Garry’s Mod Informant has an interview with William “JetBoom” Moodhe, you know, the guy behind NoXiousNet - one of the most successful Garry’s Mod communities.
Here’s a taste:
When did NoXiousNet officially start and what were your original expectations on how your community would turn out when you started your first server?
September 2006 I believe. I just put up a forum on a free forum hosting website (it’s still up to this day) so people could post when the listen server we used was offline. Eventually it was suggested to rent a game server and accept donations from players. I thought it was a stupid idea and no one would bother to do something like that. I was wrong since it became immensely popular. The game server turned in to two game servers, then three game servers, then eventually a leased server box. I never thought I would still be hosting to this day.
Check out the full interview here.