Given that it's pretty much full-time, if it doesn't pay my half of the marriage, it goes. It's OK if I go hungry; it's not OK if that means my future wife goes hungry, too.
It's certainly not okay for you to go hungry, nor for your wife or potential children to go hungry. Those points are well made, as far as I'm concerned.
Essentially, the server and bandwidth costs are not important; it's the thousands of dollars in people costs which matters.
Yeah they are. Both are very imprtant if you're gonna succeed as primarily an internet operation.
With those things in mind I'm gonna make some business suggestions to ya. Maybe you've thought of these already, maybe you haven't. Use what you find useful and take them for what they are worth.
1. Develop a business operating budget for this website, including a profit take. As a percentage of earnings. No matter the percentage, and it has to be a livable percentage, keep strict account of all expenses, for tax purposes, and all earnings. Reinvest what earnings you can towards expanding your operation with such expansion geared towards profitable aspects, sections, or divisions of your overall operation. Businesses either expand, or they die. It's that simple. But expand profitably, not recklessly. Reckless expansion is sometimes just as deadly as no expansion. Sometimes it's worse from a debt generation perspective.
2. Develop as good and as stable a base of advertising support as you can generate, sell, and market.
3. Run this operation like a true business. I am not speaking about the professionalism of your website presentation, which is already quite high and in my opinion exceeds in usefulness (and I suspect devoted user popularity) that of say, much of the WOTC website. I am saying however run this place like a professional enterprise (if that is what you intend to do, live off the place), not just a labor of love. A labor of love definitely has advantages for the owner over that of a business that is disliked, but a profitable and thriving enterprise that is also loved and enjoyed is far better than merely a labor of love. At some point love must display a profitable course of returns to be worthwhile. In business unrequited love is an expensive and dangerous affair.
4. Develop a good, stable, and reliable base of high quality and reasonable contacts and networks upon which you can rely to service and assist your operation when necessary.
5. Network heavily in all areas. Especially any area that will seem to lead towards more profitable ventures. As you seek to gain new supporters, remember supporters are not customers. Or advertisers. supporters are a thin and basically unreliable (in a business sense) baseline upon which to build business operations, or upon which to rely for future earnings. You want customers, new and repeat customers (however that is defined according to your particular business model). And you want to continuously build upon such a customer base. Just as you've set an initial goal for 1000 supporters I would suggest you also simultaneously set a goal for a certain number of (expanding) profitable customers and paying advertisers per month. I would also suggest that you consider developing a set number of profitable ventures. Personally I would probably set an initial goal of trying to enter into profitable venture partnerships about once every two to three months. Analyze your risks properly, of course, but don't fail to exploit acceptable and potentially profitable risks.
6. Develop a good Business Plan (operational), and a good Marketing Plan (part of your marketing plan should be an effective advertising strategy). (It also wouldn't hurt at all to have a good Tax and Investment Strategy.) Then work them consistently. Also improve both plans at any available opportunity so that you are in a state of constant and continual progress.
7. I would study various On-line Business Models (which will vary from other types of enterprises and business models) and start to adapt my operations to the best model(s) available. I would also experiment some with various ideas to see if they can be made to work profitably, or not (set a time frame for concept testing). I would also study those websites that actually do make money, as in actually profit, (both within the gaming industry, and perhaps even more importantly, those successful websites outside of the gaming industry) and see how they operate, and what they do to profit, and expand. And just as importantly notice what they do not do, or seek to avoid doing.
8. Eventually though you're gonna have to approach this as a professional business enterprise (if I'm reading what you're saying right), or it will be a future financial loss to you (been there), or at best an inconsistent and unreliable source of earnings (been there too). You don't want that with a wife and possible family, so plan and act as soon as possible in your best interest. And save yourself time and money. Better yet spend your time making money, not just saving it.
9. Talk to professionals, get their advice, and see if you can't get them to help you develop good, sound Business and Marketing and Advertising and Tax plans and strategies.
10. Have a really good idea of exactly what you want to achieve, both immediately, and in the more distant future with this website. Set specific goals and time-frames for the achievements of those goals. If you don't have a good, clear idea of what you want to achieve (your goals are always open to future modification anyway, so don't think of them as set in stone, but rather as waymarks - believe me, if you're paying attention you'll get better as you go along) then let me just say this, I've never seen a business succeed without a clear understanding of the real and necessary objectives of the enterprise. I've seen a lot fail by not knowing, none succeed by not knowing. In case i didn't make myself clear, you wanna succeed at this. Meaning you want it to make you a profit, if not a gigantic one then at least a comfortable and reliable one. So if i have one best piece of advice, it's this: avoid the mistakes I made in my early business ventures, and instead find out up-front what works best and do that. And find out what doesn't work well and avoid fooling around with that very much. Or for very long.
So if you've already thought of these suggestions, then ignore them. If you haven't, then you might want to consider them for the near to mid-term future. If anyone else though has any suggestions, expertise, or experience that might be helpful, personally I'd say, help the man out all you can. Well, I'm tired now so I'm going to bed.
I think you've already made some important steps in the right direction. Keep at that kinda thing.
In any case good luck and Godspeed with your venture.
Be praying for your success.
