I think MyZia made some great points (although I love the complicated servers with hundred of plugins personally), and I will add just a couple:

1) put yourselves in their shoes; build a server YOU would want to play on, rather than trying to imitate other servers that maybe don't excite you as much but do well. If you do this, the maintenance and administration will come a lot more organically and will be much more motivating.

2) Find a team! It's tough to try to 1-man a server. Find a couple people you can trust & depend on, and who will be able to happily take some work off your plate.

3) Find a niche. Why is your server special? What sets it apart? Why is it unique? What makes it different than the tens of thousands of other servers out there?

4) Although community will be built naturally, you have to build the INFRUSTRUCTURE for it to do so. There has to be mechanisms for community building if you want it to happen. This looks like an active Discord, in-game incentives and events, offline activities available, etc. "Build it and they will come".

Ive been running my server for more than two years now.

Here are my tips:
- Find your Audience (Mine for example, is mature players.)
Finding your audience and advertising towards that is going to help you take your first steps.

-Advertising
If you want to advertise (there are lots of websites to do so on)
I suggest advertising on as many websites as you can, but never pay for a ad spot! (its enticing, but never really works)

-Keep your server simple!!!
Players don't want to join into a server with hundreds of plugins, spamming their chat and screen.
Your community will form naturally.
(unless flashy is your thing! then go for it!)

-Develop your server offline.
dont pay for a host, and then develop. Its a waste of time and your money.

Last but not least,
-you must interact with your players!

I can't tell you how many "loyal" players return to my server just because I play survival with them.
also, make sure you can afford server hosting. Thats a big one.