I’m planning to a start a small online show that teaches people a specific something in information technology. I’m going to look for a sponsor so I can make some money off it, since I will invest a lot of time and research on it.
What I’d like to know is, how much is a sponsor supposed to pay? is he supposed to cover the costs of what I’m doing only (and take care of events maybe), or pay me based on how popular my show is?
If it’s the latter, then is there a way to figure out what am I supposed to get so I don’t get ripped off?
It will be much easier to attract a sponsor when the value already existes. For example, you have done the show, and the resulting traffic can be shown. It’s not easy to attract a sponsor for something that doesn’t exist yet, or is not complete and well developed.
As dvduval indicated, most people get sponsors when there’s something to sponsor… not in the creation phase. Once you have a site most sponsors will pay you based on your traffic although some sites do sell flat rate ads especially in their early days. Getting a sponsor to pay you to cover all of the startup costs initially is not likely – afterall while your costs may be thousands of dollars, the value in your audience will very small until you build traffic and why spend lots to sponsor something no one sees?
If you want someone to cover the production costs you would be looking for some sort of funding (venture or angel) as a means of getting up and running. Funding is generally received in return for equity and sometimes free advertising is thrown into the mix.
