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[Need Advice] How To Start Hosting Business ?
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[Need Advice] How To Start Hosting Business ?

DianTamaDianTama Member
edited May 2015 in Help

Hi There,
I have thinking that i want to start a small hosting business and want to start making money. I need your advice here from all hosting seller.
1. What i need to do to start this business ?
2. And howmuch money did i need to start this hosting running ?
3. Is buying Master Reseller from other hosting provider good for starting hosting ?

For information, Before i have done manage cPanel, WHM. and other. so i think i have ability to do this.

Thank You :)

Thanked by 1jh

Comments

  • J1021J1021 Member

    You'll need to wait until the summer, hire @BharatB and then you sit back and watch the $$$ roll in.

  • @kcaj said:
    You'll need to wait until the summer, hire BharatB and then you sit back and watch the $$$ roll in.

    I didnt get it what you mean :/
    And because i want to start from bottom i think i cant hire someone.

  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @kcaj said:
    You'll need to wait until the summer, hire BharatB and then you sit back and watch the $$$ roll in.

    Typo: "watch the $ roll in".

  • J1021J1021 Member

    MrGeneral said: Typo: "watch the $ roll in".

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • I advice you to start at the bottom. Purchase a good reseller package. (Go with yearly plan. It's cheaper)

    Don't forget that Social Media's and Forums are your friend. Promote them, but don't overdo it. Don't be spammy.

    Help and resolve customer tickets as fast as you can. There is a post that I've written lately but it's in Sinhala.

  • BruceBruce Member

    this is a bad example, but it at least explains that you need to understand just a little it more than cPanel/WHM

  • cociucociu Member

    @DianTama if you put "money" in the first place i dont recommand. Now if you have many tine, you are dedicated to work , YES you can start today

    Thanked by 1MikePT
  • Agree with @kcaj you been Bharat.

  • cociu said: if you put "money" in the first place i dont recommand.

    Agree. It takes up to one year become stable in hosting industry. If you need quick cash. I suggest you to wait until summer.

  • @sdglhm said:
    I advice you to start at the bottom. Purchase a good reseller package. (Go with yearly plan. It's cheaper)

    Don't forget that Social Media's and Forums are your friend. Promote them, but don't overdo it. Don't be spammy.

    Help and resolve customer tickets as fast as you can. There is a post that I've written lately but it's in Sinhala.

    "Purchase a good reseller package" Well In this situation i dont know the great reseller provider that can provide the best to start my business.

    @Bruce said:

    this is a bad example, but it at least explains that you need to understand just a little it more than cPanel/WHM

    Okay thankyou let me try to learn another thing :)

  • FlamesRunnerFlamesRunner Member
    edited May 2015

    I suggest you pay for a managed cPanel VPS with at least 3-4GB. Hire a sysadmin, have him/her manage it. Get support staff (outsourced is fine for now) and buy a billing system license. Have at the very least $10,000 - you need enough capital before you actually start.

    Don't promote online as much - it's already crowded. Talk to local businesses and chances are, they'll be loyal and easy customers for you.

    Good luck! Oh, and you can read more at WHT - there's a section for that.

  • jvnadrjvnadr Member

    Don't. If you do not know how to start yourself and asking here for advice, don't. You will not earn money, you will loose money, you will gain a bad reputation and you will not learn anything.
    When you are ready to start your own hosting business, then that means that you have enough capital to fund it (for the first year I gues that would be over $5.000 for renting server, have support staff, advertise and, more of it, run extremely good offers in loss to gain customers/popularity). IF you do it well the first year (with loss, again), then, you maybe start a second year starting to minimise loss and gaining popularity/clients.
    Starting a new company to make immediate money, without staff, funds, patience, marketing plan? No, no, don't do it, stay away, do us a favor and back off!

    Thanked by 2MikePT raindog308
  • JonchunJonchun Member
    edited May 2015

    @jvnadr said:
    Don't. If you do not know how to start yourself and asking here for advice, don't. You will not earn money, you will loose money, you will gain a bad reputation and you will not learn anything.
    When you are ready to start your own hosting business, then that means that you have enough capital to fund it (for the first year I gues that would be over $5.000 for renting server, have support staff, advertise and, more of it, run extremely good offers in loss to gain customers/popularity). IF you do it well the first year (with loss, again), then, you maybe start a second year starting to minimise loss and gaining popularity/clients.
    Starting a new company to make immediate money, without staff, funds, patience, marketing plan? No, no, don't do it, stay away, do us a favor and back off!

    While I completely agree with you, I believe that there's also more than enough room in the "local" niches. Small mom n pop shops that would never do their own research can generally be pretty easily persuaded to put up a quick wordpress site and host it with you as long as it's a reasonable price <$20-30/month. (remember, while this is LET and filled with people who cry over $3/year VPS, most mom n pop shops view $20/month as CHEAP. It's literally 1 or 2 sales worth of revenue at most places)

    If you have decent knowledge of cPanel/whm, do a little bit of business research, and focus/gear your business towards local customers, it should be a good experience if anything else.

    The situation you describe is when you first start a hosting business and try to either:
    1) Target forums like LET through rock-bottom pricing
    2) Target gameservers like minecraft (used to be very popular. not too sure anymore)

    • p.s. i may or may not be speaking from experience. whistles and walks away ~

    Obviously I generalized it completely, but yea. Also, your guesstimate of $5000 is definitely way too low for what you're describing. For example, just ONE in-house full time (8 hours a day, 5 days a week) tech at $10/hour is $1280 a MONTH. Just a SINGLE employee will cost over $15000/year. This is excluding any other costs, advertising, whatnot. $5000 is a good estimate for the first MONTH, with the business licenses, website setup, initial management setup, consulting, etc.

    @OP

    It's clear that you're not looking to make a living off this and you just want something to do on the side. While I cannot recommend you do that, if you insist on proceeding, please pickup a decent reseller plan (most are about $10-20/month for a decent starter plan) and start from there. Don't advertise 24/7 support because you're not going to be able to provide it. Instead, advertise to your local market and call up local businesses/acquaintances. Learn some web design, or learn how to quickly/efficiently setup wordpress sites. Add value somewhere, and add it on to your reseller plans. (strictly reselling without adding those extras tends to be really really hard)

    Oh, and I forgot to mention BuyShared's reseller plans. While I haven't used it yet myself, if you can get past their screening/fraud process, they're known around here for a solid shared hosting service. Contact @Francisco for more info.

  • century1stopcentury1stop Member
    edited May 2015

    @DianTama regardless what anybody say you will still need to make up your own mind and with anything that we do, there must be total commitment, otherwise, you'll be known as "summerhost". Be prepared for the worst, don't think about profits plus you must remember there are a thousand and one things to learn in this business.


    I'm still learning and it's always o.O when it comes to recovering investment.

  • @DianTama said:
    1. What i need to do to start this business ?

    A sound plan to get customers in a way that you have profits instead of losses. Everything else, you can buy.

  • BruceBruce Member

    margins you can get from LET customers are either negative or very very thin. my advice - look for customers somewhere else, until you know what you're doing.

    Thanked by 1andreic
  • DianTamaDianTama Member
    edited May 2015

    Thank you guys for all of your advice.
    I still need to learn to be more better and better.
    And thankyou for telling me all i need to do.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Meanwhile your sig offers direct download links for games like Skyrim, nicely zipped up and stored on your Google Drive account.

    I suspect figuring out how to start a hosting business will soon be the least of your problems.

    Thanked by 4Riz sambling MikePT Nekki
  • @Nekki will be able to give you a good advice.

  • Make sure you have enough investment money to be able to run your company without profits for at least 6 months. This is what I did. PM me if you need any advise, we can talk about it.

  • MikePTMikePT Moderator, Patron Provider, Veteran

    @raindog308 said:
    Meanwhile your sig offers direct download links for games like Skyrim, nicely zipped up and stored on your Google Drive account.

    I suspect figuring out how to start a hosting business will soon be the least of your problems.

    This. ^

  • edited May 2015

    raindog308 said: I suspect figuring out how to start a hosting business will soon be the least of your problems.

    Two URL shortener services that is

  • @raindog308 said:
    Meanwhile your sig offers direct download links for games like Skyrim, nicely zipped up and stored on your Google Drive account.

    I suspect figuring out how to start a hosting business will soon be the least of your problems.

    About my sig its just like an showcase maybe someone wanna buy the domain :D

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    @DianTama said:
    About my sig its just like an showcase maybe someone wanna buy the domain :D

    It just showcases that you're unconcerned about piracy and potentially have a loose sense of morality, so you'll probably do quite well under the DCMA notices you've been deleting come home to roost.

  • DianTama said: About my sig its just like an showcase maybe someone wanna buy the domain :D

    If you're gonna sell it. Don't wrap them in a anchors. Just post it as a note.

    Following domains are available to purchase - boo.xyz / goo.xyz

  • The main problem the starter companies are doing is purchasing Server + Licenses.
    After 6-7 months they close due to high costs.

    I strongly recommend to start with Reseller Hosting Or Master Reseller Hosting until you get your first 50 clients.

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