the same page all of the time (because they're the same guy). And you'd be nuts to hire one guy, but you can't hire four and make the project go four times faster -- it might cut the time in half.

There's a lot to do, from researching the APIs for the various institutions you want to deal with, to "simply" building the application, to hardening and testing (and the test/debug cycle will be at least three times the length of the architecture and coding cycles combined before you're ready to call it a "minimum viable product" and move to a public beta). Then there's the cost of running the site -- you need physical security of the servers (that means co-location of machines you own in at least two separate "hardened" data centers), redundancy in your redundancy, off-site disaster recovery, et cetera, et cetera.

You're probably looking at nearly half a million spent before you're able to buy a packet of instant ramen noodles with the first profits from the venture. There's a potential for a vast income, yes, but it depends on making a big bet up front. If you were a fanatical coder with a dream and the know-how, you could place a significant portion of that bet using sweat equity, but you won't find a "technical cofounder" to execute your idea on speculation. This isn't an iPhone app, it's a serious enterprise-level, security-is-paramount, legal-liabilities-attached software project that just happens to have a web front-end.

That being said, if you're up for the hundred grand, let's talk, and I'll show you how I'd earn every penny.

[John Klyne]

To some comments above...

I know the Fiserv Team, and to honest they have the jest of what they should be doing with the company, but are missing a lot of what I have in mind. Their profits run to 4.1 billion a year as someone stated, but then they have more than one part of their company. With the mycheckfree.com site, with some tweaks on marketing, and total services offered, I know I can create a 5 billion dollar a year stretch mark just from mycheckfree.com.

Fiserv creates 4.1 billion from all their services offered...heh, that is not what I need to do to get that 5 Billion.

Instead of buying it, where it would be easier to increase profits. And want to pursue the company idea on my own, from scratch.

"Sorry JK, way out of your league. Your concept of what it would take proves it." stated from descalzo... You are quite a negative person. I won't go into that, but if I dump enough money on something, I get it done, not getting it done would lead to the money being dumped down the drain.

Essellar, I will contact you via PM.

Thank you.

John Klyne.

[ejweb]

Howdy Mr. Klyne,
It's too bad you ask for ideas and questions but don't get a straight answer. I noticed this a lot in these forums. It does sound like you got a few ideas and appears you are or were a business owner. Maybe I can provide some positive ideas. I'm a web programmer and have done a online business but on a very, small scale. I've programmed in and have seen such websites using ASP.NET and PHP programming languages. Another one, which may be "stronger" and stable is Java Server scripts (JSP). Besides the `programming language` used in the site, I'm assuming you will need to purchase a SSL (Secured Socket Layer) certificate and register it. This will validate your website after you've passed a background check by the SSL issuer. Your website will need to be encrypted for processing - ie; https:. The local, online business site that I did used paypal for the processing but for your idea; I would definitely purchase and use a SSL certificate. Here are a few websites dealing with online processing that may be of help;
http://banking.about.com/od/bankonli...tupbillpay.htm
http://www.kiplinger.com/basics/arch...3/billpay.html
http://paytrust.intuit.com - http://www.truste.com (eTrust - site for online processing/SSL)
http://www.verisign.com/ - SSL certification, etc.


You may need to set up a retailer or merchant account at your local bank to be focused on ecommerce processing. I'm sure the local bank rep can help and answer questions regarding online processing. Just do some research and have questions ready for them.
Of course, as it was pointed out earlier in this post, I would look for a reputable attorney who has online/ecommerce experience that can help you with the website's legal aspects. If essellar above cannot help, maybe you can ask around in your community or local computer groups that may recommend an experienced, reputable website programmer with such experience. eBay and PayPal may be a good source to see if you can contact a site developer/programmer to get ideas to lay out your business plan and your SDLC model (System's Development Life Cycle). Hope this is helpful...

[descalzo]

"Sorry JK, way out of your league. Your concept of what it would take proves it." stated from descalzo... You are quite a negative person. I won't go into that, but if I dump enough money on something, I get it done, not getting it done would lead to the money being dumped down the drain.

I have seen your history of posting here. I stand by my assertion. It is amazing that you can get anybody here to take you seriously.

[lemon-tree]

I know the Fiserv Team, and to honest they have the jest of what they should be doing with the company, but are missing a lot of what I have in mind. Their profits run to 4.1 billion a year as someone stated, but then they have more than one part of their company. With the mycheckfree.com site, with some tweaks on marketing, and total services offered, I know I can create a 5 billion dollar a year stretch mark just from mycheckfree.com.

It is delusional to believe you can bring in greater profits with just a new website than a major company, so please don't just pull numbers out of the air. Sure, their site needs a face-lift, but it also has considerably greater backing from knowledgable people within the industry than any startup would.