Start-up/new website. Looking for guidance

[Dave Kennedy]

Well guys I am turning to you for some advice/help on what to do with an idea of mine.

Myself and an old college friend having been working on a database for a website. I am compling info and he is laying it out/programming. I am the "founder" of the idea and will eventually do the market and finance aspect of it. He is more the tech guy.

So I've never started my own site before. Don't know an incredible amount about how to drive revenue but here is the idea. The site is information/content based. So we are selling nothing. Its strictly a traffic play with hopes that we get massive amount of hits later down the road. Google AdSense seems to be the leading canidate for click throughs.

What other ways can I drive revenue? Anyone have expereince with Adsense...what kind of $$ do you make per click? If I get 10,000 hits a month what type of conversion can I use to estimate revenue? Example: Something like 10% of hits do a click and you make .10 per click so I'd make $100 a month. Obviously its different for each site but general ball park idea....

Also do you think its nessecary to set up and register a business either LLC or S-corp? We obviously don't plan to be very big from the start using just our own brains and time to work on it. But with revenue coming in from Ads to I want to divert that to a business bank account or a personal one?

How early on would you write a contract between you and your business partner? We've already decided verbally that its going to be a 60/40 split of "ownership". Does anyone have a good business contract template? I'd rather not go to a lawyer at this junction...don't want to waste any money.

Eventually I'll go into more detail about what the site is and what we will offer. I will also be hear looking for feedback and improvements once the site is up an running. There are a lot of creative minds on this board and many willing and helpful individuals.

Anyone have personal expereince with starting a site...what are some of the shortfalls and how can I avoid them?

Thanks for the insight guys!