Advice on making a new server?

In my experience (5 years) You should start a Steam Group and Forums, start reaching out to friends and people you meet to join the group. Have them invite their friends and so fourth and in no time you should have a big growing group with a playerbase to start with. The next step is finding a reliable host, I suggest Crident because you pay for CPU and not slots and its great. If you can develop then you're good there, if not then restrict your developers UNLESS you trust them! Anyone with full access can screw you over badly if they chose to do so.