HEADACHE WILL SOON BE GONE!
Hey Tyger!
I think you are on a great way of building a very successful site!
I suggest you create a plan like webdev suggested. Without a good and exact plan you guys will have problems in a while. It is cool that you are in a team of two, since you can encourage each other and it will be funnier and more productive.
As I can see from your post - your strength is being able to create and maintain a community - and this could be your most important competitive advantage over similar websites. Even if you are not starting a forum at first, make sure you add interactivity to your site. It could be a comment box, chat room or anything that will give your visitors something that your competitors don`t have.
If your long-term plan is to create a forum, than you must create some kind of informational website to promote your forum, since most forums develop very slowly at the beginning. Another way of promoting your site is on other forums, or related, non-competitive websites.
But hear me now: no matter what topic exactly you choose - in order you and your friend want to succeed you need to satisfy your visitors needs - so thats where your community-building abilities come in. You need to offer them something that others do not provide. It is not so hard to figure - see the best forums and sites you use, and try to see what do they have that attracts you. Than take that and make it a step better, provide something unique, that is hard to copy.
As far as technology is concerned - for starters you will be doing ok with a 10 bucks domain name and shared hosting account. 100 bucks will do for 1 year. That is for informational site and a small forum. I suggest you get yourself an opensource forum and tweak it - since you know a bit coding it shouldn't be a problem.
I am using hostgator because it is really solid and it is much faster when it comes to advanced scripting compared to powweb. I can tell you more about my experience with them if you need it. Powweb is good for static pages, but when it comes to dynamic sites, i feel more secure with hostgator (located at planet.com).
But when the forum grows it will need more and more resources and eventually shared hosting will not handle it. You will have to buy dedicated or semi-dedicated hosting account and that costs money. I can see from your post that your main intention is not to make money - that is very good, since you will focus on your visitors, but you also need to pay the hosting company.
So thinking long term- when the forum grows, and if you are determined, it will grow, you will either need to pay it out of your pocket, or monetize your site. I suggest the second option and with proper use of adsense or affiliate programs you could earn enough to pay the costs or make some money with it.
Work Hard and Don`t forget to have fun along the way!
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