-------> Challenge For You! <-------

[Eric Foster]

Challenge… I personally ask you to “Step Up!”

I have two challenges for you…

One…

I just donated $50 to Bigger Pockets to assist with the continued development and to show my support for this site. Donations since September of 2007 have only been $230.00?... I feel this is a very nice site for all of us investors… And, I am sure that a lot of people have “made”, or “saved” A LOT of money because of the information on this site. The information here is what you pay 1k, 2k, 5k… or more for at seminars to learn this stuff. In addition, there are always people here willing to answer questions, any time that you have one!…

Chip in and help support this valuable information source… whatever you think it is worth to you… If you only can donate $5 that is ok… But you ‘Bigger Players” (“Bigger” no pun intended) should step up a bit! I donated $50… who’s next?

Here is the link to make your donation and show your support… http://www.biggerpockets.com/donate.html

Two…

Get out there and vote for Bigger Pockets! After all, it is election year! Again, show your support and go vote for Bigger Pockets… Vote for Bigger Pockets Here…
http://www.killerstartups.com/Social-Networking/Biggerpocketscom---Social-Networking-for-Real-Estate/
Once there, just click on the blue button that says “Killers”. You should see the number of votes change… It takes 2 seconds and “your vote counts”!... Here is the link again… Vote Now!
http://www.killerstartups.com/Social-Networking/Biggerpocketscom---Social-Networking-for-Real-Estate/

Do both of these things now… NOT later!

P.S. No one at Bigger Pockets put me up to this… And, I am not affiliated with Bigger Pockets in any way… I just enjoy the site and thought I jump in and lend a hand!

[Eric Foster]

<------------LOOK-------
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P.S. You may even get one of these cool comments next to your user name!

I Donated $50.00 - Who is next?

[Joshua Dorkin]

Eric -
I definitely appreciate your efforts here. Thanks for your donation! As I've told Eric, every donation helps. We are not a mega corporation, but a small shop working hard to build the best resource for all of you.

We are currently running in the red so that we can develop this site into the best resource possible for everyone. The donations we get go right back into the site, and towards site development and server costs.

Thanks in advance for anything you can give back!

[David Arney]

whats teh annual operating cost for this site?

how much is already paid for by advertisement, donations, etc.?

[Joshua Dorkin]

Originally posted by "arneyd":

whats teh annual operating cost for this site?

how much is already paid for by advertisement, donations, etc.?

I'd love to share that info, but I'm not going to. As a private corporation, we're not required to share such info, but I give my word that we're not making buckets of cash, and in fact are losing money every month due to our redevelopment. My team of developers do not come cheap!

Otherwise, I hope you understand that this (our financial) information is proprietary at this point.

Thanks for your understanding.

[Eric Foster]

I know from first hand experience, that there is always more, way more costs to running any type of business than the average person may think… Looking in from a distance it is all hard to see.

Look at some of the posts here about rehabbing properties as an example… Anyone have a project take longer than expected?… Go over budget?... All the time!

Everything almost always takes longer, and costs more than originally expected.

Ask me how I know this?

I always get a good laugh at this… Recently people that I know have made comments like “Wow that must be nice to have so much free time”... Or, “So, what do you do all day”… Or, “It must be nice getting those big checks”… funny the things they perceive to be what is involved…They don’t see me writing fat checks all the time to make things go, or spend nights and weekends working, firing contractors, all of the things it takes to be successful.

Just my 2 cents…

[Jonathan (JB) Borchers]

great idea and way to bring it to the forefront -

what this site offers is worth it's weight in gold. and although no one is forced to make a donation, for the amount of potential out there for everyone a small donation is miniscule in comparison to what each of us takes from biggerpockets.

have a great weekend everyone.

[David Arney]

:lol:

sorry josh, I wasn't trying to be nosy or anything

I belong to another private forum that uses php for their hosting, and although I dont' know their operating costs either, I did make a donation of ~$50 and a lot of other people donated some too and it's pretty much paid for keeping the site up.

It sounds like things cost quite a bit more here.

I will be happy to donate, although it may not be much since I am a poor student. I also have not even started my real estate career, but I can tell that once I get involved this site will become invaluable. Just let me know how best to give.

[Eric Foster]

jborchers2 and arneyd,

Thank you for your reply to this post... I am just chipping in and trying to do my part to help out… I am glad to see that you both are also willing to help.

The first post on this thread tells how you can make a donation, and how to place your vote for Bigger Pockets.

For now, just donate what you can… Any amount is fine... a few dollars will help!

I hope you both and many others will also chip in. I want to do what I can to make sure this site can continue to grow into a great resource for us all to use.

Have a Great Day!

[Joshua Dorkin]

Jonathan -
I got your donation! Thanks a million. Like I said to Eric, every dollar helps.

David -
I appreciate your gesture, and am not stressed about you being "nosey." I think you were just asking questions - no biggie. As for you donating - don't stress - I'd rather you used your money for your own education. There is nothing more important!

I am moved by your efforts to help us, Eric, and want to thank you again for continuing to strongly support BiggerPockets!

[Eric Foster]

Originally posted by "biggerpo":

...I am moved by your efforts to help us, Eric, and want to thank you again for continuing to strongly support BiggerPockets!...

Josh,

You are welcome! You have a great thing going here with Bigger Pockets... It is an awesome place for people to learn… So keep up the good work!

I am also hoping a few more will jump in and show their support as well.

[Andy Parsons]

be happy to donate to this site, its been one of the greats learning tools i have yet to come across. and

to the site admin and owners, as a mod and owner of several web forums I know how much work it takes to build such a site. I commend you and hope you guys can keep this going for many years to come!

keep up the great work and thanks for such a valuable resource!

[Eric Foster]

Originally posted by "libbyandy2007":

...be happy to donate to this site, its been one of the greats learning tools I have yet to come across...

I am glad you are also willing to help... And I agree… this is a great site!

And yes, Josh does a great job working hard to keep this place going for us.

Thanks for your support!
.

[Joshua Dorkin]

Originally posted by "libbyandy2007":

be happy to donate to this site, its been one of the greats learning tools i have yet to come across. and

to the site admin and owners, as a mod and owner of several web forums I know how much work it takes to build such a site. I commend you and hope you guys can keep this going for many years to come!

keep up the great work and thanks for such a valuable resource!

Thanks for your support, Andy. I saw that you donated some funds to the site and want to thank you very kindly for doing so. It is much appreciated.

[Joshua Dorkin]

We got a new donation today . . . this time from David (username: arneyd). Thanks for your help!

We've now raised $365 since September. While this is indeed helpful, it barley scratches the surface!

I hope all of our members that have reaped some benefit from the site could find it in themselves to give back. I'm confident that if that happened, this site would already have many more of the features that we've got planned for our users, up and running. As we only have a limited budget for these projects, we can only build them as fast as I can find resources to pay our developers.

Thanks again to everyone who has helped so far!

[Joshua Dorkin]

I'd like to extend Eric's challenge to help gain us even more visitors to the site through promoting BiggerPockets by means of the various Social Bookmarking websites.

If you use any of the bookmarking sites below OR any that may not be listed, please be sure to spread the love and bookmark BiggerPockets & the BiggerPockets Forums.

BookMark Away! :mrgreen:
Del.icio.us | Digg | StumbleUpon | Furl | Reddit

[Jason Cummins]

Another thing that everyone can do, is click the ads up at the top

Cheers :beer:

[John Geddes]

Voted and will donate. I want to see what I can get from my boss, I really want the sweatshirt. It is cold in my office.

[Eric Foster]

Originally posted by "JPGeddes":

Voted and will donate. I want to see what I can get from my boss, I really want the sweatshirt. It is cold in my office.

JPGeddes.... Yea!

Way to go JPGeddes! Thanks for supporting the site!

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[Chad B.]

Can't believe I didn't see this thread sooner. I voted and it's up to 62 votes! Of course I will donate. It's still a cheaper mistress for me than what a real mistress would and could cost me. :D I too want the sweatshirt but is it possible to get a Double XX Fat. I am a big boy and can rarely make the standard XL work.

Great job Eric pointing this out!

[Joshua Dorkin]

Originally posted by "OGStilts":

Can't believe I didn't see this thread sooner. I voted and it's up to 62 votes! Of course I will donate. It's still a cheaper mistress for me than what a real mistress would and could cost me. :D I too want the sweatshirt but is it possible to get a Double XX Fat. I am a big boy and can rarely make the standard XL work.

Great job Eric pointing this out!

Chad -
We'll have the sweatshirt on the way ASAP! YOu'll have to email us a picture of you wearing it (or make it your avatar!)

Otherwise, thank you kindly for the generous donation. It will definitely come in handy for the development budget.

[Eric Foster]

Originally posted by "OGStilts":

… Of course I will donate. It's still a cheaper mistress for me than what a real mistress would and could cost me…

… I too want the sweatshirt but is it possible to get a Double XX Fat…

Yes… We have another live one! Let’s hear it for OGStilts…

Hip, Hip… Hooray… Hip, Hip… Hooray…
:woohoo: :clap: :woohoo:

As far as the mistress… There is more to it than just the cost… :lol: Hummm… Anyway.

As far as the XX fat… I am sure Josh can figure something out. The last person that needed a XX Fat, Josh included a pair of scissors and some duct tape… That way you can put the Bigger Pockets logo on any shirt you want. LOL

Thanks for your support!

[Chad B.]

It's the least I could do to try and help support this site. I figure it is the cheapest education I ever received. Atleast it is a lot cheaper than my 4 ...errrr ok 7 year education I received at Purdue but I have learned so much more useful information here than I ever did there. No offense to any other Boilermakers out there, I still bleed my Black & Gold. It's just now I will do it in my Bigger Pockets sweatshirt or if Josh can't get the XXL thing worked out maybe he can just cut arm and head holes in one of those large contractor trash bags and paint Bigger Pockets on the front of it. Either way I'll wear it with pride and try to get more people aware of ths forum. :D

[Joshua Dorkin]

Did you ever get your gear in the mail? If so, where's the photo evidence?

[G. NA]

I do enjoy this site and I voted for it.

[Chad B.]

Alright Josh, you asked for it so you'll get it. As much as the camera loves me :mrgreen: , I'm not this vane to be posting pics of myself :oops: so easy on me guys, I'm just doing it for the betterment of Biggerpockets (I guess) :lol:

The original pic can be seen by clicking the link in this line. If you want to see the below image as enlarged, click it.
:beer: