Starting a Coop for Communities

My main business focus is on hosted community association sites. My hosted communities business, HOAwiki.com, is in need of a hook, so I am creating a buyers coop, FundBucks.com(not up yet) to increase sales and loyalty.

• I'm building the store in PrestaShop and I plan to use PowerReviewsExpress and Mollom.com. Products will include common supplies purchased by communities, like pool supplies. Clean and green alternatives will be featured, like chlorine-free pool systems. New products will be added each month. Members can suggest new products.
• I'm also building a site in Drupal, FundBucks.net (not up yet), the cooperative community site for the store (how to sign-up, forums, etc).
• I am about to become a HUB vendor, so I am building a b2b corporate site, TroxlerSoftware.com in SilverStripe, using the Sapphire development framework, and/or Subversion, and CrowdScience(free). This will be the first comprehensive site listing all our services and products.
• I created the mailinglist for my newsletter in PHPlist, and I'm trying to setup a separate database on the server it can pull from, so I can keep more detail than PHPlist needs. So far not much luck with MySql though. Might be a better way but I don't know it.

Please subscribe to my brand-new Property Lines Newsletter. It is a brief weekly ezine of community-building tips for homeowner associations and condo associations. One article, one link and a quote. That's it. Please give it a try and pass it on.

If you can offer advice, tips on anything above, please contact me. I'm brand new and I need help. I cannot hire anyone, but other kinds of support are welcome.

Sometimes being a one-person shop feels like I'm slogging knee-deep in mud. Making friends in the tech community will help.

Thanks for reading my blog, and please introduce yourself.

-- Mary

"No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are a part of the curriculum and are transient but the lessons last a lifetime."

- (source: http://www.ehow.com/how_4522673_improve-your-life.html)