Hi, I currently have my own management consulting business and as such am in the process of building a website for it. I have quite a computer setup in my house right now. I have my own exchange server, web server, DMZ set up, firewalls, UPS, etc. Problem is that I'm really operating on a shoestring right now due to real slow business. My consulting website isn't intended to be a high-traffic site since what I do is very specialized so I don't need bandwidth the size of Texas.
Is it possible to host my own forum with some of the free forum software that's out there? And what about hosting my own website(s) to get started. I realize that whatever I do, it'll take a while before traffic and hopefully profits start. I'm really trying to start this off for as little as possible and then plow any profits back into expanding and making my business better. I do recognize that at some point it probably will make sense to use a hosting service but until I have something coming in, any recurring costs as well as other startup costs will be very hard to come by.
Given that I already have my own infrastructure and have some technical capability what's the best way to spend what little money I have in order to start the ball rolling?