You should take every opportunity to mention your business. You may not 'win' the debate, but if you want to succeed in business winning debates isn't important, marketing and publicity is.

@Hastati:
Hmm.. I don't think I agree..

Personal examples/experiences are generally considered good tools because they're non-generic, which probably scores points by itself, and your opponent can't really prepare for them.

You can also be more convincing when you're 'emotionally invested', showing you truly believe it.

Plus I don't think I'll take personal offense and if needed I can always stay seated until I'm good..

Maybe if you elaborate I might be convinced, but right now I don't really see the problem there.

Is broad expert supposed to be an oxymoron by the way?

@Maniac: I agree from a business perspective but it's not really my style to go around yelling my company name and I don't want to screw my team over, so I'd see it more as a nice side effect..

I think you're right about emotional investment being a valid tool if used correctly, but since you're clearly of the mind that high school students don't lack ambition, it'd probably be more helpful to use your company as an example if you end up on the other side.

@Maniac: Sort of. It's supposed to draw your attention while still being descriptive. It refers to a broad expertise, in the sense of being an expert in many things. A broad knowledge which is deep as well.

Does that make sense? Let me know whether you like or hate it :-)

@ghug:
I don't see how I could use my company as an example for why high school students are not ambitious..?

It's also a team debate and luckily for me, I tend to be the odd one out so I could even just 'sit it out' if I need to be in favour of the debate, since my team is likely to be in favour.

It occurs to me that we never actually discussed who is on which side on all the statements. I should suggest that..

Your company could be used as a vehicle or humorous aside, but you'd have to handle it with great care. It's irrelevant to the substance of the debate, and it's easy to turn off judges with anything that smacks of self-promotion. Don't make its inclusion a priority.

Is it irrelevant to the substance of the debate though? I think it's a perfect example of how high school students might be scoring 6s but that doesn't mean they're not ambitious: they're just busy doing more ambitious and important things than getting top grades.

Supported by two examples: for instance I have my own company and look at all of us, we've been very busy preparing for these debates in the last weeks and even months...

I wasn't going to throw it in at random, I had a plan there. Adding the name might be pushing it, unless the conversation continues on that, but I'll make sure you'll find the website when you Google my name, so if people at home are interested they'll find it.

"We're not lazy- we are in the debate club!" is a pretty terrible argument.

Yep like broadexpert.com, I was just asking.

"it's not really my style to go around yelling my company name.." If you're going to be in business in any description, your style is going to have to change. Best products in the world do not sell themselves. People have to know about your company and your product, if you're not comfortable yelling your company name at a debating gig, give up now.

Yes, your personal company is irrelevant to the substance of the debate. It is, at best, a purely illustrative example of an ambitious thing high schoolers could be doing outside of school--hence, vehicle or humorous aside. But your personal ambitions have nothing to do with the aggregate ambitions of high schoolers. Are *many* high schoolers starting companies? Are *many* high schoolers heavily involved in extracurriculars like debate club? The answers to *those* questions are relevant to the substance of the debate.

(In the meantime, the claim hasn't been properly defined. What is the normative level of ambition we're comparing against, to judge high schoolers lacking?)

(Also, screw Maniac's advice. If you aren't comfortable yelling your company name at a debating gig, you probably don't have a five-second pitch that sells your business without sounding forced. Figure that out instead of giving up.)

@ Steephie: That is one of the most ugly webpages I have ever seen. Are you colour-blind? White text on a brown background in a yellow field? Whaaat?

Note to investors: You will probably *not* make any money.

@uclabb: Fair enough. Hence mentioning the company is better I guess..

@Maniac: Good, glad you like it!

Other than that, yes, I agree in a general sense, but I won't be desperate for clients soon and I plan a rather new approach to various things, so I think it's quite important that I come across as the calm, non-desperate guy who is confident in his own success and I'm not sure how shamelessly screaming my company name at a non-appropriate time fits into that. Similarly, I don't want to be screaming about how trustworthy and excellent and good for my clients I am, I want clients to draw that conclusion on their own and treat it as something normal for me, which is true.

Makes sense? I'd rather wait for a really good time, like an interview after our victory :-)

Also hold in mind that I'll probably still be busy with the design of the website by then..

I hear you and I definitely let it weigh into my decisions though. At the moment, my classmates don't even know (although I'll ask around for designers there too so that should change very soon), because I think it'd have a larger impact if they suddenly find out I successfully started a company, rather than me having told them I registered a company in December, with them saying 'oh cool' and forgetting about it and saying I had some success in February..

I figured one big shock would work better, you know :-)

(Also also, some free non-expert business advice: you're making the classic entrepreneurial mistake of trying to do everything at once, instead of doing one thing well. First, you have a boardgame concept--focus on building and selling the boardgame, not on selling your broad expertise in Everything (TM). Second, your recruiting pitch covers everything a business could need--which leads me to believe you don't know where you fit in, or who you need *next*. Figure out your path to market, what you can do to move forward, and what the first thing you *can't* do is--that's the thing you need to hire for.)

I wasn't going to say anything because you're just getting started, but Jamiet99uk is right. Some hopefully helpful advice: if you're doing web design and not selling your business hard don't expect to make much money in the age of WYSIWYG web editors like Wix and WP. There's some pretty stiff automated competition in that field. GoDaddy has a similar product that comes free with domain registration. This is all to help. I think you should definitely move forward if building pages is what you like to do, but you'll need something that separates you from everyone else. Your site looks like you know basic HTML and that's about it.

(Of course, that's still pretty ambitious advice. You *don't* need to do any hiring at this point. You'll profit more by making these personal projects--learning to make a decent website, for example--than by looking for employees. Finding a mentor/advisor, now, that's something you could be doing, if you aren't already.)

@Lethologica: Agreed, I guess I misinterpreted 'vehicle or humorous aside'.
Many claims have some wiggling room on purpose, I believe. There's no properly defined version.

@Jamie: A good thing that I'm looking for people to design my style then, isn't it? :-)
I have to admit I thought it looked quite elegant for a temporary placeholder, but maybe I'm wrong or it's just a matter of taste..

Your only objection is the colours? That can be changed in a matter of seconds.
Do other people agree with Jamie?

Placeholders guys, placeholders :-)
Okay, what colours then? Other objections to the style?

The claim having wiggle room is fine. Working out how to use that wiggle room to your advantage is approximately 10x more relevant than working out how to use your company as an illustrative example.

And I would strongly suggest that you look at some free website templates/web design software, rather than getting someone to do the design for you.

Happy to provide other stylistic comments:

The wall of text is visually unappealing and needs breaking up more. Ideally into multiple pages with an intro page and then further detail behind that.

Your paragraphs are not very well separated - give an extra line between them to break the text up a bit.

It also looks slightly more basic than stephandijkhof.eu (after clicking English), which was also work in progress and which is where I copied the style from since it's not meant to stay anyway.

@Lethologica: We've been working a lot on that. I didn't lay out all our arguments because that wasn't the point of the question.
Also, the designer is mostly needed for a logo to begin with, and possibly a fitting style for business cards, website etc.
I won't spend much on it, hence I'm looking for art students with little work on their hands, primarily.

Apparently I can't even pick the right colours though, so yeah.. :P
So what colours, Jamie?

There will be multiple pages but this is temporary and it saves me time like this. Right now, the important thing is that it provides extra information for people I send there. The right design should come in a few weeks max, so you can probably see why I wouldn't want to spend too much time on doing everything right if it all changes soon anyway.

An extra line I can do.

Also @Lethologica: the jobs section is indeed more of a general 'if you're interested, let me know' for now. That's because I don't *need* anything right now, but I might still see opportunities depending on what presents itself. That's where the power to adapt comes in :-)

I also want to work with subcontractors so it's just useful to have a list of potential subcontractors for when I need something. Plus, once I have that list, I can be more specific on what other services can be provided right now.

The focus is on the design of the website and the finishing touches on the boardgame right now (apart from school, debating and that other competition I'm in..), but that doesn't mean a list of interested people, CVs etc. is useless.

True, but: who's going to contact you for jobs that don't appear to exist in a company that doesn't appear to do anything in particular? *Are* you getting responses? (With respect to your other side business, has anyone taken you up on your offer to host a website?)

I don't get contacted by strangers so far, but it's been useful for people who want information. Note that broadexpert.com has been online for.. I clearly keep no track of time, but it's some days I think :-)

I've made a couple of websites which was before I registered the company and I still have one client to go, but she first wants to figure out exactly what she wants. She's actually a graphic designer whom I asked to do the logo and everything in return for a website, but she's too busy so I'm going to ask around for someone else.

It's important to note that I have been quite busy with school so it's allowed to be taken slow. I have more free time coming up, but I've thought that before and it never seems to arrive :-)

I know it's vague and clarifications are needed, but stephandijkhof.eu is still online so for webhosting/webdesign I send people there for now. I've also had a couple of non-concrete offerings/acquisitions. One guy is regularly asked to make websites for friends and overheard me and said he'll contact me when he has a concrete offer. Five people gave me their emails because they wanted to be notified when they could buy the boardgame (that's all non-friends and I wasn't really 'selling' yet). As for jobs, I've had a few 'I'm interested but busy (which makes sense because the kind of person I'm looking for would be busy with all kinds of things)' talks and some people who want to but can't really offer me anything I need right now. Those people *do* become part of my network though, and I haven't used my network yet.

Basically, I'm brewing potential here and there while I'm still busy finishing up the boardgame and getting the site done, which are my prime activities for now.