Ever put a lot into your forum?

[John D]

Hey,
The latest site I am working on is a Poker forum, www.DeuceAce.com

I am putting a lot into this forum and I am praying it will pay off in the long term.

I just got a custom movie from Netasis (DemoDemo) which is amazing looking and worth every penny (Or cent..).

I have a custom design and I will be getting more movies from Netasis plus I am getting a huge number of unique articles written.

Everything is going to mount up but I think (And hope) it will pay off for me in the long run.

Have you ever put a lot of money and time into a site?
How did it do?
Did you meet your expectations?
Did you lose money?
How long did it take for you to meet your goals and what were they?
What was the best investment for your site that paid off?

[Wheels]

I'm helping my cousin run a forum and took over 1. My cousin has put some $$ into it like additional domains to point to it, the forum license and the hosting. There was going to be games, but that's on hold until the forum is moved to a VPS.

As for my own forum I'm still working on it. I just added some games and fine tune the catagories, etc.

Nice poker forum. Although my post would be better off in the review area, the font on the bottom is hard to read since it's almost the same colour as the background. Example "Forum Contains New Posts" etc is hard to see.

[namkrowa]

I have never had to put money into any of my online ventures, soley because I have very close friends that were willing to help pay for me (plus I didn't have any money). My domain I recieved as a gift.

All of my forums and websites do get my full attention, though. I have spent almost a year working on my advocacy website and forum, and neither of them are done yet. I've spent almost 72 hours on my literature and photography website, and I've already spent around seven hours on my new forum. So, although I cannot put a lot of money into these things, I do put as much time as I can into them.

In some cases, time is as good as money.

[cyberturk]

i have a web site since 1999. I have 3700 members. more than 500 uniqe hits per day. Then i opened lots of sites. And paid lots of money too to the hosting.

After 2004 i bought a reseller package to host my sites. Then i re-sell my extra space to friends.

Then this re-selling growthed and i need to buy a vps and established as a real hosting company im my country. Now i am looking to buy my dedicated server.

All of this story began from my site's hosting costs. In first times it isn't important where it is hosted. But when my hits are increase i learned the terms:

cpu limits,
ram usage,
suspended :(

etc...

my earning is from google and 20$ per month. If i reached 100 $ i get my check then go to bank and local bank took 40 $ commision and give me 60 $ for my 5 months advertisement revenue :)

[John D]

I'm talking more about at least a few thousand, a big enough sum of money that it has to pay off or your out of pocket quite a bit.

Want to know what paid off in the long run for people and what their plans were when they started out.