

Ask HN: Is providing a forum enough reason to ask people to pay? - sid6376

Taking inspiration from this idea from steven poland http://blog.stevepoland.com/idea-99-group-learning-of-anything-in-weeks/ i am planning to build a social learning site. However i am also believe that a business needs to generate money from Day 1. So i want to charge a fees to the users on a per course basis. Also i think people would be more motivated to finish something when they have paid for it. So i wanted to ask the HN community this question, Is providing a forum enough to ask people for money? Can you cite examples of any businesses which do that?
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patio11
<http://www.seobook.com> springs to mind.

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aaronwall
Also keep in mind that even if the forum is the main thing you are known for,
a lot of people learn in different ways. So it is helpful to offer a variety
of formats to be more remarkable. In addition to our forum we offer: a monthly
newsletter, private paid tools, free public tools, blog regularly, videos &
training modules.

Another point I would add are that brand matters a lot ... if you are asking
people to pay for something were there are free offerings in the marketplace
(even if the free ones are far worse) then people really need to believe in
you to want to buy from you. Thus we offer a good number of things for free,
including some tools & our blog.

The last thing I would say is that many private membership websites are
quickly ghost towns that die. The hardest part is building up the initial
critical mass. You can always raise rates later, but sometimes it helps to
have lower rates off the start to buy that marketshare and help build
momentum. For example, we charged only $50 a month for the first 100 customers
& gave our ebook customers a free trial...these meant we had a vast active
community right out of the gate. Then over time as we kept adding more value
(more tools, bigger archives of information, etc.) we raised prices.

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sid6376
thanks for all your advice.

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jeffmould
Not sure what kind of "social learning site" you intend to start, but the
short answer to your question is yes.

A sites like ExpertsExchange comes to mind. Also, there is another company
which I recently became aware of that offers "social learning" college
classes. There are no instructors, but instead a social network of tutors and
mentors. They are gaining some ground. <http://www.straighterline.com/> I have
no affiliation with them, but recently read about them and sounds like an
interesting idea.

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sid6376
thanks.. and i kept reminding myself not to write "social learning" and
instead use group learning. Because that was the idea. There was nothing
social about it.

