how do you get a torrent site going?

Cheffe and Vidde pretty much covered alot of good points.

Another way to keep the site running smoothly.
Dont run gimmicks/lie to your users. If you say your doing 1 thing dont change your mind and do something else. Earn your users trust and you will find the sites that do this tend to stick around longer and have better communities in the long run. Some people thing having uber pres makes the site great.. You can have good pres but if you dont have a good userbase, friendly community, and files people acctually want... your just another torrent site. Having the environment people are looking for thats differant than the rast of the other torrent sites is what will make your site special and sought after.