Starting a social network site

[Destined]

Hi fastlaners,

I have been researching and thinking of starting a social network site for a very popular
niche that spends million if not billion dollars a year. This niche is kinda like the home improvement niche.
People will always spend money and the interest is always there.

Need- Yes, there is a need for this niche, people are always asking questions and demand help
Entry- I plan on buying a social networking script and I suppose others can too. The domain name I want is still there and I plan to network with quite a few people in this niche. I will try to be exceptional!!!!
Control- I will have total control of this project, I will own the site
Scale - My goal is grow my social network site to 100k+ and maybe a mill users
Time- I will spend a good 3-6 hours a day working this business


My long term goal is to grow this site to 100,000- 1+ mill users and sell it.
I'm thinking of ways to monetize this site, possibly running a classified ads section. Possibly running banner ads, maybe become an affiliate and offer product. Any more ideas on how I could monetize this site?

Do you guys/gals think its a good idea or a poor one? I like this idea because the market/niche is always spending money and these types of people could definitely network with eachother.

Any suggestion/advice is much appreciated!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[tekcraze]

Entry- I plan on buying a social networking script and I suppose others can too. The domain name I want is still there and I plan to network with quite a few people in this niche. I will try to be exceptional!!!!

You might want to check out some open source platforms for creating a social network site. I've played around with elgg (elgg.org) it looks pretty good but I'm sure there are others.

Your biggest challenge is going to be marketing. It will be tough to get people joining a network that at first doesn't have many people. One of the strategies I heard someone use for a dating site is to "seed" the network by going out to clubs and getting people signed up in person. This may not work for your niche, but just an idea to get things rolling.

To answer your last question, is this a good idea? Maybe... As long as you see a need for what you are offering, and there is enough of an advantage over the (HUGE) alternative social sites out there. Just because you can doesn't always mean you should... Maybe try a small adwords campaign with a squeeze page to get people signed up which you would use to basically gauge interest. You do have to spend a bit of money, but you don't have to build out an entire site until you have some proof of "concept"