Practical advice for those who want to build a web community

Introduction

Hello!

Recently, after a year and a half, as I have been from scratch, almost single-handedly, I created and developed a good one from the point of view of people using it, as well as from the point of view of material surplus, the Internet community - to Autotourist . how I managed to achieve it and what steps I took on the way to it. Although this may not seem modest, I really achieved a result (this is an accomplished fact), and now I would like to tell the interested parties about the stages of achievement. And even if I did not launch Habr v2.0 and do not receive fabulous incomes from my startup, but still, the average (and even a little bit higher) Moscow I-salary salary I have with him, and that was my goal. Accordingly, the following is a story about how I set myself a goal and achieved it!
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So, the scribbling below is a kind of Know-How on the subject of creating from scratch a person far from a web development business, an Internet startup and its further promotion and development. At once I will make a reservation that everything that will be set forth below is based only on my own experience and does not pretend to be scientific or official. The fact is that a year and a half ago, having caught fire (yes, there “having caught fire” - becoming obsessive!) With the idea of ​​creating a thematic Internet community, I realized it myself, from and to. I also ask you to note that when I created my own startup, all my “fluttering” was undertaken by me, so to speak, “by whim”, I mean, I did not read wise books and did not go to seminars or master classes. Although, on the other hand, if it were not for two wonderful people, my friends, then most likely there would be no startup, but more on that in the course of the play.
Important! I will write a lot and thoroughly, going into different, at first glance, seemingly unnecessary details, but, believe me, the details sometimes play a decisive role, IMHO, of course.

Chapter 1. Obsession

As I mentioned in the introduction, the idea of ​​a startup was born to me from obsession. And I was obsessed with the idea of ​​securing my “background” income before the planned departure to live abroad. I reasoned: "What is the best" background "income you can think of, no matter how the rental of housing in Moscow (I own it, alas, no), or ... Or a certain website, which brings monthly income from ... From what? Well, yes, probably from advertising. ”The main thing is, I understood what my resource will be about - about autotravels, of course! After all, this is a topic that is close to my heart (it became, after I “conquered” Scandinavia by car). At the very beginning of my path to the result, about which I mentioned above, I didn’t really know in what way I would receive the income that I wanted to make. Understanding came with time, thanks to a bunch of trial and error, as is usually the case in life. But, it is said - done! I want and that's that! But how?

Tip 1: Set a goal. To catch fire to it, to be obsessed and to understand that without fail you will achieve it, that there is no other, but it’s just a matter of Technique

Chapter 2. Technique

I graduated from Moscow State University "STANKIN", faculty of "Information Technology". Specialty: information systems and networks. But ... How I finished it is just a joke. In short, from three to four, and that is not without the help of very many clever friends and comrades. Why all these lyrics? And besides, I'm really not a techie; Well, I got some superficial skills, a bit of directing my thinking on a technical track, but I wasn’t a techie and didn’t become one. I am not able to program, I am not able to make databases. I am able to work with windows at the level of an experienced user and I have a tendency to meticulously understand what is needed. And as of May of 2009, it was necessary to learn to understand a lot of things, since Napoleon’s plans and shish skills!

And the long, thorny path of learning procedures such as registering a domain name, buying a virtual hosting, selecting a “engine” for a future start-up, uploading it to a hosting and then setting it up and so on and so forth began. This is all to me, 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 SAP R / 3 ERP system, which in no way overlapped with WEB ' Thanks to the obsession described in Chapter 1, through the wall of total incomprehension of even elementary processes, he began to take the first steps towards his “millions”. Yes, for a long time, yes, we must painstakingly 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 one way or another you will deal with them.

Tip 2: never in life on the way to the intended goal not to see in any technical nuances of snagging. They say that it is beyond my understanding, they say, I can't handle it. There is nothing too tough. Ask friends, acquaintances, people from Habr or from anywhere. You are sure to help knowledgeable, knowledgeable in a particular subject area, people. You, in turn, will help them in due time. Even if I wanted to delve into the essence of, for example, the administration of a UNIX server on which my project is spinning, then most likely I would have done it in twenty weeks / months, but I don’t want to become a dedicated server specialist ? There is only one in the list of my tasks: to raise and “bring to fit” my resource. And, with all the desire, I would not draw more and study programming in PHP, JAVA, Ajax etc. etc. God knows that there is still all sorts of things ... -)

Chapter 3. Loyalty

When my project saw the light for the first time, that is, it started to play due to the help of my numerous friends who kindly helped me to resolve all the difficulties associated with the technique mentioned in Chapter 2, the question arose of attracting traffic. And here, citizens, apart from any other CEOs and other optimizations aimed at attracting the main search traffic, the question arose of keeping this traffic on the site’s pages, as well as facilitating the attraction of new, but not from the search, but by reference ( invitations) friends. I sincerely believe that nothing is more important and nothing more effective for the achievement of any goals, like good, open human communication. So, when your users begin to write to you in a personal, ask stupid questions about the site's technique or about other, ridiculous in your opinion, trifles, go to contact them! Spend time (no matter how much it takes) on each of the visitors of your resource, explain the moments that are not understandable to him, communicate with him virtually as if you were sitting with him at one table in a cafe.

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

Something inspiration temporarily asked for a smoke break. If this topic is of interest, I will continue to write. I am pleased to answer any questions on the already written.

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

UPD1 : Surprisingly, my topic is on the main one. It is flattering. If so, then I will develop the topic. I will write a few more important, in my opinion, points that need to be borne in mind single-person startup. Thanks to those who came to the liking of my post.

UPD: Continued .