Revenue Making through Forum Communities

[D'Godown]

One of the most important objective to work hard for something is obviously Revenues. I almost planned a Forum community because i feel I must do it, I am immitating some other community in its category, Because there are many things I do not like about it at all.

The major question comes in my mind is will I be able to bear all expences if the community gains like 200 users online at a time? I am not sure what sort of cheques does community creators receive, I am taking it as a hobby only, But if it requires like 100US$ a month then it will simply become out of my budget to run a community without a revenue.

To me what I wish to ask through this topic is all community creators are able to gain ample revenues from advertising sources to pay bills for their softwares/hosts? :spiderloo

[Scott]

Remember you'll be starting small, you won't have 200 users online for a while. This will give you a chance to save money of hosting at the start, and expand when you need to. Try and pick a host which offers dedicated/vps so that you should be able to move over to one of them if need be.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, especially not at this stage. If you find you're going to need to be spending lots, discuss it with the community and see if you can get donations going or similar subscriptions. Advertising can pay for hosting easily, but you'll have to decide whether your community will like it.

[Jan]

I am immitating some other community in its category, Because there are many things I do not like about it at all.
How many regular users does this forum have? How long has it been running? Imitation and reinventing the wheel is not so successful if the forum you want to "copy" has been popular for a significant length of time :peace:

[D'Godown]

Thanks for the replies.

@scott: Thats true its not much of worry now a time, A friend's VPs can give me some resources as of now, But I have seen places, an average 40-50 users at a time dont make ample money to pay bills of hosting. Yeah but maybe when i face it live it will show its face.

@Jan: Well it depends that immitating such a community which is super popular in its category leaves no space for its competitors, for ex. WHT, there are many many hosting discussion communities but no one takes even 1/10th of WHT.

But in my case i am going for a general discussion thing and its true i have been a part of original community for a long and one of its active users, I guess i can have ample traffic for a good start. I understand the original community with its 45000+ registered users is big one, but i am satisfy getting 250 active users in first month, And it will grow after small initiatives, Atleast I am sure i need not have to buy paid posters to give it a non-dead forum look. Lets see.