I once heard a speaker who had been an academic, and decided to go into business. When he founded his company, he thought about how so many businesses never make it, but you almost never hear about Universities shutting down. With this in mind, he worked really hard to get the people in his business to feel the same things that people feel toward their University, and he felt that that was a big part of his success.

I think the big lesson that you could learn from Perlmonks for business is to figure out why so many people are willing to dedicate so much time and effort to this site, and try to create that feeling elsewhere.

Hays

One point though is that Universities do not have to make a profit unlike most businesses.

My experiences of Universities and Higher Educations Institutions is that if they had to make a profit to survive most would have folded years ago!

Well, here are a couple of suggestions.

1. How about a realtime National Security Monks, where various workers at different Agencies can (on an https server) discuss (in realtime) what is happening, make inquiries, etc. Alot of money there if you can pass their security screens.

2. (This one will get me downvoted :-) ) A Homework Answers Site, where (for a fee) you can get homework answers in realtime. I mean they already have sites where you can buy pre-written papers on various topics. So it seems that some people are buying their way thru school. ( Like GWB says, "I surround myself with experts, and delegate the work...I'm the DELAGATOR" :-) ) I would bet that would make alot of money, if you are willing to sell your soul. :-)

Do you guys have ever thought, what kind of business idea one can learn from our Perlmonks?

PM is a technical forum mostly based on volounteering work. Why should one necessarily learn a business idea out of it? Not that I'm claiming one can't or shouldn't. I simply wouldn't be obsessed by it. Also, I share your enthusiasm and appreciation about PM and its features, but not everybody agrees with us. Indeed surprising as it may be some people find interfaces like phpBB to be more user friendly or cool...

So to answer your question: no I've never really thought about it and I don't think it would be extremely relevant. But that's just me!

The lesson from Perlmonks is to find a niche audience passionate about a limited domain. You'll always be able to sell stuff to that audience, whether they care about Perl, model railroads, or anything else.