How can I start a Membership Site?

Ugh. Investors. Here's the harsh or maybe happy truth. If your Startup offering (product, service, information, courseware, consulting, etc) provides stellar value, then you require no investment. Do your launch + if money starts pouring in, either skip the investors of if you really must use investors (doubtful, if you're providing stellar value), then the more revenue you have, the better terms you'll get from investors.

They met a need for lots of people. Their values lead to long term success, but their short term growth was due to meeting a need in the marketplace and doing really well.

Reed Hoffman and Sydney Armani

As I understand , you have domain expertise in travel industry and have a unique idea that you think will is needed in the market. I also assume that you did some study and came to conclusion that website is what you need (Not mobile first .. re-think !!) If you are a first time found I would strongly suggest you to understand the "Lean Start-Up" way (http://theleanstartup.com/) . I have developed products for big enterprises and for small businesses and and done my own couple startups in the past that ended up in the graveyard (No product market fit). Step 1 - Put up a landing page and validate your idea (https://medium.com/@joelgascoigne/how-to-successfully-validate-your-idea-with-a-landing-page-mvp-ef3c2d02dc51) You probably can do this under $50 Step 2 - While your idea was getting validated, you would have collected some emails. Talk to them and figure out the appetite and try to pre-sell the product or service.. Step 3 - Create an MVP. Unless you have something totally unique and unconventional, most of the data driven web products can be created using a word-press or any similar frameworks. Step 4 - Consult a technologist on how to go about it and get a landscape and roadmap developed. Ask for help to vett the right freelancer or part timer for this job Step 5 - If the version 1 makes you any money..man !! you made it.. double down ..At this point you can think of rebuilding the backend etc with the better architecture. These are no 5 magic steps .. I wrote it as I was thinking it loud. Feel free to contact .. ..and good luck !!

As a web designer, online visibility is incredibly important when it comes to branding globally. Depending on your business, a lot of your global business goals can be achieved by setting up an online business. You should register domains in the countries you'd like to market to, such as the US, NZ, and SIngapore that you mentioned. Also establish a Business Plan and central brand that includes all of these markets. Try to avoid getting caught in a re-branding process down the road. If your brand needs tweaking in order to achieve scope, do so. I would start by registering the business in the country you mainly do business in, and provide shipping of products/services to all of your other markets if necessary to get started. Then as you establish a foothold in each territory, look into the benefits of setting up locally.