Do you utilize crowdsourcing sites, private investors or self funding for your forum?

The composition of a successful forum requires the purchase of a domain, a template ( if you are unable to build it from scratch), licenses, L.L.C documentation and more. Do you think of your forum as a business to be considered a brand or do you simply see your forum as a side project that will generate income sometime in the long run?

This seems to be an important questions since most of us seem to find it important to develop, market and dedicate ourselves to the success of our independent forums. There are quite a few weekend internet entrepreneurs whom don't feel rushing the process or pushing themselves so it gets to the next level is important but the funds required to launch with a level of assurance can become quite staggering.

Did you pull the money to start your forum out of your own pocket?

Did you have a private investor?

Did you utilize a crowdsourcing site?

 

I funded all my sites myself. I also hope to only rely on ads, my own money and donations in future rather than investors.

 

Self-funding, always. I don't want to be beholden to anyone for the manner in which I conduct business.

 

Touche. I think I'm going about it right then, lol. I decided to come out my own pocket for my sites but there are quite a few larger projects that I'd like to get into but I think I'll wait until I have the money to back them with my current ventures rather than allow investors in.

 

You need to have "your ducks in a row" before you make a presentation to potential investors.
People with money aren't always the sharpest tools in the shed.
You need to be able to explain it to them like they're two years old.
Draw them a roadmap with crayon and colored pencil and magic marker. Ooh! Pretty!
Lay out every detail of how you are going to get from here to there.
It could take you six months or more just to build your presentation, depending on who you are presenting and how much you are asking to be invested.

 

So far there hasn't been a need to get external funding. All the projects I started have all been self funded.

 

I think it's important when considering starting a forum that people understand the basic fundamentals of what forums initially started as, what they can expect, and what the future entails. So, I'll address the OP's questions first and then add a few other basics to the list to think about and or refresh ones memory.

1.) The majority of forums are started out of the domain / business owners own pocket.
2.) Forums don't appeal to any serious private start-up investors do to their history.
3.) Crowdsourcing is definitely a quick way to get your layout / design themed cost effectively if you don't have the skill sets yourself.
4.) Forums were initially created as a support platform to assist with per-existing product / service lines.
5.) Stand alone forums as a brand fail 99.9% of the time (with a few exceptions).
6.) Forums rarely generate much (if any) revenue in their first 1 to 3 years till they become established.
7.) It can take years to build a forum and they can die completely within 7 days if left unmanned.
8.) The moderation work alone in a forum can turn into a 8 to 15 hour a day job.
9.) The promoting / marketing of a forum is ongoing, if you aren't viral, your forum can die within a few days of you not promoting anymore.
10.) Forums aren't easy work to get generating consistent revenue and anyone that said they were lied to you.
11.) Forums should be started initially as a support platform or a side hobby. Never as a primary business plan.
12.) At the end of the day, when you break down the database, a forum exposes itself as a lead generator to it's owner(s) and should be utilized properly as such for maximum conversion. (Don't over do it though and run everyone off)
13.) Investors that do seek forums, look for established ones (mainly for the leads potential as mentioned in #12).

The above are just a few of the thousands of basics when dealing with a forum. Forums 99.9% of the time won't make anyone rich and they aren't a fast cash business model. Times have changed and the inter-webs are saturated with forum start-ups all struggling to tap the same market shares. Chances are, someones already made a forum about the topic you want to target, so be sure you can offer something they never did, otherwise you'll just end up being another statistic.

Eric Lyon

 

wow you summarized this well

 

I funded everything myself so far. But I might take a loan off my cousin for $2000 since he offered it, and it'd help me out a lot with taking my forum to the next level.

 

Selffunding is always the best way to do things. If you have to be reliant on other people, they may question your ability or take advantage of you