Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


How did you start your hosting business
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

How did you start your hosting business

mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

Hi
How did you start your hosting business? did you start as a reseller or did you use your own hardware ? did you face any difficulties? any advice for those who want to start a hosting business.
Best regards

Comments

  • ViridWebViridWeb Member, Host Rep

    We used sunscreen to protect ourselves in summer

  • 99.9% of people would say just don't. But if you're going to do it anyway, don't rely on it, have other ventures, don't spend too much extra time versus the reward you reap (financially or not), have backups, write a business plan.

  • mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

    Mic-hael said: 99.9% of people would say just don't. But if you're going to do it anyway, don't rely on it, have other ventures, don't spend too much extra time versus the reward you reap (financially or not), have backups, write a business plan.

    Thanks

  • UnbelievableUnbelievable Member
    edited May 2020

    @OP make sure you can lose money on your venture for a year or two. Hence a reseller minimizes your risk. Hosting is marketing, more marketing then technology! Look at the providers on this site who are successful - they market like crazy and are 99% of the time are polite to others and they don't post shit against other providers. Learn what works - proper offer designs and verbiage, proper website setup before selling, test EVERY offer code before posting. Be awesome at the details while using a reseller account, then get your own hardware when prudent.

    DON'T ASK FOR PARTNERS ON LET - Be honest you are asking for free labor and have no clue how to write a real contract, nor will never pay for one

    WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN - even if short. Get help from local small business groups. Fail to plan is actually fail to profit. If LET is your target market, realize your business will most likely only provide beer money.

  • seriesnseriesn Member
    edited May 2020

    @Unbelievable said:
    @OP make sure you can loose money on your venture for a year or two. Hence a reseller minimizes your risk. Hosting is marketing, more marketing then technology! Look at the providers on this site who are successful - they market like crazy and are 99% of the time are polite to others and they don't post shit against other providers. Learn what works - proper offer designs and verbiage, proper website setup before selling, test EVERY offer code before posting. Be awesome at the details while using a reseller account, then get your own hardware when prudent.

    WRITE A BUSINESS PLAN - even if short. Get help from local small business groups. Fail to plan is actually fail to profit. If LET is your target market, realize your business will most likely only provide beer money.

    To echo that. Hosting business is the same as any other business. You will lose a lot before you make a little. It is a 24/7 business and can impact your personal life, if you are the sole person running the show.

    This is not a get rich quick industry and definitely it is harder to become truly successful. There's is a reason we have very few buyvm and too many closures/deadpool.

    I have shared some of my own views, that you can read up :). These were written based off my own personal experiences, failures and successes of myself and many others that I have witnessed.

    Shameless plug : https://lowendbox.com/blog/interview-qa-with-nexus-bytes-ceo-nahian-on-the-hosting-industry-and-a-customer-first-approach/

  • One other thing, reposting the same offer every 2 weeks gets you a reputation among everyone. It's a universal reputation - that you DON"T GIVE A SHIT - and you will be mocked until you leave LET.

  • mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

    Unbelievable said: One other thing, reposting the same offer every 2 weeks gets you a reputation among everyone. It's a universal reputation - that you DON"T GIVE A SHIT - and you will be mocked until you leave LET.

    Thanks
    My target market is not let . I am planing to advertise my business on facebook

  • seriesnseriesn Member
    edited May 2020

    @Unbelievable said:
    One other thing, reposting the same offer every 2 weeks gets you a reputation among everyone. It's a universal reputation - that you DON"T GIVE A SHIT - and you will be mocked until you leave LET.

    Ah! That one sale of 75% off that never ends!

    What do you call a sale that never ends? Regular price.

    I will show my self out after this joke.

  • mustafamw3mustafamw3 Member, Patron Provider

    seriesn said: Ah! That on sales of 75% off that never ends!

    What do you call a sale that never ends? Regular price.

    LoL

  • Do it as a little hobby. Rent a $5/mo. VPS somewhere and slap some panel on it. Scale as needed. Don't expect customers. Don't spam.

    Thanked by 1mustafamw3
  • Kili88Kili88 Member

    Rent a server cpanel + whmcs thats it "Powerful Hosting Powerful servers" lol

  • marvelmarvel Member

    Well I did start one like half a year ago and if I could do things differently I would advice to start very small. Don't make huge investments yet, maybe first start hosting for friends and/or small local businesses.

    Most ppl that start including me think hey I will get locations around the world which means more customers from every region. It doesn't, it's way better to be a local provider and focus on that first.

    But once you make name and your support is great and you provide high quality products at a fair price it will be more easy. First you get a few customer but then suddenly it starts to snowball. But then new problems arise, like giving every customer the attention they deserve, keep your servers running. Dealing with spammers, abusers, refunders.

    Or maybe you could even be too successful like buyvm and others and being sold out all the time which is not good either.

  • Nothing till now

  • koliekolie Member

    I helped some friends with bands get their own web pages. This was probably around ~2000 before myspace and a little after it launched. They needed hosting and I ran them on a 10U server I found in a dumpster. The rates I charged probably barely paid for the power that monster ate. People heard I was helping out and word spread and a bunch of random people, teachers from my HS, coworkers - everyone wanted a site. They heard I gave excellent service and made it easy for non techies to get a real presence on the web. The extra cash eventually got enough to lease some real hardware and from there I leveraged the organic growth to get into game server hosting. I built up a small community around gameservers - it was a work of passion more than anything. Eventually i sold that business and moved out of the industry. I think the timing was prescient because cheap Web Dev flooded shortly after and servers became a dime a dozen.

    I've been doing MSP work and really in the last two years have been doing that effectively full time. With the transition due to the virus I see an opening to offer more value to my existing clients by expanding back into the hosting world. I sent out a survey to my clients and the data I got back indicates I can easily pay for a rack and the initial capital for some new hardware. I'll have some extra capacity and plan to offer unmanaged VPS to fully utilize the equipment. That extra money I will likely put back into the business specifically to add more capacity. Organic growth and see where the new opportunities lead.

  • hostnamastehostnamaste Member, Patron Provider

    Web Hosting is a profitable business no doubt at all, but it depends how you start up your hosting journey and implement the ideas. It takes a few months or a year to generate the revenue you are expecting. We have seen a lot of hosting companies coming and out in just a few months because they could not survive in the market, you need to make plans and work on it day and night. There are several articles in the google you can refer how to grow your business online, but at the end it totally depends how much time you spend and work hard to achieve your goals.

  • emgemg Veteran

    @mustafamw3 said:
    Hi
    How did you start your hosting business? did you start as a reseller or did you use your own hardware ? did you face any difficulties? any advice for those who want to start a hosting business.
    Best regards

    I never did. That's my advice for you. No difficulties at all.

  • WSSWSS Member

    Make sure you pay the right people so you can get unbanned from the various forums for your misdeeds.

  • RedSoxRedSox Member

    What about starting a host business with this? It costs around 200 bucks, but pretty solid, isn't it?

    inb4 cocui was ahead of you with this business plan

  • JordJord Moderator, Host Rep

    @RedSox said:

    What about starting a host business with this? It costs around 200 bucks, but pretty solid, isn't it?

    inb4 cocui was ahead of you with this business plan

    I hate it when they get the RAM wrong, it should be DDR4 not DDR3.

Sign In or Register to comment.