We made what in retrospect was a brilliant decision in 2006 not to spend a tremendous amount of money customizing or building anything. In fact, as I speak around the country, I make a point that the most important piece of advice I can offer to people trying to start something like this is to not build or customize your own CMS. Invest maybe in graphic designers or other design efforts. But let the people who do CMS, and do it well, do it for you.

TownNews.com has been a fantastic company to work with. They not only help you set it up and customize it but they provide helpful, responsive customer service. That’s the second reason why not to invest in your own custom system: Who’s going to fix it when it goes down?

I’m particularly passionate about this advice as I watch other startups waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on the effort. We are about to launch a new, retooled and beautiful web site and over nearly four years, I would estimate we have hardly spent $29,000 maintaining and improving our web site.