All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Thinking about Starting a Niche Hosting Business - Advice Please
MTUser2012
Member
I love hosting my own sites and steadily moved from shared hosting on Hostagator to leasing dedicated servers with root access. I have a sysadmin who helps me when I get stuck. I learned how to make my WP websites fast.
I started helping someone else in my professional field (my real job). They are completely getting hosed (unbelievable charges, $5k to change a WordPress theme) by his current host, who also offers hosting and website creation.
I am thinking about offering to host my friend's site on dedicated server and provide services like looking after his WP site, new theme etc. I figure if this works, I will get other clients through word of mouth. Most professionals in my field no nothing about hosting. It is all black box stuff.
I'd like some feedback as to whether this could be a good idea, a disaster or something in between.
Thanks.
Comments
It could be any of the three. If you are competent at basic administration, know enough PHP, SQL, and shell scripting to get around, you'll probably do fine.
However, many of these "Theme" changes require a complete rebuild of the system, adding custom plugins, and actually patching the latest WPEoTD (WordPressExpoitofTheDay). In the end, if the other company maintains everything for them with these random smattering of "upgrade" charges, they're probably happy enough.
If it's something you want to do- do it first, and then show it to them. Don't make an offer before you've even tried, since you have no idea how much time and resources you will spend.
A wise man once said "Never work for friends or relatives. You'll lose them, or be forever indebted to them."
@MTUser2012 if the pay "salary" difference is large i mean x3 times or higher from your current income then go for it. Otherwise, better to use any free time you have for life away from the screen... this is my advise.
The problem with WordPress is simple sites are simple however when you get into load of plugins etc it takes hours to customise a site to how a client wants, thats assuming you get it how they like it the first time, which hardly ever happens. Wordpress can be optimised very easily but again when you edit one thing you normally have to then optimise again for the new usage, It becomes very expensive as you have to pay someone's salary then you need to make money, if you have the skill set then it could potentially make you some good money.
It'll be a fucking disaster. Friendships can fall apart over things like this because people can't separate the professional from the personal, and because, at heart, people are mostly just cunts.
Unless your mate is guaranteed to give zero fucks when his site falls over and you can't fix it for a week because you're banging hookers in Vegas, leave it well alone.
If you could keep it in black box and arrange right people to do maintain, customization, optimization, it's doable.
If you deside to start, remember to reserve enough profit margins, it is easy to start managing a small number of sites, when the scale becomes larger, the cost will not decrease but increase.
Does the nich market have a lot of customers or a small number of customers but high value? I'm offering managed wordpress/prestashop service to around 50 clients, my profit is much lower than people who just recommend services like bluehost, namesilo, themeforest to 2500-50000 members.
not necessarily unbelievable - more likely depends much on what "change a wp theme" is supposed to mean, like @Bopie already said.
it could be a book to read
try sell the hosting to your friend first, then to another persons
With family and friends, you just can't ask for money. It's charity work.
People think like because of your bonds, you're not eligible for asking money. Or even if they do, they bash you the seconds there's something wrong with it.
It's a double edged sword I'ld say.
Best scenario, forward them to another friend and let that friend forward you his family
Or better tell'em you can host it but you won't be guaranteeing there'll be no hickups. That they can put some dimes in it to share the costs but that'll be all.
Also, it might seem like a small commitment but in reality you'll need to be on call for middle of the night disasters.
We often get asked by clients where to host the software we develop. I would love to have something to sell them but instead we recommend AWS and get sh!t all out of it. Why? Because it's easier knowing that their stuff will be safe (and someone else's responsibility).
I basically do what you are planning to just as a Webdesigner offering my cliente and their friends to maintain and update their sites
Works well :P
I've thought long and hard about niche hosting as a business and decided I don't think the risk reward ratio is as favorable as my current line of work. Therefore, as you most of you suggested, I'll stick to giving free advice, like I gratefully receive here, to my friends who need hosting help. Thank you all for your advice.
BTW, there's a middle path of finding good hosting providers (managed or unmanaged) and collecting an affiliate or referral fee for sending them business.