Start a forum from scratch or buy one?

Justin Level 1

October 13, 2014, 7:26 pm

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Start a forum from scratch or buy one?

I'm lucky to have gotten a good start by taking over an existing forum community for a good friend of mine. He wasn't interested in continuing the job as forum owner/admin so I took the forum and it's working out well as I have an existing member base to start with. I would likely just buy a forum next time rather than start one from scratch. This seems like the easier route.

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Samaria

Samaria

There are advantages to starting a forum from scratch.

You can dictate the tone and attitude of the forum as well as help in developing the community to go in the direction you want.

You can't do that with an established community.

10 years ago

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Beverly

Beverly

Starting a forum is easy enough, anyone can do it. It's the community building aspect that is really tough.

I'm usually just as surprised by the forum successes as failures. Looking at some forums I wonder why those forums made it and others didn't.

It has nothing to do with niche or what theme you choose. It's all about the community.

10 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

Contrarily, I believe starting a forum from scratch is a better option. First of all you need to pay money if you want to take over an existing forum. Pricing is based on the number of members, contents and traffic. More members, contents and traffic means you have to pay more.
Starting a forum from scratch is easy. Get a domain, host the forum. Choose any free forum scripts. Share your forum among your friends and family to kick start. Then start promoting your forum. The money that you could have spent on buying a forum can be actually used to promote your forum.

8 years ago

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PinkTurtle

PinkTurtle

Well I think if you have the money it would be easier just to buy one, but you really need to make the commitment that after you buy it you are going to put some effort on it, otherwise you'll just be losing your money. I say this because if you didn't built your own community is going to be easier to forget about it in a period of time when you fell like giving up the site. When you struggle to get the things you want you tend to appreciated them more.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I am not a forum owner but I have been to different kinds of forums. If I were to choose between a new forum starting from scratch or buying an existing forum, I would probably just start from scratch not for budgetary purposes. A new forum is challenging especially in populating the membership likewise with the boards. An existing forum has existing problems that I don’t want to get involved with.

6 years ago

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