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BeingChewsie

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Aug 27, 2007
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Hi all :)

For those of you with membership communities/service businesses do you charge for your members to join or do you allow them to join for free and make your money to keep it going off the advertising if you have any? I have let my ponies run on what would I do if money was no object(outside of RE investing because I'm a partner in that venture) and have come up with what seems to be a relatively untapped market in the community/service/information area. I believe it is a growing area but still has plenty of room for someone to come in and do it better. It taps into all the things I'm good at. My sig other hired a coach for me to help me get unstuck from some of my limited belief thinking and her exercises are really helping. So as all of this unfolds and becomes a reality I'm unsure of how I "envision" the pay to play or no pay to play side of it.

Did you know in your early planning stages if it would be a fee based membership site or a free membership site? Thanks!

Edited to add: I think I answered my own question, I don't think I'd like having to rely on advertising dollars to make money.

Sue
 
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yellowpad

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Oct 3, 2007
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You are right, you answered your own question. Ultimately and at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if your client or member can use what you have to offer that will make them come back. I went to a few meetings here and there so called "investment club" and never to return again because I didn't like what was offered. Most of this places sells membership, recruiting override, materials, and so forth. I know it cost money to make money....but places that I have gone to have similar set up comparing to............I'll stop here :)
 

lucas

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Oct 7, 2007
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I think it is best to do both. Offer a free membership, and charge them for extra services or features that go above and beyond what the free account offers. Or offer a free trial period of some kind.
 

snaepil

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Hello there,

Would it be wise to charge nothing for the membership at the beginning and after let's say I have about 2000 members I start charging them fees?

If from 2000 members decreases to 1000 and I charge them $6 a month for their accounts, then I will be making $6000 a month from it. Not really a fastlane, but not bad for a newbie....

Please let me know what you think.. thanks.
 
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CMCarlin

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I think it is best to do both. Offer a free membership, and charge them for extra services or features that go above and beyond what the free account offers. Or offer a free trial period of some kind.

Also know as the Freemium business model.
 

faq88

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Oct 14, 2009
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I was thinking about your dilemna and found a way to keep your freebies and have paying members. Find a way to offer features that would make the free loaders want to pay for a "PRO" membership. Maybe regulate the number of posts for the freebies or only offer certain forums. This way people can see what you have to offer, but not everything. Its kind of like HotOrNot. You can look at the girls all you want, but you can't talk to them until you pay. Hope this helps.
 

snaepil

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Hello all,

Thanks for your suggestion. we'll see how it goes. now it's just the matter of finding a programmer (since I am not programming savvy at all) for me. I was thinking about elance, but then how do you ensure that the elance programmer won't just copy your idea and create their own website?
There must be any kind of non-compete/non-disclosure contract?
 
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mmmoney

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Jul 15, 2009
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Hello all,

Thanks for your suggestion. we'll see how it goes. now it's just the matter of finding a programmer (since I am not programming savvy at all) for me. I was thinking about elance, but then how do you ensure that the elance programmer won't just copy your idea and create their own website?
There must be any kind of non-compete/non-disclosure contract?

you can have a NDA signed by the programmer/company
 

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