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This is hilarious. Ten weeks. Ten weeks? To build a community? To build a base of dedicated users and begin to reap the network effect that keeps existing us
by JohnBooty 7y ago
This is hilarious. Ten weeks.
Ten weeks?
To build a community?
To build a base of dedicated users and begin to reap the network effect that keeps existing users on the site, and draws in new years?
In the early 2000s, I launched something like an early "social networking" site for geek dating.
We built a strong community and actually were pretty profitable with direct subscriber revenue, though it was never quite enough to quit my day job and I eventually (reluctantly) moved on because of other things happening in my life.
Anyway, we were open for THREE YEARS before I charged a dime.
That's how long it took me to build a community.
I focused on community building/management while I built out the site's functionality. This was very active, hands-on community management on my part. Now, three years is a long time. Maybe somebody could do it in less time. Especially if you had a partner or a team.... I was a lone wolf who was also working some consulting gigs to pay bills.
Maybe it doesn't need to be 3 years, but 10 weeks is beyond a joke.
- herewego 7y agoThank you for this. The only waste of time here was a result of this individual’s lack of commitment (sorry, but it’s true) and misinformed understanding of the efforts involved in the launch process of any business, let alone his. I hope he sees this and realizes all hope is not lost if he sticks with it, evolves it, and plans for the ramp period accordingly. Success is never guaranteed, but you have to give it a chance.
- teddyuk 7y agoJust to clarify, are you saying that if you build a copy of reddit I won't become a millionaire overnight? Bloody hell, I wasted 11 weeks and $2600 so far.
- ineedasername 7y agoI wasted 1 day and $5 and failed to create and alternative to Google. Never again!
- brushfoot 7y agoOnly because it was Russian. If they'd pivoted to Albania -- boom, instant billionaires.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoI built a forum from scratch starting in 2006. Spent most of that year sockpuppeting it to fake activity, slowly growing users, guerilla-shilling on other forums, etc. Took about two years total for it to really hit its stride with the critical mass necessary to be a bustling forum without my intervention. Thankfully I was about 17 years old thus had the time and energy to do it.
- dangerface 7y agoTo go from nothing to a self sustaining community in 3 years is good going. I had a project that I worked on with a friend, we already had a small audience that we where bringing over from a previous project so we weren't starting from scratch. Even with all this help it took at least a year before there was a decent community of regulars.