250,000 posts and 6,000 members

407 days after launching the site, we passed 250,000 posts - and we passed 6,000 members earlier this week as well.

I won't post all the stats again so soon after doing the 1 year stats.

It will be interesting to look back in later years at the development of the community in its early years.

Awesome job everyone - thanks for making this the best property investment community in Australia!

 

Somersoft was very busy, but the post volume here is quite a bit higher.

Somersoft's busiest month ever was May 2015 (the last full month before it was archived), when it did 14,500 posts for the month - most months were quite a bit less than that.

We've been averaging around 18,500 posts per month for the past 10 months (it was more like 22,000 posts per month for the first few months!) ... so an extra 4,000 posts is around 133 posts per day more here than on Somersoft. It's not surprising you have difficulty keeping up!

That really is the only downside of such a busy forum - you need to start being selective about what you pay attention to.

 

I did start one a while back - but I think it struggled for focus somewhat - and most people in business are too busy to spend much time on a forum (unless your customers are also there )

There's always the Flying Solo forums - but their focus is around sole operators rather than people looking to build a larger business.

I am about to spend some time rebuilding and upgrading InvestEd - the focus of that site is more around financial planning and investment education across all asset classes (I decided not to fold that forum into PropertyChat because I wanted the discussion to not be so weighted towards property). There is a topic for discussion of investing in business on InvestEd - but the intention there is to focus more on investing rather than operating a business.

I do have a spare license for the forum software and a domain name ready to go - if we have a clear enough focus for the site, I'd be happy to spin up another business focussed forum and see how it goes.

Choosing what to focus on will be the key - the "why does this site exist?" and "who does this site serve?" questions.

 

My franchise had a forum- but when somebody in the franchisor organisation started making comments discussion was killed very quickly.

 

ahh ... I was trying to find the thread where someone suggested businesschat ...

BusinessChat :: Australian Business Forums

 

Definitely - I've been working pretty much full time on the site since the beginning of June last year. It's very satisfying to see such great discussion happening and such enthusiastic members.

I don't think it's property specific - I think a great forum is made from a combination of having a clear purpose, strong and consistent moderation and most importantly, a passionate group of members who contribute.

It also helps having good software - I think of it as reducing friction, making it easier for people to engage and post. Kind of like engine oil - without the right type or amount of oil, your engine just won't work as well.