Some advice on starting a business

**SMCengineer** · 04-28-2009, 11:57 AM

A lot of you guys are probably familiar with running websites and the costs involved. I was thinking of starting one with my brother that focused on connecting contractors with homeowners. So it would be somewhat of a social networking site for businesses. I'm not exactly sure of all the costs involved like servers, maintenance, building the site, design, etc. For example, what kind of costs are associated with running a site like Facebook or myspace? Or a better example might be a site like this or any forum really.

**vpchill** · 04-28-2009, 12:01 PM

I'm not too sure exact costs, But didnt the Google guys start with like $300 or somthing?
Its farely easy given the Technology today.

**gixxerboy1** · 04-28-2009, 12:13 PM

you can find sites with basic templates you can design to your own specs. You will pay round $15 to register the domain name. Ruffly $30 a month to host the site. Advertising it and getting it high up on the search engines is what will take time or money

**Matt** · 04-28-2009, 02:45 PM

**DSM4Life** · 04-28-2009, 04:08 PM

Best thing to do is offer customer chips

**ni4ni** · 04-28-2009, 04:30 PM

have to agree w/ dsm- whatever u do,don't offer fries

**DSM4Life** · 04-28-2009, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by ni4ni

have to agree w/ dsm- whatever u do,don't offer fries

**Polska** · 04-28-2009, 04:48 PM

I do this for a living (web/application development) so I know a thing or two. you should have a concrete business plan made up and reviewed by an IT firm before you start doing anything. If you can develop it yourself it can be done for next to nothing (pretty much just your time). If you need to pay a developer to do it you can expect to pay out the ass. IT development is not cheap. You can outsource the work overseas (there are very cheap developers in thailand and the philippines) but communication is a factor and for projects like this its much better to communicate face to face to get across exactly what you're looking for. The costs involved in running a site like myspace/facebook are very high. However this is because they have tons of employees on their payroll and very high server costs. When you're starting out your running costs will not be as high as these high profile sites. After development is complete and your site is deployed the bulk of your costs will consist of advertising/marketing to drive traffic to the site. There are SEO/marketing companies online that will do it but they do not come cheap. once you start getting traffic your operating costs will go up proportionally to the amount of traffic/bandwidth you're using. then (hopefully) you will be turning a profit through whichever means of income generation you're using from all that traffic.

**vpchill** · 04-28-2009, 04:51 PM

Fish

**pyrat** · 04-29-2009, 01:38 AM

polskas avi makes me wanna wack it.

**jbm** · 04-29-2009, 01:54 AM

Originally Posted by pyrat

polskas avi makes me wanna wack it.

Wack business!!

**Brown Ninja** · 05-02-2009, 11:18 PM

now there is a business plan^^^^

**Iron_Pig** · 05-02-2009, 11:23 PM

Repo man that's what I do good money in it

**jbm** · 05-04-2009, 05:03 AM

Porn site!

**DOM6** · 05-06-2009, 12:24 AM

Originally Posted by gixxerboy1

you can find sites with basic templates you can design to your own specs. You will pay round $15 to register the domain name. Ruffly $30 a month to host the site. Advertising it and getting it high up on the search engines is what will take time or money

WEBEASY 6 is great only $60
works great