Starting website /forums - 10yrs ago

bluedrop

Hi all,
If you were to start a website/forums in UK 10 years ago, what would it be? I am not looking to sell anything.

I am looking at replicating a successful online website/forums for a developing country where online thingy is just catching up...

I am an IT person, so I do have some tech knowledge and have some money to play with. I am now trying to find the best way to utilize my spare time and money...

please share your thoughts...Thank you

[Deleted User]

Facebook or dating websites

paddyrg

Micropayments, consumer review site for local market (then use skimlinks and similar to scrape the affiliate commissions), wholesale/bulk clearance opportunities (like boffer), mumsnet

gb12345

Pay per view !!!!!!

terra_ferma

MSE/comparison type website.
Pets (or other specific interest relevant to that country).
Recipes
My supermarket (although this is a bit more demanding as a project)
(adwords, affiliate links as said above)
Blog (ads, affilate links but also direct commission from brands)

Savvy_Sue

terra_ferma wrote: »

MSE/comparison type website.

MSE, every time ... :rotfl:

InsideInsurance

bluedrop wrote: »

Hi all,
If you were to start a website/forums in UK 10 years ago, what would it be? I am not looking to sell anything.

I am looking at replicating a successful online website/forums for a developing country where online thingy is just catching up...

I am an IT person, so I do have some tech knowledge and have some money to play with. I am now trying to find the best way to utilize my spare time and money...

please share your thoughts...Thank you

The reality is that you dont need to be an IT person to run most websites these days as forums, blogs, ecommerce sites etc all run off prebuild engines and many have one click installation these days.

To run a successful web business you need to be good at business not IT.

To know what works well in a local market you need local knowledge. Any suggestions for here is based on how the UK is/ was which won't necessarily translate to working well in the country that you are thinking of.

bluedrop

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Any suggestions for here is based on how the UK is/ was which won't necessarily translate to working well in the country that you are thinking of.

While I understand where you are coming from, let me clarify that I am not looking at blindly replicating UK websites/businesses. I ofcourse have a knowledge of local market, I am just trying to gather as many ideas as possible, and zero on a couple of them in the next step.

IT knowledge helps a LOT. For starters, I know how reasonable cost/effort estimates for a piece of work are. For small issues, I fix the code myself

InsideInsurance

bluedrop wrote: »

IT knowledge helps a LOT. For starters, I know how reasonable cost/effort estimates for a piece of work are. For small issues, I fix the code myself

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Not being ripped off for setting your site is a relatively small consideration -v- actually coming up with a good idea to start with, knowing how to get customers to the site, how to procure products/ services, mitigating your tax liabilities etc

Now, not to say that having some IT skills is a bad thing but it would be relatively low on my wish list of any potential new business partner even on a web venture.