It is my dream to reach as many type 2 diabetics as possible. Just in the US there are currently about 23,000,000 diagnosed diabetics. Including the additional people that are pre-diabetic or insulin resistant that number is 73,300,000. World wide the currently estimated number of diabetics is 300,000,000. This number is expected to double within the next 10 years. Type 2 diabetes is something we can usually control or avoid with healthy lifestye and proper diet. This site is etup as an online community where we can all share what we learn abour eating properly. For me it was a choice. Change to a healthy diet or face the very unpleasant complications  that often accompany type 2 diabetes. I want to build an active online community where we can all share what we have learned and help as many as we can that follow in our fotprints.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that it takes money to run a quality website. I have funded the site setup out of my personal budget. I would fund the site and provide it for free if I had the financial means to do so. Since that is not the case I have decided to fund the site through subscriptions.

With that in mind I present the following operational plan.

Update- 7/7/07 Thanks to a very generous donation, Hosting cost are no longer an issue until we reach the point where a dedicated server is required. Subscriptions are not needed at this point for hosting cost. The subscription option will remain in place for those who choose to support the site with financial donations. All regular memberships are now free.

The subscriptions will be $9.97 for a year or $29.97 lifetime membership. It is not my intention to exclude anyone from this site because of a lack of money. If the subscription fee will cause a financial hardship for you, send me an email explaining the situation and why $9.97 a year will cause you a hardship and I will give you a free membership.

Subscription fees will be applied in the following manner. 

From each new subscription, $4.97 will be set-aside in an interest bearing account to be applied to hosting cost for the first two years of site operation and $5.00 will be applied to advertising cost. It is in the best interest of all site members to build site membership as quickly as possible. More members means more flow of ideas and information about the best ways to control our disease. In addition, as the site grows there will be more well controlled diabetics to share what is working for them. (My definition of a well controlled diabetic is one who consistently has Fasting blood glucose: 70–99 milligrams per deciliter or less than 5.5 mmol/L, A1C under 6 and off diabetic medications)

Hosting Cost

Update- 7/7/07 Thanks to a very generous donation, Hosting cost are no longer an issue until we reach the point where a dedicated server is required. Subscriptions are not needed at this point for hosting cost. The subscription option will remain in place for those who choose to support the site with financial donations. All regular memberships are now free.

Initially the site is being set up on a shared server. The cost for the shared server is $140.00 per year and is paid through September 2007. We will out grow this Shared server as site membership grows. When the site reaches a point where we are exceeding the 10% CPU usage limit of this shared server it will be necessary to upgrade to a VPS. (Virtual Personal Server)  A VPS will increase the hosting cost to approximately $839.40 per year. As the site continues to grow we will exceed the capabilities of a VPS and need to upgrade to a dedicated server. Current costs for a dedicated server is $2639.40 per year. This goal will be reached when we have 530 paid subscribers.

Money from subscription fees will be set aside to cover two years of hosting on a dedicated server before any other monies are spent. This goal will be reched when we have 530 paid subscribers.

Promotion

The fastest way to reach those this site is intended for is to advertise. A modest advertising budget can easily be $10.000.00 per month. There will be no budget for this initially so other low cost and slower options will be used until there is adequate funding to cover this cost. Ideally, our members will email their friends and family and that can be an effective and free means of finding new members. This goal will be reched if we have an additional 10,000 paid subscribers. If we reach this goal, the additional paid subscriptions will be applied to the following.

Software and Licensing

There are other features I would love to be able to offer to our site members, but these require some rather expensive software and licensing fees. If we grow to the point where these costs can be justified, they will be added. These costs can exceed $25,000 per year and will take a lower priority.

Staffing

It would be desirable to have 24/7 staff to assist site members when there are problems and they will happen. One function would be to man a live chat help desk. Initially I will devote as much time as I can to maintaining the site and assisting site members. I will try to find and train as many volunteers as I can find to fill this need. Eventually it may become necessary to hire staff for this function.

If there comes a point where funding exceeds these potential cost, subscription fees will be reduced for all members. My goal is to cover the cost, not to make money.

I pledge to all subscribed site members that I will do my best to keep costs as low as possible while maintaining a high level of service to our site members

Toma Grubb

Site owner and administrator