Name of your website?Tico Price
Your name?
Athena Raven
Your Location (city, etc)
Santiago de Puriscal
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Tico Price is a For Sale By Owner (FSBO) website. Innovative not just because listing your property with us is FREE all the time, every time, and forever but because of our exclusive TPI service which will be discussed a little later.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I had an idea and I chose to act on it. I could so I did.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first formal business website was Fehu Berkana. Fehu Berkana was launched almost two years ago. It is a metaphysical shop which acts as a release for my moon side.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Here in Costa Rica, the people are fondly called "Ticos". Years ago the cost of property in Costa Rica was unbelievably priced for a beautiful tropical area such as this. It was like paying pennies on the dollar for land in Hawaii. Because visitors come from around the world and generally from more expensive countries, Costa Rican prices for property were considered a great deal and the foreigners would pay more than would a native Tico. Hence there are "Gringo" prices and there are "Tico" prices. Everyone wants the "Tico Price".
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
One big difference in particular is the Tico Price Involvement service, or TPI, mentioned earlier. Some real estate sites have free listings and some have advertising and some have newsletters and some have at least one of our services. Tico Price is innovative as we have all the basic services combined with our exclusive TPI service. I've yet to see another website offer something similar to our TPI service. We offer different levels of administrative support for busy clients selling a property. Clients don't have to be available because we will take the call, coordinate the appointment between seller and prospective buyer, provide our contact information to protect our clients privacy and a bunch of other options to make a hectic life a little less difficult.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our ultimate goal here at Tico Price, is to provide the best service possible and to grow THE largest database related to Costa Rican properties.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We offer a free service so unless advertising spaces are filled or TPI services are requested then there is no balance for financial investment nor time. It's a labor of love.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would hire someone to automate the tasks involved with listing a property on our website. It is not an unpleasant task but because of our setup, it takes approximately 45 minutes to list one property.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Absolutely. We have a team effort.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Headaches would have to be the problems caused with the design of our website due to the inequities of the different browsers. It was a little troublesome making certain what displays correctly in one browser displays correctly in the others.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge for me was trying to understand languages such as PHP. You can't really create a decent site without some knowledge of a programming languages.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Classifieds1000.com of course!
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Time. I didn't think it would take as much time as it does to maintain a website.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Tico Price was registered more than five years ago but we launched this wonderfully renovated version of the Tico Price website only a couple of weeks ago. Before that, the domain name sat barely used.
Hopefully this project will be kept up for generations.
Last words?
As my mom used to say, "Nothing beats a failure but a try". If you have an idea, GO FOR IT! A life ruled by fear is no life at all.
What is your website address?
Tico Price
