We made the list at #3

[Harold Mansfield]

The Internet's 18 best small business forums
https://www.fundera.com/blog/small-business-forums

[vangogh]

Pretty cool, though I think we're a more valuable resource than the forum they placed ahead of us. We're certainly more active. It is possible I'm somewhat biased about this. :)

[WarrenD]

Yay us! I've been to the #1 ranked forum and it's definitely not as active as this one! It's surprising they're at #1. It's a dead place.

[tallen]

I agree, the point of a forum is current, active discussion.... not to be an archive of long-dated dead content, nor a place where people post questions but no one ever responds.

[cbscreative]

At least the old spam haven didn't make the list. We can all be biased together because we know this one is the best and exceptionally well moderated (way better than that blog post even).

[Harold Mansfield]

The amount of things I learned on this forum over the years cannot be understated. So many little and big things that I would have never picked up in a book, an online course, or a blog post. I'll never be able to pay it forward enough.

[vangogh]

The amount of things I learned on this forum over the years cannot be understated.

I'd add that much of what I learned here came about from seeing a question and researching to find an answer or getting into a discussion with others and gaining a different perspective. You don't have to sit back and wait for someone else to answer your question. You can learn a lot by being part of the conversation.

[Harold Mansfield]

For new members who may be reading, I'll just add that I joined this group before I started out on my own. When I was thinking about it and scared to the high heavens if I could make it work or not. My skills were barely adequate and I knew nothing about running a business.

8 years later, I did it, worked it for all it was worth, and am now moving into a new field that is very much in demand, pays much better, and that i would have never even known existed before. Sometimes just being able to talk things about with others can get you though the tough times, or give insight into how to keep the good times rolling.

Most of us work alone, and it's difficult to succeed in a bubble. You have to have others to bounce ideas off of.

[vangogh]

Most of us work alone, and it's difficult to succeed in a bubble. You have to have others to bounce ideas off of.

Absolutely. I know lots of times I'll chime in with some advice for someone and as I follow the thread I read all the other posts and it changes my thinking or gives me a new idea. Sometimes a post behind mind will disagree with what I said and it's the same thing. The post gives me something new to think about or suggests a different approach.

Another way the forum has helped me is being able to see patterns. For example, one of the reasons I first started using WordPress was realizing I could provide more functionality to clients without having to charge too much. I'm sure you remember the days when adding a shopping cart to a site meant spending $10k to have it developed. Just reading posts here made it clear that wasn't affordable for most people and it led me to look more into open source software and content management systems in general to help keep costs down.

[dwhs]

Yeah, I like it here. Not too stuffy and some great information. Congrats!

[mattkuter]

I checked out some of the other forums from that list and decided that this one looked like the most active and friendly of the list, so that's why I am here! I just need to try and get here more regularly!