[morgant]

you can start it up for free, just your time. i built mine from nothing, as i started making profits, i put them back into the business.

there are many different styles of affiliate businesses, you can plaster the web with banners which is the traditional method. advertising space is expensive.

you can run a rakeback business, which is the advice you will mostly receive from this forum. the model is great, no money out until there is money in. the best way to start this is with some friends, then friends of friends, and hopefully build a reputation for yourself. a major obstacle for new affilaites, is relationships with sites and access to higher percentages. i run affiliateEV.com which eliminates that process for potential affiliates, offers them high percentages(which is crucial in obtaining players), and takes a lot of the learning curve out of the way.

so, i really didnt have any costs when starting, but back then there werent any websites. my site raketracker.com was the first comprehensive statistic customer service oriented site, but even that, i teamed up with a coder and we just invested our time no real capital investment. as that business blossomed, i now have a staff of 4 customer service reps, web designers, coders, lawyers, accountants, marketing....the list goes on.

hard to give you an answer unless you provide some input on what you foresee goes into this you can spend as much or as little as you see fit. if you can think out of the box, you can get it up and running very cheaply.