Practical advice for those who want to build a web community

Introduction

Hello!

Recently, after a year and a half now, as I have from the ground, almost single-handedly, created and developed a good in terms of using their people, and also in terms of the material surplus, an online community - Avtoturistu.Rf , steel often ask me how I managed to achieve this and what steps I took on the way to this. This may not seem modest, but I really achieved a result (this is a fait accompli), I would now like to tell those interested in the stages of its achievement. And although I did not start Habr v2.0 and do not receive fabulous incomes from my startup, but, nevertheless, I have the average (and even slightly higher) Moscow salary from him, and this was my goal. Accordingly, below is a narrative of how I set a goal and achieved it!

So, the writings below are a kind of Know-How on the topic of creating from scratch a person who is far from web-development affairs, an Internet startup and its further promotion and development. I must say right away that everything that will be stated below is based only on my own experience and does not pretend to be any kind of scientific or official. The fact is that a year and a half ago, having caught fire (yes, that “caught fire” there - becoming obsessed!) With the idea of ​​creating a thematic Internet community, I independently implemented it, from and to. I also ask you to note that all of my “fluttering” when creating my own startup was undertaken by me, so to speak, “on a hunch”, that is, I did not read wise books and did not go to seminars or master classes. Although, on the other hand, if not for two wonderful people, my friends, then most likely there would have been no startup,
Important! I will write a lot and thoroughly, going into different, at first glance, seemingly unnecessary details, but, believe me, it is the details that sometimes play a decisive role, IMHO, of course.

Chapter 1. Obsession

As I mentioned in the introduction, the idea of ​​a startup was born from my obsession. And I was obsessed with the idea of ​​securing a “background” income for myself before the planned departure to live abroad. I reasoned: “What is the best“ background ”income you can think of, no matter how you rent a living space in Moscow (I have it, unfortunately, do not own it), or ... Or a website that brings monthly income from ... From what? Well, yes, probably from advertising. ”The main thing, I understood what my resource would be about - autotravels, of course! After all, this is a topic close to my heart (it became, after I “conquered” Scandinaviaby car). At the very beginning of my path to the result, which I mentioned above, I did not really know how I would get the income that I had posed for. Understanding came over time, thanks to a bunch of trial and error, as is usually the case in life. But, said - done! I want it too! But how?

Tip 1: set a goal. To catch fire on it, to be obsessed and understand that you will certainly achieve it, that there is no other way, and it is only up to the Technique

Chapter 2. Technique

I graduated from STANKIN Moscow State University, Faculty of Information Technology. Specialty: information systems and networks. But ... How I ended it was just a joke. In short, from three to four, and not without the help of a very, many smart friends and comrades. Why all this lyrics? And besides, I'm really not a techie; Well, I got some superficial skills, slightly directing my thinking in the technical direction, but I was not a techie and did not become one. I don’t know how to program, I don’t know how to make databases. I am able at the level of an experienced user to work with windows and have a tendency to meticulously understand what is needed. But it was necessary, as of May 2009, to learn to understand a lot of what, since Napoleonic plans, but you sew skills!

And the long, thorny path of learning such procedures as registering a domain name, buying a virtual hosting, selecting an “engine” for a future startup, uploading it to the hosting and then setting it up and so on and so forth and so on and so forth began. This is all to that, dear readers, that I, being completely “warm” in terms of Internet affairs (my professional skills at the end of the institute lay mainly in the implementation of the ERP system SAP R / 3, which in no way intersected with WEB ' om), thanks to the obsession described in Chapter 1, through the wall of total misunderstanding, even elementary processes began to take the first steps towards his “millions”. Yes, for a long time, yes, painstakingly need to delve into new processes for you, but you understand that you are not a fool and there is nothing that you could not do, and that somehow you will deal with them.

Tip 2: never in your life on the way to the intended goal to see hiccups in some technical nuances. Like, it’s beyond my comprehension, they say, it’s too tough for me. There is nothing “too tough”. Ask friends, acquaintances, people from Habr or from anywhere. Knowing, versed in a particular subject area, people will definitely help you. You, in turn, will help them in some way. Even if I myself wanted to delve into the essence, for example, of administering the UNIX server on which my project is running, then most likely I would succeed in ten weeks / months, but I don’t want to become a narrow-minded specialist in servers ? There is only one in the list of my tasks: to raise and “bring to condition” my resource. And, with all the desire, I would not have pulled the study of programming in PHP, JAVA, Ajax, etc. etc. God knows

Chapter 3. Loyalty

When my project first saw the light, that is, it started cycling thanks to the help of my many friends, who kindly helped me resolve all the difficulties associated with the technique mentioned in Chapter 2, the question arose about attracting traffic. And here, citizens, besides all kinds of CEOs and other optimizations aimed at attracting the main search traffic, the question arose about keeping this traffic on the pages of the site, as well as helping to attract new, but not from search, but by references ( invitations) friends. I sincerely believe that there is nothing more important and nothing more effective for achieving any goals, like good, open human communication. So, when your users begin to write in a personal email to you, ask stupid questions about the site’s technique or other trifles funny in your opinion, go in contact with them!

Tip 3: do not be ghostly for the users of your resource, it is not clear where and how the “administration” is present on the site. If you are "on a short foot" with visitors to your resource, then their [visitors] loyalty both personally to you, as the author of the project, and to the brainchild you created will be more than high. But are not all corporations fighting for the loyalty of "consumers" in the competition?

Something inspiration temporarily took off for a smoke break. If this topic is of interest, then I will continue to write. I will be happy to answer any questions about what has already been written.

PS I would like to apologize for some kind of “confusion” of what was written, because, having gotten the idea to write this topic already half asleep, I “jumped” out of bed and sat down to write, but my head was already like a cast-iron pot, so the text turned out as it turned out ) But I can do better. I would now understand whether the topic will be interesting to readers ...

UPD1 : Surprisingly, my topic is on the main one. This is flattering. If so, then, I will develop the topic. I will write a few more important, in my opinion, points that you need to keep in mind a single startup. Thanks to those who liked my post.

UPD: Continued.