Started an IT business messageboard. Need advice.

Factual Questions
1

Hey all,

I’ve been around for a while but do a lot more reading than I do posting. I was hoping to tap into the genius of the teeming millions to help me with my latest idea.

I just recently started a messageboard that caters to small-business owners in various technological industries. We have web designers, network support techs, electrical engineers, etc. I started it because I couldn’t find a good community of entrepreneurs that focused specifically on technology ventures.

We’ve been open for about a month now and have about 115 members so far. Not too shabby, but I was hoping to foster more interaction between the members. I’m guessing that only about 20% of those 115 members are regular visitors. With only a couple dozen contributers, I’m afraid that a sense of community won’t develop fast enough to maintain everyone’s interest.

I’m sure that anyone else who’s ever founded a messageboard has faced the Catch-22 of not being able to interest new members without established content, and not getting that content without members. So how do you do it? Does anyone have any suggestions on how to build (and more importantly, maintain) a thriving online community?

BTW, the board is SmallBizGeeks.com if anyone is interested in taking a gander.

Thanks in advance!

2

I like the concept.

You have way too many forums. There are 15 when 3 would do. Also, the forum choices seem to be somewhat arbitrary. I’d even consider making it one forum for now. The value of forums comes in when you have a lot of content.

As you know, the whole thing is circular: you need more people to get more content and you need more content to get more people. The best thing you can do to jump start it is to start cranking out a lot of content yourself. Force yourself to create one new thread every day and do some research so it contains some depth that people want to see.