Why did you start your own hosting company, what motivated you and what makes you special?

PhoenixVPS

I started my hosting company (VPS Node Box) because I wanted to provide a superior hosting service for the Drupal community. As such my primary focus was high end shared hosting, but in a twist of faith I did not receive the warm welcome that I was expecting from the community, but instead the Drupal Association stretched their hand out and asked for ... a hand out in order to tell the community about us. My second reason was to provide simple to understand services without any BS or overselling attached to them. I was not financially motivated to start this as I didn't even know what to expect in the beginning. All I new was that me and my team could handle the challenges well. What makes us special is our commitment to what we do. This is not some cheap marketing line, and I would say it can be interpreted in the context of the following quote: "do what you love and you will never work a day" - and this would be working with Linux, coding, networking, playing with different virtualization technologies, web design and so on.

Now it's your turn. :)

AsadHaider

I work as a web developer and force my clients to buy extremely overpriced hosting from me. They get hosting elsewhere, something breaks, I bill them a lot to fix it so they don't do that.

PhoenixVPS

@AsadHaider That wasn't the point of this exercise, but thank you ... I guess.

AsadHaider

@toratekdotnet Motivation: more money, What makes it special: Everything's kept maintained and shit doesn't break which is kinda important. I did outsource the hosting at first, but their services were pretty crap and things didn't always work on their servers.

Also, Drupal sucks!

subigo

Real answer for 99% of the people on here:

"I didn't want to flip burgers and starting a "business" with the $200 in my bank account sounded awesome! Now I get to call myself "CEO" and use the word "we" a lot, just don't tell anyone that "we" is just me and my dog!"

PhoenixVPS

@AsadHaider Much better, thank you.

Spencer

@subigo said: Real answer for 99% of the people on here:

"I didn't want to flip burgers and starting a "business" with the $200 in my bank account sounded awesome! Now I get to call myself "CEO" and use the word "we" a lot, just don't tell anyone that "we" is just me and my dog!"

Like yourself?

PhoenixVPS

@subigo That's really funny, but $200 won't take you further than the 1st month with a 16GB Xeon E3 server (you might get older equipment with 32GB for about he same if you're lucky), 1 month of WHMCS and 1 month of SolusVM. As far as the word "we" is concerned, it is over used and as a testament to that many companies don't even have an about us page or if they do, it's full of BS like "why us ?" type of stuff. Most of the time it's because the customer can't afford Linode or Rackspace, they take a chance on some random provider. And just because I don't want to fall short, "we" are a 4 man company: http://www.vpsnodebox.com/about-us - it's not big by any measure, but it's more than one.

Even Linode was started by one guy, Christopher Aker (caker), so the motivation is more important than anything. He was aware of his unique skills at the time, so his 1st motivation wasn't financial, especially since he pioneered an industry.

Always keep this in mind: any time you start or join a business with financial goals in mind you will fail because your brain won't be able to tell the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. The only thing your brain will tell you day in and day out is: I want more money, I want my commission, I want my promotion! Why aren't more people subscribing? I mean, look at people selling cars...

ErawanArifNugroho

I didn't start a company yet :p But I do provide some free shared hosting for some of my friend. :D

miTgiB

@subigo said: just don't tell anyone that "we" is just me and my dog!

"We" don't have any pets.

subigo

@Spencer said: Like yourself?

Nigga. I don't do shit anymore. I sit at home and go hiking when I'm bored.

@toratekdotnet said: Always keep this in mind: any time you start or join a business with financial goals in mind you will fail

Possibly the stupidest thing ever said on this forum.

PhoenixVPS

@ErawanArifNugroho @subigo I will do this for as long as it's fun :) I don't like to call myself CEO, or any other title, and when customers ask me who I am, I say "the owner". I don't sign myself with any title in my emails to my customers. If anyone wants to become their own boss because of self esteem issues than that has disaster written all over it (calling themselves CEO, use the word "we" allot, pretending like they are a big company with only 1 server, etc.). As far my friends are concerned, they can buy their own hosting, and if they ask for favors I give them 2 choices: you can have this for free, or you can go somewhere else. I don't mess up my friendships because of insignificant favors. @miTgiB That one's funny :))

Spencer

@subigo said: Nigga

Im white ;(

dmmcintyre3

@subigo said: Real answer for 99% of the people on here:

starting a "business" with the $200 in my bank account sounded awesome!

I spent $0 when starting my hosting "business".

Infinity

@miTgiB said: "We" don't have any pets.

You're missing out bro guys!

ErawanArifNugroho

What is Nigga?

Infinity

@ErawanArifNugroho said: What is Nigga?

Best not said.

PhoenixVPS

This was supposed to be a fun exercise, but I guess this discussion will slowly but steadily descend into oblivion...

subigo

@toratekdotnet said: This was supposed to be a fun exercise, but I guess this discussion will slowly but steadily descend into oblivion...

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

PhoenixVPS

While this thread has outlived its usefulness, I want to ask: How can I request a username change? Thank you.

AsadHaider

@toratekdotnet You could ask @Chief but unless he's in a super awesome mood, I doubt he'll get to around doing it.

miTgiB

@AsadHaider said: I doubt he'll get to around doing it.

You just need to send him a round tuit

PhoenixVPS

@AsadHaider Yeah, well it's for the sake of accuracy, since we don't call ourselves Toratek .NET anymore... I wanted to change it to vpsnodebox.

AsadHaider

@toratekdotnet Stick your company name and link in your sig :) No one's going to care what your username is anyway. You get used to recognizing people from their gravatars if you've been here long enough :P

PhoenixVPS

@AsadHaider I didn't want to use my signature to advertise. I hang around here to engage others and sometimes bounce ideas of other people or get feedback from the community. Every 2 weeks I offer a deal just for the community here, but I don't know if I will keep doing it from now on since I started with 256MB VPS servers and now I am up to 768MB, so I think that this was the last time :) I appreciate your feedback do.

ErawanArifNugroho

What is Nigga?

@Infinity said: Best not said.

Just found it in Google/WikiPedia. Will not use that word again then :D

Taz

@ErawanArifNugroho It differs from place to place. For example, here in the city, well call our buddies with N words. But I have stopped using it here.

serverbear

@miTgiB said: "We" don't have any pets.

Too scared of getting hairs in your nodes? ;)

PhoenixVPS

@serverbear see how wrong this one went? I guess it's "a case of The Mondays".

serverbear

@toratekdotnet said: I guess it's "a case of The Mondays".

It's Tuesday here. Almost hump day!

PhoenixVPS

@serverbear I have no idea where you're located, I am in Winston-Salem, NC - USA