How long did it take you to make a successful forum?

[JABRONI]

I started my site in 2012. I shut it down in 2013. I relaunched it in 2014 under a new name.

I currently get 300ish posts a day, but the site does not pay for itself. Ads do not perform very well, but I do have a good amount of people who pay for a "premium" service which helps cut the bill in half so I only pay the other half.

 

[=MGN=RedEagle]

I started my site in 2012. I shut it down in 2013. I relaunched it in 2014 under a new name.

I currently get 300ish posts a day, but the site does not pay for itself. Ads do not perform very well, but I do have a good amount of people who pay for a "premium" service which helps cut the bill in half so I only pay the other half.

Mind sharing the forum

 

[dvsDave]

I get about 85 post per day from 2300 unique visitors. One of my ad contracts pays monthly and it pays more than the monthly hosting costs (in excess of $250 per month for dedicated server hosting) The rest of the ad contracts pay enough to keep me working on the site and treating as my second job, constantly working towards making it my primary job!

 

[wedgar]

I started my site in 2012. I shut it down in 2013. I relaunched it in 2014 under a new name.

I currently get 300ish posts a day, but the site does not pay for itself. Ads do not perform very well, but I do have a good amount of people who pay for a "premium" service which helps cut the bill in half so I only pay the other half.

What features do you offer for the premium service?

Thanks!

 

[MacSeah]

Does 10 to 15k SGD per month for a 5 years Asian based forum considered good?I started to collect account upgrade donations 1 and half years back. Averaging posts is 500 to 750 posts and around 50 or more registration a day. Collected donations for account upgrades are used for development though. Working out a dating platform.

PS: Just switch over to new domain:

 

[jauburn]

Does 10 to 15k SGD per month for a 5 years Asian based forum considered good?I started to collect account upgrade donations 1 and half years back. Averaging posts is 500 to 750 posts and around 50 or more registration a day. Collected donations for account upgrades are used for development though. Working out a dating platform.

PS: Just switch over to new domain:

Man, I wish I had the balls to run a site like that. How do you deal with liability, legal fees, country restrictions, and so on? Is it a matter of not being hosted in a first-world country?

 

[MacSeah]

Man, I wish I had the balls to run a site like that. How do you deal with liability, legal fees, country restrictions, and so on? Is it a matter of not being hosted in a first-world country?

I don't do a lot of legal work on it as it is a know fact that we broke no laws. There's chance of being shut down if the server is in my country on "moral grounds" if they wish to but we certainly did not break any laws. We hosted it elsewhere though and the company is registered in Wyoming.

This is a lifestyle for me and I didn't start a community base on research and it is base on my own life. Exploring possibilities and honestly I wasn't expected it to grow but it did.

Maybe there is such a need in Asia afterall.

 

[Overscan]

My forum has paid for itself for 12 years. I periodically ask for donations when my forum Paypal account gets low and get anything from $5 to $200(!) per user. Forum hosting costs are pretty low, so I can typically go a few years between donation drives. My users can be quite fanatical about the site. I have no interest in advertising.

 

[~kevin~]

At least 6 months. Closer to a year would be a better estimate.

Then again, it all depends on the topic and content. If you post thin content to get the forum started, expect a slow start.

My main forum took around a year to really kick off, and that was posting videos with a branded youtube channel.