is growing a board that hard?

or is there no profitable niche for forums anymore?

I'd say yes since many people are earning a good living from them. It just takes some hard work, patience and perseverance and of course a little luck but I would think if anyone took the time and effort to try and work at it in building a forum to something that they can live off with a steady income it'll take some work.
 
Really? I was talking to the leader of Digital Point the other day and he says he breaks even. Do people really make good money (4K+ profit/month) on forums?

Blimey, well I was actually thinking of DP and how he seemed to be making a good living from his forum, or so I thought. If he's breaking even he must have some serious outgoings and I know DP likes his hardware so I'm thinking I bet he could do away with half the hardware capabilities and still run his forum without issues and cut his costs. I'm assuming here and only DP would know if cutting costs in this manner would jeopardise performance (server). But I have to admit, that is a shock I honestly thought he was one of the few making a very good living off his forum and selling his products.
 
Blimey, well I was actually thinking of DP and how he seemed to be making a good living from his forum, or so I thought. If he's breaking even he must have some serious outgoings and I know DP likes his hardware so I'm thinking I bet he could do away with half the hardware capabilities and still run his forum without issues and cut his costs. I'm assuming here and only DP would know if cutting costs in this manner would jeopardise performance (server). But I have to admit, that is a shock I honestly thought he was one of the few making a very good living off his forum and selling his products.

I have never really seen forums to be profitable as far as money goes. Love to hear thoughts on it though; I am not sure if I am right or wrong. Could you take a moment to vote in my new thread: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/can-you-make-money-off-a-forum.50336/
 
Really? I was talking to the leader of Digital Point the other day and he says he breaks even. Do people really make good money (4K+ profit/month) on forums?
Was he referring to just the forum and not all the other projects that make up dp.com?

The reason I question this is because he recently built himself a mini castle... lol
 
He's stated many times he doesn't earn his living from the forums - they're just something that grew up out of the other services he was (and still is) providing. (y)

A "living" is very different in S. California than elsewhere......I think it would be safe to say that - if it weren't for lawyer bills and other such BS - that DP could be making a very comfortable living based on his page views, from ad programs and sponsors.

But, to the OP, I would have this to say. Brogan is correct. It's not a beard. It's a magazine or a publication or a newspaper/archive.

Those take years to succeed. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

There are lots of conversations here and elsewhere about how to do it "right" (I use "" because each person has differing goals), but the basics are that Content is King.

My new XF Forum has 40 members.....not enough to even get a conversation going! But I am populating it with content. In terms of the forum part, I will likely be disappointed if there are not 1,000 or more members by 2014. BUT, if that happens and I still have good and growing readership (that's the important part!), then I will simply bend to the whims of the market and make it more or a publication than a community.

But I think we are getting ahead of ourselves! All of this should be considered before a forum is started.....
Is there a market for it? (are others doing a better job than you can?)
How much money and time am I willing to spend?
Do I need to earn money the first year?

When the WWW first started to go big time (1995-1996), you could automatically get traffic simply by getting a basic site set up and listing it in Yahoo. Now things are different. The intelligence of search (goog) sorts out the good from the others.....

One thing for sure. There is no dearth of information on what it takes to succeed on the web. Read and learn. Remember, you are not failing - you are learning!
"Thomas Edison actually had 3,000 attempts to create the lightbulb. When asked about the failures he said "I didn't fail 3,000 times. I found 3,000 ways how not to create a lightbulb""
 
It can be easy though if you get lucky. Using social ads I was growing 1,000 members a day on a forum of mine within three months of launch. I was not paying much at all for the ads.
 
Really? I was talking to the leader of Digital Point the other day and he says he breaks even. Do people really make good money (4K+ profit/month) on forums?
Huh? Who are you? And why would I tell people how much I make? Do you tell random people on the Internet how much you make at your job? lol

Back to the original question, having a forum is really fundamentally no different than any other website... give people something they need and they can't get anywhere else, and you will have a much easier time gaining traction with your site. If you are just making a website and copying other website's ideas/offerings, it's going to be tough because you aren't offering anything unique.
 
Only thing I have to say about starting a forum:
99130.jpg
 
Top Bottom