case study: racknerd (marketing, and beyond)

swat4 · September 2021

Not a big fan of Racknerd. Only heard of them in the last BF and only had a $8.89/yearly plan since then.

As for its shady past, I did not even know what ssh was by then. Despite this being said, I had to be cautious when deciding if this provider was to be trusted. Nonetheless, I would give them the benefit of doubts as the past was way before I started having the needs of buying vps. After learning about LET, i could not help myself buying from various providers. Yes, steep learning curve but I am glad that I found some reliable providers here.

So far, I can't say Racknerd is my favorite but one thing I can't deny - forgetting about cpu / IO speed, Racknerd is ranked #1 on my HetrixTools among dozens of other providers. In short, the only vps i have with them is the only one that has never gone down for even 1 second since purchase, except myself rebooting it.

TLDR: Not sure if they are reliable given the rumour about the past. However, my own experience so far has not been bad.

redcat · September 2021

This place is weird, its full of mjj who love hostsolutions but crap on racknerd?

bruh21 · September 2021

@swat4 said:
Not a big fan of Racknerd. Only heard of them in the last BF and only had a $8.89/yearly plan since then.

As for its shady past, I did not even know what ssh was by then. Despite this being said, I had to be cautious when deciding if this provider was to be trusted. Nonetheless, I would give them the benefit of doubts as the past was way before I started having the needs of buying vps. After learning about LET, i could not help myself buying from various providers. Yes, steep learning curve but I am glad that I found some reliable providers here.

So far, I can't say Racknerd is my favorite but one thing I can't deny - forgetting about cpu / IO speed, Racknerd is ranked #1 on my HetrixTools among dozens of other providers. In short, the only vps i have with them is the only one that has never gone down for even 1 second since purchase, except myself rebooting it.

TLDR: Not sure if they are reliable given the rumour about the past. However, my own experience so far has not been bad.

for me, racknerd services have been pretty standard. obviously if you dont get the ryzen packages then you are buying a 7 year old xeon VPS, but for the price that is to be expected. the value is really good if you are willing to pay upfront for a year. they aren't the fastest, nor is the network the world's best, but for the price, it is an excellent value with good uptime.

on the other hand, the ryzen vps i got in the giveaway recently is a killer when it comes to performance. even at regular price, it is an excellent value compared to nexusbytes or similar, with performance about the same (both use ryzen 3900x and nvme). you give up your free DA and blesta, but you save around 50% or more and you get more bandwidth.

basically, it is a good value. just dont put all your eggs in one basket.

jbiloh · September 2021

@swat4 said: So far, I can't say Racknerd is my favorite but one thing I can't deny - forgetting about cpu / IO speed, Racknerd is ranked #1 on my HetrixTools among dozens of other providers. In short, the only vps i have with them is the only one that has never gone down for even 1 second since purchase, except myself rebooting it.

That is really positive to hear. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Seems like another happy customer @dustinc

SirFoxy · September 2021

@jsg said:
As I've been tagged ...

Sorry, I'm not qualified to offer an opinion wrt sales or marketing. I'm a techie and I know and respect my boundaries.
All I can say is from the perspective of a customer: I hate blinking, flashing ads. @HostSailor's front page ad is a particularly nasty example which triggers a "you want to force me to look at your ad? What you actually get is a customer not buying from you anymore" reaction with me.
DediPaths ad at the bottom of this very page is about at the border; it's a dynamic ad with changing stuff but at least it stays within a colour scheme and style. Not really how I like an ad to be but still acceptable. Finally an almost positive example: ServerHub's ad. Dynamic but with just 1 element "moving"/changing and strictly within a (not aggressive) color scheme and style.

As for @dustinc, same issue. I'm not qualified to judge his marketing and/or sales. If I were particularly interested in RackNerd my question would be whether (and about what percentage of) his customers are happy with RackNerd and whether (and about what percentage of) his customers renew their contract, because nothing says "good provider" more clearly than customers who renew..
I do not particularly like often seeing "herds" of RackNerd threads, nor do I like providers bumping up their own threads but hey if that's within the rules it's OK, not nice, but OK.

As for dustinc the donor/supporter to LET all I have to say is "great!" because his ad spending seems to cover a significant part of LET's costs and iirc his ads aren't causing eye cancer. Fine with me.
Being at that I'd like to guide your attention to the fact that quite a few other providers also buy ads here and hence support LET too.

As for @SirFoxy, I like that guy and think that he's smart and one at least should think about and consider what he says. I like people with a brain (and an actually used one at that) and a spine.

❤️

rcy026 · September 2021

I don't really get the hate towards Racknerd.
OK, there is some kind of shady past, that much I have figured out. What happened and how shady seems to depend on who is telling the story, but I get it, some people still feel screwed. That I can understand - there are companies that I refuse to deal with due to things that happened in the past, but that doesn't mean I run around talking trash about them, I simply do not do business with them.

About the constant giveaways and threadbumps. They work, don't they? People want giveaways. If they didn't, the threads would be dead. However annoying they may be to some, people do post in the threads to get their double bandwidth, extra frosting, special powers or whatever it might be. I have never seen Dustin bump a thread without it being an answer to a users post. Obviously, people want it. And Dustin provides it. As long as it doesn't break any rules, how can you blame it on him?

As for ads, leads and marketing. I'm the first to admit that I do not understand marketing. I'm totally oblivious to ads, my brain simply do not see them. I can not for the life of me fathom how advertising even works. Do people really click on ads or buy shit they don't need because they see it on television? But maybe that's just me, obviously marketing does something, or it wouldn't exist.
But even I can figure out that hunting leads to sell a $20/y VPS does not work in the long run. I don't know what kind of money a salesman makes over there, but hunting down a lead to make a $20/y sale can not possibly be profitable. A $20/m sale, sure, you will turn a profit in a few months, but this is lowend market, we are talking the $7 people here. Simply bombing forums and websites with ads and cheap giveaways is probably much more profitable, you get a bunch of $20/y signups without even wasting a minute of a salesmans time.

And, as some have already pointed out. People buying cheap VPS's are techies. They want to know the iops, bits and bytes. Marketing terms like ROI, synergies, SEO, cloud-whatever does nothing, possibly with the exception of scaring potential customers away. A landing page asking me for my contact details would make me close the browser immediately, no f*ing way I'm signing up for spam!
As Racknerds slogan so eloquently puts it: "for nerds, by nerds". It may be marketing bullshit, but I actually think it's a good point.

And, at least for now, Dustin delivers. I have a few VPS's with Racknerd, and the performance and stability have been way over average. The node's feel far from overprovisioned and both Hetrix and Icinga tells me the uptime is very close to 100%. The few tickets I've had have all been responded to promptly.
I'm not saying Racknerd is the best, since being the best in my book is about how you handle problems and so far I have not had any problems with Racknerd, but I would dare to say that they are among the top providers at LET, which the polls also shows.

In Scandinavia we have something called "jantelagen" which basically means that if someone is successful, a lot of people will hate them just for being successful. I cant help feeling that a lot of this drama is due to "jantelagen".

jbiloh · September 2021

@rcy026 said:
I don't really get the hate towards Racknerd.
OK, there is some kind of shady past, that much I have figured out. What happened and how shady seems to depend on who is telling the story, but I get it, some people still feel screwed. That I can understand - there are companies that I refuse to deal with due to things that happened in the past, but that doesn't mean I run around talking trash about them, I simply do not do business with them.

About the constant giveaways and threadbumps. They work, don't they? People want giveaways. If they didn't, the threads would be dead. However annoying they may be to some, people do post in the threads to get their double bandwidth, extra frosting, special powers or whatever it might be. I have never seen Dustin bump a thread without it being an answer to a users post. Obviously, people want it. And Dustin provides it. As long as it doesn't break any rules, how can you blame it on him?

As for ads, leads and marketing. I'm the first to admit that I do not understand marketing. I'm totally oblivious to ads, my brain simply do not see them. I can not for the life of me fathom how advertising even works. Do people really click on ads or buy shit they don't need because they see it on television? But maybe that's just me, obviously marketing does something, or it wouldn't exist.
But even I can figure out that hunting leads to sell a $20/y VPS does not work in the long run. I don't know what kind of money a salesman makes over there, but hunting down a lead to make a $20/y sale can not possibly be profitable. A $20/m sale, sure, you will turn a profit in a few months, but this is lowend market, we are talking the $7 people here. Simply bombing forums and websites with ads and cheap giveaways is probably much more profitable, you get a bunch of $20/y signups without even wasting a minute of a salesmans time.

And, as some have already pointed out. People buying cheap VPS's are techies. They want to know the iops, bits and bytes. Marketing terms like ROI, synergies, SEO, cloud-whatever does nothing, possibly with the exception of scaring potential customers away. A landing page asking me for my contact details would make me close the browser immediately, no f*ing way I'm signing up for spam!
As Racknerds slogan so eloquently puts it: "for nerds, by nerds". It may be marketing bullshit, but I actually think it's a good point.

And, at least for now, Dustin delivers. I have a few VPS's with Racknerd, and the performance and stability have been way over average. The node's feel far from overprovisioned and both Hetrix and Icinga tells me the uptime is very close to 100%. The few tickets I've had have all been responded to promptly.
I'm not saying Racknerd is the best, since being the best in my book is about how you handle problems and so far I have not had any problems with Racknerd, but I would dare to say that they are among the top providers at LET, which the polls also shows.

In Scandinavia we have something called "jantelagen" which basically means that if someone is successful, a lot of people will hate them just for being successful. I cant help feeling that a lot of this drama is due to "jantelagen".

If the amount of entries in the current giveaway are any indication of community interest, then I'd say interest is high. Right now sitting at 11,200 entries.

https://lowendbox.com/blog/racknerd-giveaway-2021/

TimboJones · September 2021

@rcy026 said:
I don't really get the hate towards Racknerd.
OK, there is some kind of shady past, that much I have figured out. What happened and how shady seems to depend on who is telling the story, but I get it, some people still feel screwed. That I can understand - there are companies that I refuse to deal with due to things that happened in the past, but that doesn't mean I run around talking trash about them, I simply do not do business with them.

About the constant giveaways and threadbumps. They work, don't they? People want giveaways. If they didn't, the threads would be dead. However annoying they may be to some, people do post in the threads to get their double bandwidth, extra frosting, special powers or whatever it might be. I have never seen Dustin bump a thread without it being an answer to a users post. Obviously, people want it. And Dustin provides it. As long as it doesn't break any rules, how can you blame it on him?

As for ads, leads and marketing. I'm the first to admit that I do not understand marketing. I'm totally oblivious to ads, my brain simply do not see them. I can not for the life of me fathom how advertising even works. Do people really click on ads or buy shit they don't need because they see it on television? But maybe that's just me, obviously marketing does something, or it wouldn't exist.
But even I can figure out that hunting leads to sell a $20/y VPS does not work in the long run. I don't know what kind of money a salesman makes over there, but hunting down a lead to make a $20/y sale can not possibly be profitable. A $20/m sale, sure, you will turn a profit in a few months, but this is lowend market, we are talking the $7 people here. Simply bombing forums and websites with ads and cheap giveaways is probably much more profitable, you get a bunch of $20/y signups without even wasting a minute of a salesmans time.

And, as some have already pointed out. People buying cheap VPS's are techies. They want to know the iops, bits and bytes. Marketing terms like ROI, synergies, SEO, cloud-whatever does nothing, possibly with the exception of scaring potential customers away. A landing page asking me for my contact details would make me close the browser immediately, no f*ing way I'm signing up for spam!
As Racknerds slogan so eloquently puts it: "for nerds, by nerds". It may be marketing bullshit, but I actually think it's a good point.

And, at least for now, Dustin delivers. I have a few VPS's with Racknerd, and the performance and stability have been way over average. The node's feel far from overprovisioned and both Hetrix and Icinga tells me the uptime is very close to 100%. The few tickets I've had have all been responded to promptly.
I'm not saying Racknerd is the best, since being the best in my book is about how you handle problems and so far I have not had any problems with Racknerd, but I would dare to say that they are among the top providers at LET, which the polls also shows.

In Scandinavia we have something called "jantelagen" which basically means that if someone is successful, a lot of people will hate them just for being successful. I cant help feeling that a lot of this drama is due to "jantelagen".

This ^^^

For me personally, my ISP just upgraded my upload from like 20Mbps to 100Mbps+ for free and I have unlimited bandwidth. The number of VPS' I need each year is going down dramatically. I get three free VPS from Oracle and one from Google if I cared. $12 lifetime VPN subs. So the next few years has the cost of VPS goes up while I have more and more resources at home for same or better performance, the demand for VPS' will go down big time.

I just don't see this being profitable in the long run to pay for capable support, offices, giveaways, swag, and annual Tesla's. A "we'll make it up in volume" type strategy. Exit will either be a huge payday where new owner gets fleeced or RN goes tits up. If Dustin is taking losses to make future profits, I don't have much confidence in that strategy.

The IPv4 price increases will be a red wedding at some point.

dahartigan · September 2021

@TimboJones he could just be so wealthy that even if it folded it'd be of no consequence to him financially.

I done seen him drop mad coin here on LET for things (most recent $100 for lols)

Consider it a possibility..

SirFoxy · September 2021

@dahartigan said:
@TimboJones he could just be so wealthy that even if it folded it'd be of no consequence to him financially.

I done seen him drop mad coin here on LET for things (most recent $100 for lols)

Consider it a possibility..

That's a tax write off. It's for marketing purposes.

dahartigan · September 2021

@SirFoxy said:

@dahartigan said:
@TimboJones he could just be so wealthy that even if it folded it'd be of no consequence to him financially.

I done seen him drop mad coin here on LET for things (most recent $100 for lols)

Consider it a possibility..

That's a tax write off. It's for marketing purposes.

Truth.

xaos · September 2021

RackNerd
bit off isnt it?

Processor : AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
CPU cores : 2 @ 3792.874 MHz
AES-NI : Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : Enabled
RAM : 2.9 GiB
Swap : 3.0 GiB
Disk : 52.6 GiB

dev_vps · September 2021

@xaos said:
RackNerd
bit off isnt it?

Processor : AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
CPU cores : 2 @ 3792.874 MHz
AES-NI : Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : Enabled
RAM : 2.9 GiB
Swap : 3.0 GiB
Disk : 52.6 GiB

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
Test | Value
|
Single Core | 916
Multi Core | 1702
Full Test | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/9905426

The Geekbench 5 score for AMD Ryzen 9 3900X single core should be around 1260 and for two cores around 2400-2500 range

DaveRackNerd · September 2021

I like the videos

Fritz · September 2021

FREE-VPS-GIVEAWAY

RACKNERD-GANG-GANG

I have VPS from most of all providers here.

Nexusbyte, Hosthatch, Green Value Host, BuyVM.

I must admit that Racknerd gives decent performance, great support.

Their Asburn location has almost zero downtime this year.

TimboJones · September 2021

@dev_vps said:

@xaos said:
RackNerd
bit off isnt it?

Processor : AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor
CPU cores : 2 @ 3792.874 MHz
AES-NI : Enabled
VM-x/AMD-V : Enabled
RAM : 2.9 GiB
Swap : 3.0 GiB
Disk : 52.6 GiB

Geekbench 5 Benchmark Test:
Test | Value
|
Single Core | 916
Multi Core | 1702
Full Test | https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/9905426

The Geekbench 5 score for AMD Ryzen 9 3900X single core should be around 1260 and for two cores around 2400-2500 range

All my servers are on Intel, but they're all down 50-100 from scores taken at time of purchase. Just consider your node more full, now.

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