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Has anyone started hosting business in the last 6-9 months
I am looking for some guidance/mentorship.
I am not interested in trying to get business and compete with anyone
I need to sell other services which will also require webhosting etc .
I would like to setup my own server
I can do the tech stuff but have zero design sense ( hope you guys understand what i mean )
I am looking to hire someone if i cannot do it myself but need the hosting/biling etc setup on my domain.
cheers
Comments
$7
I like this guessing game
CPanel/WHMCS is an ancillary service to what you want to provide?
yes we sell services that will require a website and backend access .. so instead of multiple vendors /access/control I thought it would be a good idea to have my own setup
and needs to look like a legit ( as its going to be ) hosting provider/setup/billing etc.
thanks
Enhance.com
Im more than happy to help, pm me your questions and/or help needed
thanks @rsk i am sending you a pm.
cheers
@zbrian
Start simple, from the fundation up.
1 - networking you want o start 1G or 10G?, ( switches ) ( cisco/arista/juniper, other than this, I personally would not touch it )
2- routing / firewall, here you have a little more options, software based routing will not get you far ( like pFsense ) so try to stay away from it.
3- servers, or server for start, do recommend Xeon V4 at least, 256 gb ram minimum, storage wise, depends on what you will sell/do, consumer grade NVME will eat you alive, they will wear out in 3-6 months, depending of what R/W they do.
4 - accounting software ( whmcs or other flavor )
5 - payment gateway
6 - provisioning system, if you wish to automate, I guess you do.
7 - other services that you wish to sell.
I highly recommend you do the research before you start, especially on automation software. WHMCS has a variety of modules available, but there are other options also, more even better, some of my "Patron" colleagues here can tell you more. Start with the modules/services you want to sell, and put them all on the table, and see witch accounting platform is compatible with all/most of them.
Happy hosting
PS: Start simple!! do not over complicate, and leave the design part away, use the built in that will come with the selling platform, as for the first 12 months, you are going to have a lot of things to learn, design is the last on your problems list. Quality and price will out-beat a shitty web interface. ( as long as all the buttons on that interface function as they should )
From all that you want to sell, start with 3 products max, and work your way up from that, if you start win 10 things, you will most probably fail, or it will take you 6 months at least, or it will cost you a fortune.
Get a decent 2-3 Gbps Provider, and a 1 Gbps backup one for start.
thank you for taking the time to write this up ..very valuable input .
yes i am considering everything and taking my time .. hoping to score a server deal at blackfriday so getting this ready.
cheers
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318990/Web_Host_Simulator
Or blesta / directadmin if on a budget.
cPanel licenses are borderline extortion.
It would be good to know what the services that you intend sell are or at least the requirements. I mean will your customers need, just a web admin panel? will they need root access to the services you intend sell them?
Is it B2B model or B2C or both?
I would like them to be able to order
a) websites
b) reseller accounts
c) vps
so for all practical purposes this should be a full hosting seller site
for actual hosting of things i would like to use proxmox on a dedi or beefy vps in NZ
the hosting site should be able to take in orders, billing the clients and then
i can manually create vps on proxmox ( would love something that can automate this )
yes i agree whmcs pricing is insance especially no lifetime license anymore.
cheers and thanks for responding
i have stripe / payoneer/paypal setup and ready to go.
in NZ most people use POLI which is direct bank-to-bank which i am signing up for and will be available . so i would like all these integrated.
cheers
You know the team who make this game? i m want contact for help this
Regards
It would be incredible to give it a little more realism, wotwot.
Proxmox can be automatically provisioned from both WHMCS and Blesta.
https://docs.blesta.com/display/user/Proxmox
You mentioned what you "want them to order".
But I asked the question, about the customer profile because in over 2 years working tech support and sales at GoDaddy, I only heard of a handful of people asking about VPS orders in my office.
I personally only ever had had 2 customers that even knew what a VPS is. So that's 2 people out of about 15000 customer contacts. Dedicated servers are sold even less. The general public really has no clue, on what a VPS is, a dedi or the cloud.
Go-daddy customers were almost all, non-tech savvy small businesses owners. The only customer that ever wanted to buy a VPS from me, couldn't afford GoDaddy prices so I actually referred him to LET and he signed up.
If your customers are very clued up and know what they're doing then they might want root access, vps's and dedis.
But if they just want a website to work, then 99.9% of the time they won't care how it's hosted as long as the website works and runs smoothly.
Thanks you are absolutely right .
I have been over thinking a few of these things.
yes i agree with your viewpoint and I am sure you are correct.
Thanks again
+1, absolutely true.
This is why, today, we have a ton of programing problems, cause the "programmers/web page creators, etc.." have absolutely no clue to install what they need, if they don not have a CPANEL like dashboard, that does most of what they should know ( DNS, package repsitory, basic networking, i mean like TCP-IP basic, etc ) they are dead. It is actually sad, they are not becoming smarter, most in my opinion are clueless in best case, and flying blind.
In simple terms, to install word-press on a VPS, you actually need 15-25 minutes, with copy paste from the net, and know how to read English. 0 skills mate, just read.
Same for SSL with certbot, 0 skils, 10-15 minutes top.
I have 0 programing skills, I absolutely hate it, but had to learn to debug the problems in the software we bought ( and not cheap ) cause the support team was even more clueless than me, or if they fixed something, they fucked up something else.
As a side note, be careful to whom you give access in your installation for deploying modules when the time comes.
0/10 - No wooden server racks
=======
Hi,
To start a web hosting company.
1 --> Register some cache web hosting name.
2 --> What kind of hosting services you going to offer? Shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. (Shared hosting is the first and economical choice)
3 --> Find a right host for Reseller hosting provider to start it initially.
4 --> Setup your website, Create your hosting packages, Billing system, Shared hosting panel(cPanel or Plesk) and Best support team.
5 --> Find a clients and start giving advertise.
6 --> Analyse the web hosting competitors to grow your buisness.
7 --> Offer different and Secure payment Gateways.
By this, go get the cheapest service from a few providers, so you can see what are they offering, so you can get a better idea what to do.
No Joshua Prout
It's been 20 years since I worked in web design, but back then if clients were dropping a few thousand on a completely new website, it was really easy to also sell them hosting for a healthy profit on top. The margins on doing this are far higher than selling reseller packages or even a VPS, so if your primary skills are web design, stick with that and just work on your up-selling skills!
Having an ongoing relationship with a customer means that they will probably keep using you for tweaks to the site in the future to keep their website up-to-date, rather than just letting their new website fall behind the times and get sold a new website from someone else entirely.
No, most people use credit cards because POLi is a colossal pile of shit that should be avoided at all costs. Stick to PayPal.
Not sure if this would be useful to you, it's free with the coupon (when it's gone it's gone) in the link but the reviews are not great...
Web Hosting Basics
https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-web-hosting/?couponCode=FREE1023G10S1
All of these and more in upcoming day 1 DLCs.
How to grow your business 101:
1) Make more sales
2) Sell those same clients more stuff that they’ll find value out of
3) Prevent those clients from churning out
What most people see as growing a business:
1) Make more sales
When you’re selling a $5,000 web design package with a $300/yr recurring hosting package on the back end, suddenly you can afford to spend $2,500 to afford to be able to acquire a client.
How much can your competition pay to acquire a customer. $300? $25? $0 because they have razor thin profit margins and rely entirely on organic traffic and word of mouth?
Whoever can pay the most to acquire a customer and still have a healthy profit margin will win.