Over the years I've made quite a few fairly successful websites, and I've seen simple websites hit the big time, for things that weren't especially imaginative or unique (yes, I'm talking about Facebook, Twitter and the like). Without putting much thought into it, you'd think that they're successful for being simple, easy, free, but that's only a tiny part of why they're so popular.

 

"Twitter raised over US$57 million from venture capitalist growth funding, although exact numbers are not publicly disclosed." ~Wikipedia

 

"Facebook received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel" ~Wikipedia

 

Just scanning Wikipedia I found information about massive investment to both these companies. I don't claim to know the history of them, so I may be wrong. For all I know they both became hugely popular and the got interest from investors. Facebook, at least, got a lot of interest from students before investment.

 

But looking at the success stories of Facebook, Twitter, and Google for that matter, you can see that the key to their success is coverage. Whether they bought it or got it free from universities.

 

But what If you're not a millionaire or a student? That's not rhetorical, I'm asking. Do you know any successful website which wasn't built on those things?

I don't see how you can say twitter isn't especially imaginative of unique. To my knowledge it was the first micro-blogging platform and basically took social networking to a whole new perspective. However, to answer your question I'd say that one of the main things which makes sites successful is having a good amount of users before it launches. Look at Facebook for example, it was originally made by a couple of guys for Harvard University students to connect with each other online. So straight away they will have had their classmates who will have then told their other classmates and so on.

Ok, I'm not claiming to know their history. My aim was to gather examples of successful websites which didn't have help from a massive network like a university or millions for public relations.

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be successful.

 

I know of a few people that have sites with thousands upon thousands of registered users, with thousands that return daily. They were earning a good few thousand per month, and they were just basic vBulletin forums. Personally, i would consider that exceptionally successful. Making over $1,000 per month seems very decent when you think about how much moderation a forum realistically takes (no necessary design requirements, initial management may be significant but with a few willing "employees", whether they be real-life acquaintances or willing members, and the right amount of effort it is not particularly comparable to what a site may take to create from scratch).

 

But, as i said, that is based on my perception of what is making it big/being successful.

$1000 a month is hardly big money?

Yes I wouldnt say $1000/month is that big money. Facebook didn't have that large an investment to start with. I think it was just hosting costs. Then when it became popular, investors wanted in.

 

To make it successful, if its a service you need people to use it. Look at dribbble, people are asking for invites, and want to use the service. Although not to scale of facebook, I would call it sucessful, even if not financially

There's a little issues not brought up here and that's the main person(s) behind the original idea. If you havn't already, go and see 'The Social Network'. A fascinating film about the start up of Facebook and portrays the amount of effort, coding and perfection Mark Zuckerberg went to for the site to launch. Although the film's characters are perhaps exaggerated to say the least, it does paint a very good picture of workload involved in launching such a site.

 

 

Could a site gain success without start-up money or a university?

 

Yes, with a really good idea. You'd probably need to wait longer for something to kick off properly without PR money though.