Need Advice and Help to start a Social Net with my $10000

Hello All,

First let me start by telling you that I need to start a niche social network with my $10,000.

I been thinking about it for quite long time, since 2003 actually i loved the idea to build a new start up website of a social network.

The thing now, even if the website is built, I'd need a business model.

Okay, here I go..

Let's say I built the social network and everything, and I got like 10,000 registered Users in the first two or three months.. I'm going to have some issues.

1) So I'm going to pay for only 1 server at start, which is about $100/mo approximately..

I'm still not going to make money and yet paying for the server month after month..

2) when the website gets popular, most likely the server will be down.. so I need to buy another server.. or increase bandwidth.. which adds another $100 for the new server..

and if the two servers get down.. I'd need to add more servers and then more money to it.



See I'm not worried about the website getting popular or no, I believe it will be popular.. But I need to know how to deal with server payments.. until when i should go on paying for server without getting money back?

I need somehow a smart business model that gets me in the way.. Just to cover server costs.

I don't care about making big bucks as long as I'm paying for servers and website is up and running.

Should I just depend on google adsense revenue to server cost??

Can anyone help me with the business model, advice me.. I read many many articles about that but they all talking about hot to monetize a ready social network that actually up and running.. and having revenue. like facebook or myspace.

But what about the social networks that needs to take the first step in online world?

Please guys replay me with any business model you have to cover up server costs..

Any help is seriously appreciated

Thanks in advnce.

 

You should not worry about the server. First of all, you can have your site on shared hosting for $4-12/month.... It can handle a few hundres visitors/day (if not more) x 30 = 6000 visitors/month.
Then you can get a VPS server for about $30-50. (I've seen one for $60 that was handling 10K visitors/day (80-100 online at any given minute) = 300K visitors/month)

Anyway, with 6000 visitors/month you should make about $50-300 (depending if those visitors stay and on your ads - the more they stay on the site - the more chances of clicking on ads). So, as you can see, your hosting cost is covered.

And with 300K visitors/month you should make at $1000-$3000/month and VPS or dedicated server would only cost $50-250.

 

I agree with alexpr07, start gradually. don't jump into a dedicated server solution right away. A shared server should get you going and you can upgrade as the need arises. This way you will better manage your cash flow.

 

Thanks for replaying.. such a nice information that i needed for real.

I thought of the same concept, to start with shared hosting, then VPS.. then dedicated at the end.

But.. most php modules can be installed as wanted on dedicated server.. and on shared i don't have all the PHP modules installed as I want..

Anyway, I hope i don't need more and more php modules..

So please guys..

Can you suggest a shared hosting and VPS and dedicated server.. that work exactly as mentioned?

and more.. how did you calculate the visitors per month on both shared, and VPS? Please guys help me with this I need to know how you calculated that.


I'd really appreciate that.

Thanks in advance.

 

Thanks.. you are both right.

Well i was worried that the $10.000 will finish before having any income.. that's too bad.

 

right my friend is also starting a social network with $20,000

I recommended starting off with a VPS at first... never go with shared hosting if you want to be completely secure! You can easily move to dedicated when you need it.

As for income... facebook are still yet to profit I think and they are having constant trouble meeting costs. Learn from their mistakes man!

 

Yes I know that.. facebook has big problem regarding profit... and also Twitter doesn't make any money at all. so twitter is having 0 income because there is no business model.

The thing I need to know how to have a stable income.... from google adsense only??

Thanks.

 

Come on guys help me up there please... thanks.

 

Phew, I think you have bitten off a lot here.
Is there going to be some sort of theme or niche to this new social network?
I am working with one client that is starting a gambling SN.

You must ask, Who are you targeting? If it is a teen site then your marketing will be geared towards them, older people will need a different kind of marketing.
Perhaps it's a SN for moms with kids?
It just seems like selecting a niche to start in would be better than starting a general SN.

As far as paying for servers, you could get a dedicated server and rent out server space until you have enough customers that the server is paid for. Just line up your customers before investing into it.

I would stay away from adsense. If you get the traffic you are talking about then you will be able to sell ad space and use your own PPC script that is similar to how Adwords works.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for replaying..

Yes I know what you mean, and exactly my social network is not general social network, it's niche social network.. I got targeted audience. which are university/high school student...

what you meant by saying ...

" Just line up your customers before investing into it.?? "

and what about the PPC script you talked about.. see I can install it and use it pretty well.

But the thing is adsense sends you revenue and all at the same time, you don't even have to look for advertisers.

But how to find advertisers that are ready to use PPC in your website? and what are their requirements to put ads on my site using my PPC? should my website have like 100,000 monthly page views and visitors per month?

I just don't know how to find advertisers that are ready to use my own PPC Script.

Please replay me.

Thanks alot.

 

I would get a webhost that allows you to escalate service, from shared/VPS to dedicated as needed, so when your site gets popular you can easily solve the problem and you will not have to spend big money the first months when you are not likely to get too many surfers.

 

Do you have any suggestion for good webhost that has three services all together.

Thanks.

 

First things first I guess,
Talking about the server, If you go get several other people that would like to be on a good server you all could combine your money and get a dedicated server. You can run many sites from one server. This would help with the cost yet you would not have to be on a server with 100 or 1000 other sites.

Adsense makes little sense to me especially on a site where you want people to hang around. Since Adsense does not allow you to open up a new window when an ad is clicked, the person is taken away from your site. Perhaps never to return. If they have clicked before they have signed up you most likely have lost them forever.

As far as finding advertising clients, Once you have a good amount of traffic you can then approach companies with your advertising offers.
Do this by mailing them explaining who your members are along with the general demographics of them. If you get 10,000 members that are high school and college age you email me and let me know as I would be interested in this.

Before you get to this point I would find out what my market enjoys. At that age Video Games would work well. Also music, Ipods, dating, how to get a date, etc...
There are 1000's of affiliate programs for these types of things and the best thing is you do not have your guest leaving your site but just opening a new window for them.

 

In reply to all posts:

Server: I guess if you have some budget, you can skip shared hosting and start with VPS for $30-40/month. The one I'm using is from cirrushosting[dot]com but I would also recommend looking into 1&1 VPS plans. However, I needed Windows hosting because my sites are in ASP, for PHP you can use Linux and go with other companies/cheaper plans.

Income - go with Adsense. To me it's proven to be the best. Looking for people to advertise on your site could be difficult, take time and you need to have good traffic and good PageRank. So far I haven't been able to find people to advertise on a free dating site livedatelove.com that I administer. It has PR2, 300-500 visitors/day (about 12-13K/month), about 100 unique logins/day. The site earns with adsense $5-7 per day. Enough to cover VPS costs....

Social Network Site idea - to tell you the truth, I would not recommend doing it unless you have really something unique. There are a lot of social networking sites - competition is really big. Do not worry about server or getting income (you can always use adsense, adbrite and etc...) - worry about getting traffic.

Traffic - Even if someone joins your site they are not likely to come back because you won't have a lot of profiles to look at. I'm speaking from experience here. Think about how and where you will advertise your site. I would approximate that with $10K you will be able to get about 10K members using PPC advertising (Adwords) but what will you do after you run out of money? You need to find a way to advertise for free, if you have an idea, please share

About your questions: I know that VPS can handle 10K visitors/day because I've seen a site that used VPS and had so many visitors. You can track visitors using Google Analytics.

 

Thanks for your replay again.

About the servers, exactly you have a great point about that I will have the server for my own use exclusively. but servers are sort of expensive.

Regarding ads.. Well I think that I'd go for adsense. because it's a social network and normally people hang out there.

Putting adsense in the sign up page or in the home page or sign up page, might drive users away, and end up not registering in your website. So i won't fall in such mistake.

Great that you mentioned this point of 10,000 members, i thought normally I need at least 100,000 members.

so do you have any more ideas on how to find advertisers? without the use of adsense?


Thanks.

 

Basically I'm pretty sure that the website is unique and niche. it's traffic won't be trouble. - maybe.

How will I advertise it for free? gmm nice question.

By going to universities and give people printed papers of invitation that says " register at website " etc..

Tell your close friends to send SMS messages to all their contacts with your website name... clearly saying " we hang out at that website ".. from this method i'm sure i'm going to get more users, from my contacts, and my friend's contact.. just ask friends to forward SMS.

Or another way, sending emails to the people who subscribed to your own google groups news, or even yahoo groups.

Or Calling some great bloggers up to test up your beta website... that would make them even write about your website and give you review.

All Those are free ways of advertising..

But you know.. you don't have to wait until the money is all gone to do all that.. do all that above from the very start.

If you need a way that you can use to advertise instead of Google adwords.. you have SMS advertising.. which might be expensive.. but productive.


Any people have any other ways to advertise for free?


Thanks.

 

You need to take the approach that taken by facebook if you don't want to depend on adsense alone.
For example,since starting,you should cooperate with webhosting company such as by giving them $100 advertising coupon to buy ads at your site.
Then the webhost company distribute the coupon to their customer.
If the customer find that its useful to put ads at your site,then they will continue buy ads with you.

 

That is such a nice idea! great one.

but i didn't get you when you said...

" with webhosting company such as by giving them $100 advertising coupon to buy ads at your site. "

did you mean the webhosting company that will be hosting my live website?

or you meant that, i should communicate with also other webhosting companies that i don't host files with?

Please respond.

Thanks really..

 

Please guys replay me, I need help in this thread.. come on guys..

 

A business model is very hard with social networking sites.

The ad click ratio is too low and any site fully based on ads will be out of money and shutdown eventually