Hello! My name is tylerhorton. I've owned two servers and administrated and moderated a few others, too. I'll give some pointers below.
Starting Off
How much money do you have to spend on this server? Are you going to allow people to donate? These are very important questions to ask yourself. You may think "I'll build the best server ever and get hundreds of $$ in donations." This is what you may think, but this is usually what doesn't happen. You may get a few people to chip a few bucks here in there, or you may get steady streams. As you probably know, the more money you have to spend, the more slots there are to buy. This means more people, which could mean more money. As you said you are going to buy a server, you need to shop around before buying. Look for: price, customer support, reliability, being professional, etc. Don't get a cheap host that has terrible customer support and no reliability. This you will regret.
Now you've bought the server, what about plugins and staff?
Okay, you've bought your new server. You should set up plugins before anything else. Plugins just depend if you are going for Creative, PvP, Survival, Hunger Games, etc. This all depends. The standard plugins that you need are: Essentials, WorldEdit, WorldGuard, PermissionsEX (PEX), Towny or Factions. Towny is good for Survival servers that don't allow PvP and griefing/raiding. Factions is good for PvP and griefing/raiding. WorldEdit is a plugin that allows you to make stuff quickly. WorldGuard guards your creations and doesn't allow people to grief them. All of these plugins require you to have a Bukkit server. This mean you can add plugins and mods. Of course, these are standard plugins. You can add more plugins that gravitate toward your theme. Now, about staff. You don't need too many staff members, but enough so your server stays protected. You should have these ranks and amount of staff members.
Owner - 1
Co-Owner - 1
Head-Admin - 1
Admin - 2
Moderator - 3
Builders - 5 (or up)
Members - (These are reg. players)
Guest - (Default rank)
Owner - ALL Commands (Op)
Co-Owner - ALL Commands (Op)
Head-Admin - ALL Commands (Op)
Admin - Not as many as above - GM (not Op)
Mod. - Not as many commands as above - GM (not Op)
Builders - Not as many as above - GM (not Op)
Members - /sethome , /home, /back - Survival (Not Op)
Guest - No commands can't place/destroy block - Survival (not op)
Marketing (Name, getting players)
Once you've got all of your plugins and staff set up, you need to get people to come to your server. Now, you need a website. I can set up the website. You also need to add your server to Minecraft server lists. This advertises your server to a big audience. The name just depends what type of server it is. You could be CentrePvP or CentreSMP or CentreHG. This all depends and a big decision. This needs to be discussed.
Okay, there's my advice! If you need anymore, and you need staff and help, I'm here to help you in anyway being staff or plugins!
Sincerely,
TH
(I might've made some errors, please excuse them!)
