Would you rather buy or build a community?

[Cedric]

If you wanted to run a successful online community, would you rather start from scratch or buy an existing one?

Building a community from the ground up gives you full control over its vision, rules, and vibe - but it also takes time, effort, and patience to grow an active user base. On the other hand, buying an established community means skipping the early struggle, but it comes with challenges like adapting to an existing user base and maintaining engagement. But the existing user base might not be the easiest to work with or might not like you being their new community leader.

Which path do you think is better? Would you rather build something from the ground up or take over an existing forum and shape it into your own?

 

[Cory]

I would rather start afresh than take over someone else's work. I've always been more fond of creation than duplication, in which you create your vision, not duplicating someone else's. Patience has gotten me 2,000+ members and 18,000+ posts in the past 5+ years. I think my dedication and work have paid off in the long run. Besides, I've mostly run resource boards for specific forum software where I would rather be the primary visionary behind the resources released.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I personally would love to start from scratch. There's nothing wrong with purchasing a well established forum, but something about building my own community from the ground up just feels more rewarding.

 

[Bawse]

It's fun to start your own community, and I think it's more rewarding if you build a big board from the ground up. I'd only consider buying a forum if I had the time to manage another one.

 

[Cpvr]

I prefer to build my own as I get to know my members, form a bond with them and grow with them.

I also enjoy the process of building one from the ground up and watching it grow.

I have no issues with buying an established community, but don’t make changes right away if you go that route.

As a new owner taking over an established one, it’s best to seek feedback from the current members and go from there. You don’t want to deal with conflict as a new owner of an established community.

 

[Matthew]

I think either path can result in success if done correctly.

New forums require dedication, time, investment, and a lot of work to hopefully get off the ground and meet your personal goals. It may be a long time, if ever, before a financial recoupment is observed. However, as you said, you get total control over the ultimate direction.

Existing forums offer a dedicated community. However, change will inevitably disrupt those regulars’ norms and will result in disagreement, hurt feelings, and potential departures.

If I had to choose, I would probably purchase an existing community and slowly work towards my overall mission. If I’m making a purchase, it’s likely that the pathway the original owner took aligned with my own visions to some extent otherwise I wouldn’t be purchasing it. To navigate an acquisition, I’d get in slowly to learn and implement small changes over time. I’d also work heavily to gain the community’s trust and would have open and honest communication with the community about where I’d like to see the project go. This way, the community has a chance to be heard and you have a chance to garner valuable feedback that will help guide the future of the forum.

 

[Nomad]

I have bought a forum once, I bought it because I liked the forum niche and the discussion topics, plus I got if for very cheap. However, I like to build my own forum. I can control quality early on when I start my own forum. I have seen a lot of forums that were built on the top of other forums and I see a lot of low value content. Another big problem with buying forum is it is really difficult to bring in activities, ownership change will also alienate the members. If instead of whole forum, you just bought database the problem will be even bigger as you will rarely see old members becoming active. I am saying this based on my experience as a manager on multiple forums that acquired other forums.

 

[SomosTuZona]

Buying an initiated Community is satisfying because it saves you work but nothing like starting your own to your liking from 0 fought for you and your desire to get to pay for something and get it easy without sacrifice.

 

[fdk]

I personally have only bought a forum once, and the venture didn't pan out quite as I'd hoped. It was a reasonably-sized but also relatively new forum, but was started by one of the most experienced forum admins I knew at the time. It was only a short while after I'd sold my own football forum for a significant amount of money, and although the forum I ended up purchasing was in a completely different niche (it was actually an admin/support forum), it was on a similar growth trajectory to my previous forum and I saw an opportunity to be running a new community that had the potential for a big explosion.

Unfortunately, shortly after the sale went through and I overtook ownership, I began to realise that I simply wasn't at that time as good of an admin as I thought. I was young, only 14-15 or so at the time, and I was downhearted that several of the staff members followed the founder when he left his staff position at the forum, and activity slowly levelled off. I myself ran the forum for about six months before myself selling it (for essentially the same price I bought it for) when I realised that my skills in that niche at the time were not up to scratch.

In my view, the better experience 100% was creating my own forum from scratch and building on the project from there. I have to say though, it takes a lot of time, effort and dedication - probably something I wouldn't be able to offer in quite the same way today.

 

[Smithy]

I like to build / start from scratch.
You feel like you've done a lot more even if it's takes years for the forum to become active.