"I'm depressed because everyone's leaving my favorite forum. The owner started charging money to use the site..."

My good mate Jules was on the phone from London.  A generous Pigface fan loaned me his apartment in Hollywood, California, and I was between tours. Things had reached an impasse with Invisible Records, the indie label to which I was signed. So I had time on my hands.  I told my friend;

"I can create a forum."

Seriously? You can do that? How much would it cost?" 

"About $10 for a domain name and $10 a month for the server. I'll run it in my spare time." 

Similar to lighting fires, the hardest thing about a website is getting it started. Once it reaches a critical mass, it grows exponentially.

But with GS it was different. Within 48 hours of our launch, nearly the entire membership of Recording.org  including the moderators migrated over to our new site. So we were in the right place at the right time.

Neither of us had expected immediate popularity. Jules and I just happened to stumble into Gearslutz like a couple of cyber-drunks. I had not planned to run a big site with a huge membership. I was a touring musician, not a  web developer.

So it was a lucky break for Standen.  Only a few months earlier he had confided that his business was on the brink of failure; 

"I'm neglecting the Library (his recording studio business). I'm addicted to a forum called Recording.org where I'm a moderator."

Jules started the Library Studio with his inheritance. It constantly hemorrhaged money. This was unsurprising as Jules was known to live beyond his means.  Fortunately, GS cost next to nothing.  We had lived as a couple for a few years between 1985 and 1987 and even after the relationship ended, we remained the closest for friends. So there was a lot of trust and years between us.

My running of the forum doesn't sound like much today. Everyone's got access to a web platform. There is a multitude of new forum providers, cloud services, developers, programmers, and systems administrators. But back in 2002, you'd be hard-pressed to find a friend who knew how to create and run a forum for peanuts. Just ask Recording.org who had to charge membership in order to pay costs.

 Standen had it handed to him on a plate.

As is the nature of the internet, success begets success. Google indexes data that drives people to the site. These visitors create more content which in turn drives more to the site.

Rinse and repeat. 

Gearslutz continued to grow rapidly and exponentially.