What do you wish you'd known when you started?

I'm just about to embark on my first Dolphin site. I've already got lots of tips from reading the forum here and a couple of very helpful forum members have given me lots of direct advice too. But there are undoubtedly lots of tips and tricks I am still yet to learn about setting up and managing the site and it's community. What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started your site?

There are so many things.... the first is that I wish i knew that if i sold my site (after investing heavily and growing its value as a business) that I would not be able to transfure the license to the new owner... This is a huge issue for me and is something that i wish boonex would address.

The second is the lack of documentation and support (even for paid licenses). It is a case of jump in and then sink or swim.

thirdly (and this is not aimed at anyone) I wish i knew how many sharks there were in the module / development market.... be very wary of who you do business with and how you go about doing business!!!

Be aware there are a lot of developers that here to steal. I wish i knew that. there are a few good one but hard to find.

I paid a developer to put my sites mobile,rebranding/redesign and so on.  He published one site but not rebranding/redesign it as promise. The other website app never pubished or touched. 

Don't go for the expensive one. I wish I knew  the  expensive they are the easy for them to steal...

 Not sure what you mean by this? Could you elaborate?

Fieldstar,

what they mean is that you have to be wear of vendors or module sellers that are just on the market to make money without giving you the support you need in case there are bugs or things that don't work at all.

Remember: don't just give anyone your site / ftp credentials. Only if you are sure and when it's needed!!

Best way to start is to set up a plan for yourself

1. why you want to set up a site and with what purpose.
2. are you able to do things yourself (changing code / design site pages) or do you need to hire people (developers)
3. costs in general
4. site security
5. Advertising your site
6. Get new members and how to keep them!!

hope this helps a bit...

Thanks for all the advice. I've been very careful in which vendors I shortlisted to purchase modules from as I can see it could become a problem if we rely on something that isn't supported / updated as things progress. I've actually kept it to just two vendors who seem to be very good in both areas. The advice of being careful who you let have access to your servers is also good, and in this area I'm trying to find (and think I have found) one person who seems to have trust from people in the Dolphin community who I hope could be able to do everything I need. Plus I'm planning to host the site with someone who specialises in Dolphin hosting and seems to be very good at offering advice too.

So apart from the hardware / software modification itself, what other advice can people offer? Any do's or don'ts in terms of the standard Dolphin functionality? Any killer apps that I shouldn't miss? Any advice for attracting / managing / supporting members?

ilbellodelweb modules are very good.

AndrewP modules are very good too

but it depends what kind of site you are building.

Only install modules you really want to use.
Stick to one thing that you are good at and don't overkill site with modules and features. (less is more)
Create promo video's and place them on youtube.
Share on FB or other sites you are on. use your friends and contacts to promote your site.

Good luck

One thing thats been invaluable to me is building links with a few other serious Dolphin users on here over the years. 

Always good for chatting about modules, themes, hints and tips etc... 

You don't always get the info you need when you go out to buy a module, but talking with others about whats good / bad can be really helpful. Some nice people here also :-)

 A clue to find out who that developer was.

Thanks for the advice (keep it coming). FieldStar is a job / online training site and we have about 6,500 active members that we'll be promoting the site to initially (it's these members that we're building the community for), so I'm hoping that will help us to get the ball rolling quite quickly. Once we've got some traction there I'm then planning to run a referral competition as I've seen some mods that would enable us to do that, so hopefully that will also help if we back the competition with some prizes etc.

The biggest theft I have seen since I have been here was not from a developer but was from a mod and a guy people was pushing to be a mod. The first years I was here any question you asked about hosting was answered "tera-byte" .. everyone on this site pushed it, and it had ALOT of sites it was hosting and we all watched as John and Nathan built it huge and was really going somewhere with it.. then one day boom..  they found out that the servers hadn’t been paid in a while and they was getting suspended one by one and poor people was losing their ENTIRE sites that they paid so much time and money for..  and they lost it cause the money they paid for the hosting bills was STOLEN. It was heart breaking to watch that all unfold then it was funny the subject seem like it has been covered up somehow instead of everyone doing the right thing and making sure all the new people that come here know about risk like that when they go with resale hosting services.. I mean that there is proof that when you are serious about your site you go with a reputable company that has been in business for a while and has a name in the hosting world,, that and I would always suggest never going with any hosting that is not its own brick and mortar I sleep peaceful at night knowing I am with HostforWeb .. they have a name in the biz they have never done me wrong and always bent over backwards for me in anyway they could to help when I had problems,, and I never worry that the owner is gonna take all the cash and run for the hills to never be seen again laughing cause he took all the money and everyone else is screwed, not saying it cant happen with big company’s it just it is ALOT less likely to go down like that and wouldn’t be as easy as it was when John did it.

So I wish I knew all the hosting tricks when I first started out, Like the whole building on a shared and the whole suspension thing we all went through but how to avoid it a little better and how to last a little longer on a shared while you build. And what company’s are good and dependable and what ones REALLY know Dolphin and are willing to help like ,,, you guessed it,, Host for Web. I know a few of you have had some issues with them but that happens in any business but as a whole they have an awesome rep and never ripped me off for a dime ever.

I came in after the collapse of Terra-byte and did not know a lot of what was being discussed.  Any company can fail.  Look at all the big names that have failed or nearly failed.  Look at General Motors, look at Chrysler; they are only here today because the U.S. government stole money from the taxpayers; GM -> 10 billion dollars lost; but that is another rant for a different site.  I don't know John but from what I read he did not swindle his customer; it is unfair to paint that portrait without providing data to back it up.

There is nothing wrong going with a reseller.  I am a reseller; I provide web services to clients that can not do all the complex things and don't want a biscuit-cutter site using some template.  Or they need special scripts to process data or perform other functions.  Not everyone is a linux guru or can configure a webserver; so for them, they need to go with a reseller that will be there to help when Apache or Nginx suddenly takes a nose-dive.

As for the "Wish I had known" topic of this original post, I wish I had known just how resource intensive Dolphin is and I would not have went with a cheap over-sold VPS provider.  There is nothing wrong with Dolphin on a VPS; there is a lot wrong with trying to run Dolphin on a VPS from  a VPS provider that is putting too many VPSes on the same box.

 again talking about what you DO NOT know. he did swindle his customers ALOT lost their entire sites!! he ran off without say a word to any of them, some had paid up for a year in advance thinking their hosting was nothing they are to worry about until one day the site just goes down and the REAL hosting company wipe the drives.. I will say this Nathan did try to save face and worked hard with the main hosting provider to explain what John did and and tried to work with them to save all the sites and servers he could after John left him holding the bag.WHAT I SAID IS NOT UNFAIR I WILL BUMP EVERY RELATED THREAD IF YOU REALLY NEED PROOF.  It happened, and it happened right here for us all to watch unfold,, I even contacted Host for Web who stepped up and offered free cloud hosting for all those that were effected until they could get settled back and try to recoup their losses.

That was rather, uh, rude in a way.  It seems to imply that I often come in about things I don't know about and claim I do.  I think I said I was uncertain.

Maybe John embezzled the funds and maybe he simply oversold and ran out of funds.  I don't know.  If he did embezzled funds, that is criminal and he could have been prosecuted for the crime.

I responded in the topic he bumped.

I also do not believe he was a swindler. What happened was a collapse of a business. I was with him for years, and i highly recommended terabyte.

What he did wrong was to run away when he realized a collapse was inevitable. He should have warned people it was coming. A collapse of a business can happen to any company. It can even happen to (Cough) Host for web. And when a business collapses the unfortunate side effect for many is the loss of money.

I do not call it swindling. Bad luck and poor decisions.

You say tomato I say tomahto .. either way if he respected his customers at all he would had told them they was about to lose everything and that the hosting they had paid for already was .. well not paid for.

Me thinking and feeling like I do about the guy has nothing to do with the fact he could be a total jerk, but more of the way he ended up treating his customers who was one of the loyalist customer bases I have ever seen. The fact his company was pushed as hard as it was here was enough for him to owe not running away and at least warning/explaining to those who was fixing to be effected so it wasn’t a total surprise to them and then to add to it when they looked for him, he was no where to be found. Im pretty sure we all feel what he did was low down and dirty, just some wont admit it publicly.

I agree with that he should have warned his customers.

Reminds me of House MD. Arrogant ass of a doctor who rarely speaks to his own patients but is damn good at what he does.

Anyhow, i was only disagreeing with the swindling part. I have had a business of my own go under. I know what it is like to loose everything you worked so hard to achieve, and not be able to do anything to stop it.

I don't want to repeat what I said in the other topic, so I'll keep it short(er):

John built up THS, and I was grafted on for a new venture that was supposed to replace it.  Unfortunately, important information was withheld from me, and I was left holding the bag after John disappeared from the scene.  I do not believe what happened was because of malicious intent - John ran THS for almost a decade, and wasn't in a position to move on from it.  However, his actions (or lack thereof) made things worse, and his inability to accept what happened means I no longer trust him as a business man.

I did help former customers as much as I could.  Those on active shared and dedicated were moved over to other hosts, and information about the data center was provided for those with VPS and dedicated that were unavailable - for those who contacted the data center, service was restored under a new, direct contract.  Some lost their sites, others had to use old backups, and some had no actual downtime.  I had a lot of sleepless nights, and there's still the occasional email about it.

 I feel for you Nathan; I wish you would stop apologizing for things that were beyond your control.

Nathan I will be honest I felt sorry for you that whole time but I will say you earned ALOT of respect on here for the way you stayed and dug your heals and and dealt with it like a MAN.

I will stand by what I have always said about John,,  I honestly consider what he did "swindling" there was funds that was missing and did not add up at the end of the day,, people who paid for hosting that they never received so by definition from what I know that is swindling..  I guess Deano and I will just have to agree to disagree on that. Far as John being good at what he did,, yup he was awesome like that, but I tend to respect morals alot more then skills but that is just me.

 I was lucky enough to retrieve my sites since I was on the 'RootBaron' servers which took longer to be shutdown.

To your point here, I too was extremely impressed how Nathan had the guts, heart, and respect to come in this forum and post what was going on. He truly went above and beyond to help backup/save/transfer as many sites as he could. All the way til the last server was shutoff.

A little background for you: This incident that happened with TBH/RB is one of the primary reasons Zarconia was born. I am proud to have Nathan as my Zarconia partner. Don't let that go to your head Nathan :)

 Yeah I was aware,, there was a group of us on Skype watching the entire thing unfold.. I hope you all do good like i said the way Nathan handled his part of that situation shows he is not the type to walk/run away without explanation atleast and some fore warning and from what I seen of you these past few years neither are you so your clients are in good hands.

BTW did you all change your mind about offering me real red5 service? .. I would be willing to do media hosting with you guys and switch from the one i am using if you could offer either red5 or fms hosting for my video chat.

 RE:

 I have only one..... Have an idea for a web site that actually makes sense, and not one that's been trampled to death by thousands of other Dolphin web site wannabes.