Some Tips

For building a community, I don't think having a design is priority. Of course it helps in the end but when you just start out, any design will do. Instead of investing your money into a new skin, I would suggest investing it into a daily contest. Now of course, you probably wouldn't need to spend that much daily but it is always a good idea to have a long lasting contest.

Also the great thing about not having an absolutely awesome design is that when your forum gets fairly popular, you get a new design to attract the new comers and to show off something new. That shows that you are an active administrator and you care enough about your community, to upgrade it. Members see a lot in something like that. If you are not active and leave the forum to die, obviously no one will come. If you stay posting content and giving tips, then you'll get a lot of visitors.

Try to get backlinks..