What tips would you give to a new forum owner?

[Shortie]

All too often we see new forums popping up and whilst some of them last and stay open, others tend to be open for a little while and then are closed by the owner a lot of the time because their forum did not grow as fast as they hoped it would.

When it comes to someone starting a new forum, what tips would you give them?

 

[Kane]

If you want to start a forum, first of all answer these questions:
Why do you want a forum?
How long can you manage expenses without hurting your pockets?
How much time can you give?
You need a clear goal for your forum, if it is your fun project and you don't mind spending $5000$1000 per year on your hobby, running a forum can be ok.

 

[Heatman]

One of the major tips that I'm going to give to anyone who is interested in becoming a webmaster is to make sure that he or she is working with a budget and it doesn't have to be something that is very big. Since it is the person's first time, in a situation where things doesn't go as planned, you will cut your losses early and not lose a lot of money.

 

[Frank]

One of the major tips that I'm going to give to anyone who is interested in becoming a webmaster is to make sure that he or she is working with a budget and it doesn't have to be something that is very big. Since it is the person's first time, in a situation where things doesn't go as planned, you will cut your losses early and not lose a lot of money.

Having a budget is very important. I don't see a reason one would want to start a forum without having some financial budget set aside for it. That is something that I always talk about since it is pretty important to do checks and balances when you are running a forum to see how much you are making or not.

 

[The Raven]

Finding a unique idea for forum. If you want to follow ideas of most common type of forums, you will fail. Only way to follow that concept is to have it in your native language.

Secondly, once you find something unique, be sure to make stuff there even more unique with categories and forums. It must have something other forums don't.

And lastly, advertise it.

 

[Heatman]

Having a budget is very important. I don't see a reason one would want to start a forum without having some financial budget set aside for it. That is something that I always talk about since it is pretty important to do checks and balances when you are running a forum to see how much you are making or not.

Forum management requires money for you to do it and that is the reason why before you decide to embark on becoming a webmaster, you must definitely work out a budget that is going to be easy for you to provide and use for the operational running cost of everything that is about your community.