Monetisation - Making this place pay for itself.

[admin]

Whoops I whacked some in both just in case.

I put up separate donation goals as the costs for each were separate - and they were incurred at different times.. Most appreciated thou :-)

[Russ81]

How's it going mate

Just put in a donation for the logo one less thing for you to worry about now it's up to what it was set at

Great work on the site love it and can't wait to see it grow

[walkal]

No real difference - Money all goes to me! :-)

Nice to see that you are upfront and honest with your answers.

Cards all out on the table for all to see.

[admin]

Nice to see that you are upfront and honest with your answers.

Cards all out on the table for all to see.

Yeah - there's no point lying about it.

My comment about the logo money was a little incorrect thou - It cost more than that to have made, so the money really doesnt go to me as such. It does help cover the cost of it thou, so im less out of pocket.

[hmmm]

im looking at getting a vinyl printer and press in the short near future...

when im all up and running, i might be able to do cheap stickers. coolers etc.

[Ray!]

I can understand the desire to extract some form of profit from the efforts put in to establish and maintain this forum, but one important feature that will make or break the forum are its contributors. Rome wasn't built in a day and it's still early days and the forum needs to establish its credentials and like any business; it doesn't get that in a day or even in a year. So it may be prudent to consider a break even situation for a period of time, to build that cred and potentially get formal advertisers/supporters to the forum.

Consider that the Patrol4x4 forum started off as a business venture, fizzled out somewhere along the line and was then maintained on a shoestring budget by a few dedicated moderators for quite a number of years. Domain name registration cost is a relative pittance, forum software is free/inexpensive, hosting costs aren't a huge impost, but will grow with increased bandwidth and personal input is a cost only the individual can attribute. I think taking what would be a relatively small monetary risk in the early days may well pay dividents in the long term.

Cheers

Ray