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.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
I told myself to stop commenting on threads related to this matter, but I just want to state a few facts to avoid confusion.
I don't know Derek and couldn't speak on his behalf so I will just share some facts based off my experience:
There is no conspiracy theory behind my the competition, I was never (and even today, is not), affiliated with CC or LET or LEB other than as a long-time reader and contributor to this community. I was a client to Hostigation (with a single LEB), whose owner Tim was a judge and today I am still a client to BuyVM (with 3 15/yr LEBs at that time), whose owner Fran was also a judge in that competition, however I doubt even to this date they know who exactly I am and at no time I have ever asked, either publicly or privately, any "favor" from them nor lobbied any vote.
When I submitted the plan (which I did spend a day to put it up with detailed writing), I did have the full intention to start. Even though it did not yield in the end, I have spent over 300 USD on the site design (including fighting a Paypal dispute + a credit card dispute for someone who scammed my money but never delivered the final design), over 100 USD over the SolusVM license that I paid for testing, as well as a server that I rented from Dacentec for testing the set up (so that I do not have to use the CC server for testing) which I am still paying today after unable to sell it twice during the listing.
At no time I have requested and obviously received a server from CC, so anyone who thought I used the server to mine digital coins and lied to the judges, I am sorry to say but that accusation is false.
The biggest question is why I let it fail, especially after investing quite a bit of money into it. My honest statement is the lack of time commitment and lack of technical expertise. Circumstances do change and sometimes they are completely out of my expectations. I don't want to whine here or thinking everyone else who is running a VPS business is because they have nothing to do. However a fact that many providers here are either students or working as system admins at work. VPS has always and will always be a hobby for me, and what I do for a living is completely unrelated to VPS or even, for the most part, IT in general, and with over 55 hours of working every week at least, it is almost impossible to really focus on providing VPS business. Also I am not a system admin, in fact I have never really run a Linux server before coming to LET and even though I have tried to enlist some technical help, those are either too far from what I can possibly use to start a proper VPS business or are simply asking too much that I do not think will be sustainable for me now.
Obviously I have made a mistake here and I honestly apologize to everyone about this. Again I can't speak for Derek but these are just a few things I'd like to clarify.
If it were 100% up to me, I'd have this competition based on a business plan and not a questionnaire. A business plan not only shows dedication, but it is something that can serve as a guide when needed during the first couple of months.
Well said.
I like the middle ground, rather than kick starting a VPS business, a SaaS that would be of benefit to the whole community with a sustainability plan would be a great idea.
The competition simply provides infrastructure for 6 months.