Mark Eternally
Regular Member
- Dec 13, 2017
- 274
- 115
I began a project to build a single successful online forum community, with as close to zero funding as possible.
After looking at this from as many angles as I could, within reason, I decided to build a small army (maybe a platoon or company) of online forums with the hopes that at least one of them is successful.
As I am not picky on the topics, so long as they are topics in which I consider myself knowledgeable. I do not want to start a forum about laser communications in space when I know mostly nothing about this topic. I would much rather prefer topics to which I can intelligently speak. With this in mind, I made a list of topics I believe I know. This was a rather humbling process. When you are up against brutal honesty face-to-face it is surprising how much we actually do not know, at least this was my case. So, I made my list.
Once I had my list I went domain shopping. I bought at least 6 to 12 domains per topic. This is where all of my monies went, other than hosting.
Armed with topics, and domains, I began to test forum software options. I found that I liked two free forum software solutions, but for different types of forums. I liked Flarum and MyBB. I would have probably gone the XenForo path, but that costs money. Both Flarum and MyBB have fairly active development communities associated with them, and they have a basic feel to them that makes sense. As I mentioned, I learned that these two produce different styles of forums.
Knowing that I will use either Flarum or MyBB forum software it was time to start launching forums into the wild wild web. That was fairly easy, and as an afterthought I should have kept better notes so I could share with others how to quickly go from zero to public ready forum. By the time I had launched half a dozen forums I was able to get forums up in around an hour. The most time consuming portions of the launches have been graphic design, initial content, and forum structuring (BHW has Marketplace with sub forums, Making Money with subs, et cetera).
With a decent horde of forums now out in the wild I am in the process of populating them with posts, as well as finding where their target audiences exist. This is a slow process. I think of it like a large steam locomotive just starting to move. Before it moves there is a lot of work designing the train, building the train, deciding where the track will lead, laying the track, putting all this together, and eventually getting the engines hot enough to generate motion. Well, right now, anyone looking can see the steam but the wheels are not quite moving yet. Once there is motion, it will be gradual, and powerful. (#trainanalogies)
Something worth mentioning is that I am currently not monetizing any of these forums. I have tested where advertisements could be placed, but I have not executed on that. I have explored membership fee options
I do not know how often I will post here, but the goal is to keep this thread somewhat up to date. Also, I am not keen on sharing analytics data quite yet, mostly because everyone knows what single and double digits look like.
After looking at this from as many angles as I could, within reason, I decided to build a small army (maybe a platoon or company) of online forums with the hopes that at least one of them is successful.
As I am not picky on the topics, so long as they are topics in which I consider myself knowledgeable. I do not want to start a forum about laser communications in space when I know mostly nothing about this topic. I would much rather prefer topics to which I can intelligently speak. With this in mind, I made a list of topics I believe I know. This was a rather humbling process. When you are up against brutal honesty face-to-face it is surprising how much we actually do not know, at least this was my case. So, I made my list.
Once I had my list I went domain shopping. I bought at least 6 to 12 domains per topic. This is where all of my monies went, other than hosting.
Armed with topics, and domains, I began to test forum software options. I found that I liked two free forum software solutions, but for different types of forums. I liked Flarum and MyBB. I would have probably gone the XenForo path, but that costs money. Both Flarum and MyBB have fairly active development communities associated with them, and they have a basic feel to them that makes sense. As I mentioned, I learned that these two produce different styles of forums.
Knowing that I will use either Flarum or MyBB forum software it was time to start launching forums into the wild wild web. That was fairly easy, and as an afterthought I should have kept better notes so I could share with others how to quickly go from zero to public ready forum. By the time I had launched half a dozen forums I was able to get forums up in around an hour. The most time consuming portions of the launches have been graphic design, initial content, and forum structuring (BHW has Marketplace with sub forums, Making Money with subs, et cetera).
With a decent horde of forums now out in the wild I am in the process of populating them with posts, as well as finding where their target audiences exist. This is a slow process. I think of it like a large steam locomotive just starting to move. Before it moves there is a lot of work designing the train, building the train, deciding where the track will lead, laying the track, putting all this together, and eventually getting the engines hot enough to generate motion. Well, right now, anyone looking can see the steam but the wheels are not quite moving yet. Once there is motion, it will be gradual, and powerful. (#trainanalogies)
Something worth mentioning is that I am currently not monetizing any of these forums. I have tested where advertisements could be placed, but I have not executed on that. I have explored membership fee options
I do not know how often I will post here, but the goal is to keep this thread somewhat up to date. Also, I am not keen on sharing analytics data quite yet, mostly because everyone knows what single and double digits look like.
