I wonder if this is the right thing for me...

I wonder if this is all right for me. I mean, I love the internet, I enjoy making sites and things, but I really wonder if this is right for me. I'm not very socialable at all, I'm horrible at advertising and I can't design for shit. On top of that, I've got barely any cash, even working.

I seriously wonder if I should be doing this. There's one big, main competitor to my forum, but it covers a bunch of similar topics, mine's just on this one topic.

What should I do

 

Maybe its not you. A webmaster is a tough job, but maintaining your grounds is key. Why not cover it all?

 

Oh, it's definitely not for everyone, but people need to figure out what they're good at, everyone is good at something in the forum business, they just need people[staff] to enhance.

You just have to have the patience and if you don't know how to do one thing, try to find help, ask for help, pointers, You have forums like AA which are more than glad to share tips on what we're doing to our communities. ^_^ Learned what you're good at, if you don't know something or have a question, ask!

If you really feel that is not for you, then it's your choice.

 

I enjoy the more technical side of all this, but that's really nothing compared to promoting, building members, etc of a forum. I'm not very social, so making friends to spread forum links across and get to help launch it and all is real tough. If I had the cash, I'd hire some real promoters and community liasons to handle the people tasks, while I did the backend technical forum/server stuff.

I wonder how well these 'forum services' companies do these days. I've seen a few people that claim to charge $50 or something just to install a freaken forum software. Something that's easily done within 10-20 minutes for most of us here, am I right?

 

I think it's right for you, maybe you're just overwhelmed with the sense that your community won't take off the way you want it to, or thought it would.

It takes time and patience - patience, being one of the main attributes. Use Facebook, Twitter, tell friends and promote on sites through signatures, shameless promotion, etc - you'll see results.

 

To tell you the truth I think that is a great skill right there. I have to rely on my husband to do all the technical stuff because that's not in my skill set. I'm the social butterfly - he's the tech geek.

Everyone has their own skills as FMB pointed out. My advice to you would be to determine what your skills are, assess your gaps (what you will have to learn to to be "successful"), and then decide if you are willing to put in the time to fill those gaps.

In the end you have to do what makes you happy, otherwise life's just no fun.

Best,
RR

 

When I hear someone question those rates, I laugh.
Take your computer into the shop to have it fixed. Do they give you a 20 minute rate? No, they give you an hourly rate, usually around $50+/hr. Why? Because they're skilled experts. Doctors, same thing (though they're usually much, much higher), again, because they're skilled experts.

Does a forum install take 20 minutes? If you're slow. Then again, you can't account for everything. Maybe you have to uncompress things and upload them all file by file to the customer's server. Maybe you have to deal with firewalls that block you for too many connections. Maybe you have to deal with repeatedly annoying customers. THAT is why you charge the 1hr rate, to counter the variables.

In many cases, I offer clients a mod install, and a bit of advice, if the install goes smoothly. Then again, my clients all know me and know that they MAY find a cheaper admin, but not one anywhere near as dedicated to them and the success of their forums.

At the end of the day, make a name for yourself. Do what you like to do. If you like installing forums, great, do it, and run your own when you're ready to do so. Find a member to do the stuff you don't want, someone interested in the forum's topic. Give them a promotion. That way, in the end, you just worry about the tech side and they worry about the content/members/etc side. It's a win/win situation.

 

Can you find some people willing to do the social aspect for you in exchange for your help with the technical stuff? Maybe posting an ad here would do the trick.
Or maybe you should look into blogging forums; I think there are fewer bloggers with technical skills then forum owners, plus they'd be a pretty social group.