Keys to success? Pitfalls to avoid?

[jeffrose]

Hey everyone. I'm relatively new here. I've got my site up and running and I'm getting good speeds etc. So now I'm looking at the sustainability of the site. It's primarily to support a niche hobby and I'm willing to fund the Digital Ocean box that I've got it on so I don't need to make a ton off it, but that wouldn't be a bad thing.

I've been through the forums and loaded almost every site listed as running Chevereto - or tried. Man did I see some stuff I didn't need to see, but that's fair.

What caught my eye was the number of broken, unavailable and closed sites and it made me wonder "What happened?" Did the owners just let them go (I've done it)? Was it too hard? Was it not popular? Was there no business model? Was it too expensive? etc.

For those that are still up and have been going great, what are the keys to success? What have you done, do you think, to make your site work where others failed? Do you have a good niche? Dedicated users? Broad terms? Good income model? etc...

I'd love to hear from people and maybe build a discussion to help everyone...

 

[tomsit]

Interesting stuff, and I like to hear what others say too.

I can't speak for the "high rollers" but I believe the pitfalls usually sums up to "time-money-energy". If you don't have time, you won't succeed, same goes for money (backend is going to cost when you hit a million images, unless you had the time to monetize it) If you can't keep things running, you loose interest, your users will also loose interest.

In my case I have a steady income, I'm focusing on slow growth, but steady so it'll always be fun to work on the system. I believe the key to success is not to rush things, be patient and do stuff that makes it unique. It's really important to feel ownership for your work. My site is for everyone and my servers are ready to handle shitloads of traffic, you might ask why? Because it's fun driving a stock Volvo 240 with 700 horsepower under the hood

 

[mkerala]

Something I learned.

1. Don't think you can make big $$$ with a image hosting site.
2. Start small and fail small. Don't put too much money into it, you probably never get it back.
3. There are 1000s of image hosting sites out there, what make your site different form the rest?
4. Keep your expense as low as possible. (Get a cheap server. Forget cloud, its damn too expensive for a image hosting site.)

I started with a shared hosting account about 4 years back and now runs two dedicated servers. When it was shared hosting it cost me like $100 a year and now spend the same amount per month. I reached break even in few months, but profits are small. More money I get more money goes into servers and other expense. At the end of the day it is just a hobby.

PS: Money actually lies in the value of the website. You will get a good buck if you sell it with good traffic.