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I'll jump in here, since I'm busy monetizing a niche community. I run http://www.obsidianportal.com http://www.obsidianportal.com, and we're just turning 3 yea

I'll jump in here, since I'm busy monetizing a niche community. I run http://www.obsidianportal.com http://www.obsidianportal.com, and we're just turning 3 years old. I won't give stats on users, uniques, etc, since we keep that close to the vest. However, we do have over 10k RPG campaigns registered, and about 250k pages of content. Most important, we're actually decently profitable, after 3 hard years. Still not ramen profitable, but it will provide a nice chunk of change this year. If our growth continues, I may be able to support myself full time in another 2-3 years, but I'm trying not to be too optimistic. Before someone says, "You can make money off your passion" or "Do what you love and money will follow", I'd like to see their own personal evidence. I'm walking that road and I know how hard it is. Possible? Yes. But definitely not easy, and it takes waaay more than just passion. It takes late nights, hard work, thick skin, and a good bit of luck. Oh, and forget about "fail fast." If you do what you love, be prepared for a long, hard slog up the mountain to profitability. I love my community and my chosen subject matter, but it's still work and it's still hard. To the OP: Can you point to a community/passion that you've personally monetized into a living? Maybe it's too much to ask that someone be a personal expert on everything, but being in that boat myself, I get a little irritated when someone breaks out the "Do what you love" line without backing it up with personal experience. That's not to say that the OP hasn't done it, just that I didn't see any evidence in my cursory glance over the blog. One last bit of advice: All our success is due to charging subscriptions. Forget ads. They suck. Besides being crazy variable, they also annoy your users. Find a way to charge money for something. No, you'll never get as big as Facebook or Twitter that way, but that doesn't matter. You'll never get as big as Facebook or Twitter anyway, so don't even try to walk that road.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
Xurinos 17y ago
Our http://darkmists.org http://darkmists.org MUD has a similar position to this, especially with our niche -- fewer people want to play an online RPG for the RP than for the PK aspects. The topic has often come up about making money from this game, at least to pay the server bills. There is some concern that once we start accepting money, we lose some of the freedom to manage rule-breaking or to involve people's characters in various RP events that may or may not be to their personal enjoyment. We can come up with ways to make the money, such as selling virtual items, but there is a certain responsibility to ensure people derive sufficient value from what they buy, such as equipment that sticks with their characters and is not easily stolen by the neighborhood thief or taken by their next killer. Still, we have enjoyed this for about 13 years without making the money; would involving money ruin that experience for us and our playerbase?
- MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
  I always suggest avoiding the "pay the bills" mentality. For most of us, running a site costs less than cable tv. If you want enough money to pay the hosting bills, just work an extra hour at your regular job each month. Enjoy the site as a hobby and forget about money. There's nothing wrong with that. Only try to monetize if you really want to make serious money. Otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle. As to your specific points, I try not to let people lord it over me that they're paying money. You have to assume that they knew what they were signing up for when they click the "pay now" button. A paying user complaining about something isn't much different from a non-paying user. Plus, we've found that paying users tend to complain much, much less than free ones. They tend to be fanatical supporters who also understand that I'm not going to cater to their every whim. So, don't let paying users pull you away from your vision any more than freebies. If they get too angry just refund their money and move on. The heartache (and time) isn't worth the price of 1 subscription. Plus, this is rare. I've only come close to doing it once in almost 2 years of charging subs. I was about to do it when the guy shut up and stopped complaining. He didn't stop paying, though ;)
  - MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
    I did a writeup of this line of thinking here: http://blog.aisleten.com/2010/02/25/dont-monetize-to-cover-costs/ http://blog.aisleten.com/2010/02/25/dont-monetize-to-cover-c...
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Before someone says, "You can make money off your passion" or "Do what you love and money will follow", I'd like to see their own personal evidence. I'm walking that road and I know how hard it is. Possible? Yes. But definitely not easy, and it takes waaay more than just passion. It takes late nights, hard work, thick skin, and a good bit of luck. Oh, and forget about "fail fast." If you do what you love, be prepared for a long, hard slog up the mountain to profitability. I love my community and my chosen subject matter, but it's still work and it's still hard. I apologize if my post was irritating to you, and you're right that I didn't elaborate on how difficult this can be, but my point wasn't that it's easy, just that it's almost certainly possible if you're willing to put in the work. And if you're passionate about it and you enjoy it overall, what do you have to lose? Your story is a pretty good illustration of what I'm talking about. And no, I'm not quite to the "making a living" point with the niches I'm monetizing (though I know others who are), though I think I will be in the next 12-18 months, assuming growth continues as it has been. I also don't put as much time and effort into them as I could/should, primarily because of my startup.
- MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
  Congrats on your success, then. 18 months away from making a living is a great place to be. Assuming it's web based, do you have links to the sites/projects/whatever? I'm curious to see, and I always try to pick up ideas from others.
  - kimfuh 17y ago
    I'll send you a link when we're set to launch.
- kimfuh 17y ago
  If you're passionate about something, it hardly ever feels like work. I absolutely love what I do and it feels like i'm just playing every single day. If money comes, then perfect. And if it doesn't, i'd probably be enjoying too much to notice.
mattmaroon 17y ago
I used to think the same thing OP said because I had done it. It turned out, though, that my niche was poker, a game that conditions the people that play it to blow through money like there's no tomorrow. My niche was full of a) people who have a lot of discretionary income and aren't as attached to it as people generally should be and b) people who makes six figures (or more) per year off of group a. Your niche is probably much poorer and much thriftier, and then much smaller on top of that. So you're going to have to get tremendous market share (pretty much all of it perhaps) to make real money. The same is true with ads. I could get thousands per month running ads on my poker blog at a time when I hadn't posted on it in 6 months because anyone who clicks an ad is going to make the poker site $100 on average. My guess is you'd be lucky to make anything off someone who clicked an ad on your site. I still think that most passion's are monetizable enough that you could make a real amount at them, but maybe not all are, and the difficulty in doing so and the maximum you can make varies widely.
- MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
  True. Having the right "passion" makes a big difference. If you have a passion around doing advertising for Fortune 500 companies, you'll probably do just fine. On the flip side, if your passion is helping penniless orphans...it might be a while before you can monetize that ;)
bprater 17y ago
The real issue is that most folks don't know how to be real entrepreneurs. They are think they are in business, but they are actually just engaging in a personal hobby. If you are creating a forum, tossing AdSense of it and waiting for the checks to roll in, you may be in for a long ride. But when you start asking: "What do my people want?" and then going out, hunting and digging for it and finally determining the best way to present it to the audience -- now you are thinking like a entrepreneur. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Now watch the checks roll in. The failure is not the model, it's the implementation.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

Xurinos 17y ago

Our http://darkmists.org http://darkmists.org MUD has a similar position to this, especially with our niche -- fewer people want to play an online RPG for the RP than for the PK aspects. The topic has often come up about making money from this game, at least to pay the server bills. There is some concern that once we start accepting money, we lose some of the freedom to manage rule-breaking or to involve people's characters in various RP events that may or may not be to their personal enjoyment. We can come up with ways to make the money, such as selling virtual items, but there is a certain responsibility to ensure people derive sufficient value from what they buy, such as equipment that sticks with their characters and is not easily stolen by the neighborhood thief or taken by their next killer. Still, we have enjoyed this for about 13 years without making the money; would involving money ruin that experience for us and our playerbase?

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
I always suggest avoiding the "pay the bills" mentality. For most of us, running a site costs less than cable tv. If you want enough money to pay the hosting bills, just work an extra hour at your regular job each month. Enjoy the site as a hobby and forget about money. There's nothing wrong with that. Only try to monetize if you really want to make serious money. Otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle. As to your specific points, I try not to let people lord it over me that they're paying money. You have to assume that they knew what they were signing up for when they click the "pay now" button. A paying user complaining about something isn't much different from a non-paying user. Plus, we've found that paying users tend to complain much, much less than free ones. They tend to be fanatical supporters who also understand that I'm not going to cater to their every whim. So, don't let paying users pull you away from your vision any more than freebies. If they get too angry just refund their money and move on. The heartache (and time) isn't worth the price of 1 subscription. Plus, this is rare. I've only come close to doing it once in almost 2 years of charging subs. I was about to do it when the guy shut up and stopped complaining. He didn't stop paying, though ;)
- MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
  I did a writeup of this line of thinking here: http://blog.aisleten.com/2010/02/25/dont-monetize-to-cover-costs/ http://blog.aisleten.com/2010/02/25/dont-monetize-to-cover-c...

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Before someone says, "You can make money off your passion" or "Do what you love and money will follow", I'd like to see their own personal evidence. I'm walking that road and I know how hard it is. Possible? Yes. But definitely not easy, and it takes waaay more than just passion. It takes late nights, hard work, thick skin, and a good bit of luck. Oh, and forget about "fail fast." If you do what you love, be prepared for a long, hard slog up the mountain to profitability. I love my community and my chosen subject matter, but it's still work and it's still hard. I apologize if my post was irritating to you, and you're right that I didn't elaborate on how difficult this can be, but my point wasn't that it's easy, just that it's almost certainly possible if you're willing to put in the work. And if you're passionate about it and you enjoy it overall, what do you have to lose? Your story is a pretty good illustration of what I'm talking about. And no, I'm not quite to the "making a living" point with the niches I'm monetizing (though I know others who are), though I think I will be in the next 12-18 months, assuming growth continues as it has been. I also don't put as much time and effort into them as I could/should, primarily because of my startup.

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
Congrats on your success, then. 18 months away from making a living is a great place to be. Assuming it's web based, do you have links to the sites/projects/whatever? I'm curious to see, and I always try to pick up ideas from others.
- kimfuh 17y ago
  I'll send you a link when we're set to launch.
kimfuh 17y ago
If you're passionate about something, it hardly ever feels like work. I absolutely love what I do and it feels like i'm just playing every single day. If money comes, then perfect. And if it doesn't, i'd probably be enjoying too much to notice.

mattmaroon 17y ago

I used to think the same thing OP said because I had done it. It turned out, though, that my niche was poker, a game that conditions the people that play it to blow through money like there's no tomorrow. My niche was full of a) people who have a lot of discretionary income and aren't as attached to it as people generally should be and b) people who makes six figures (or more) per year off of group a. Your niche is probably much poorer and much thriftier, and then much smaller on top of that. So you're going to have to get tremendous market share (pretty much all of it perhaps) to make real money. The same is true with ads. I could get thousands per month running ads on my poker blog at a time when I hadn't posted on it in 6 months because anyone who clicks an ad is going to make the poker site $100 on average. My guess is you'd be lucky to make anything off someone who clicked an ad on your site. I still think that most passion's are monetizable enough that you could make a real amount at them, but maybe not all are, and the difficulty in doing so and the maximum you can make varies widely.

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
True. Having the right "passion" makes a big difference. If you have a passion around doing advertising for Fortune 500 companies, you'll probably do just fine. On the flip side, if your passion is helping penniless orphans...it might be a while before you can monetize that ;)

bprater 17y ago

The real issue is that most folks don't know how to be real entrepreneurs. They are think they are in business, but they are actually just engaging in a personal hobby. If you are creating a forum, tossing AdSense of it and waiting for the checks to roll in, you may be in for a long ride. But when you start asking: "What do my people want?" and then going out, hunting and digging for it and finally determining the best way to present it to the audience -- now you are thinking like a entrepreneur. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Now watch the checks roll in. The failure is not the model, it's the implementation.