Guest cubemods Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Hi I am thinking about starting a hosting business. I have lots of experience with cpanel and php / mysql etc and think I could provide a great service to my customers. On top of this, I am already online 16 hours a day, so I could answer support tickets quickly. I am based in Australia, and am looking at setting up a server in Australia to offer Australian customers a server with fast speed / good realibilty and top support. For those that have a hosting business, how are you finding it? Is it as cut throat as everyone says it is? Is there a competitive advantage to be made in establishing a niche market? Does it involve long hours, and is it hard to get customers? I was thinking about giving free cubecart mods to customers who signed up from Cubecart. Would this be a good incentive to sign up for? I look forward to dicussing this issue with you. Thanks Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 I to thought of this anjd after some research decided against it, the market is over run with hosting companies and unfortunately some people just dont care about quality of service and just go for the cheap options. This being said I am looking into a re-seller account for my clients that I know will go with me. The way i see it if i get x amount of space and can get my clients to cover the total costs of that pack so i host my sites for free that will do for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest EverythingWeb Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 I will put a more substantial reply together later today for you, however some things which immediately jump out at me: Having experience with *just* Cpanel & PHP/MySQL is far FAR off what you need to know in order to succesfully run a hosting business. Knowing how to update servers, secure servers, provide billing interfaces, taking payments etc etc etc are also required. Without having a solid business plan and knowing which market you are attracting, you will not advance. Yes, the hosting market is saturated with litterally hundres of thousands of hosting companies, some who clearly sell at losses to some customers, in order to just "sell the next package". One other problem which affects quite a large number of the smaller, or startup hosts, is their billing. A lot let it slip which obviously destroys cash-flow and can kill a business before it really gets 'started'. Any, just some tidbits. If I have the time later on, I will go through your post in more detail and respond accordingly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Don't do it! That's my advice. It takes years to build up a client base, and there's far too many big fish in the market. We offer hosting, and as far as getting new business goes, new customers are few and far between. Even if you offer exceptional quality support and features, it may not suit everyone. The market is definetly over-saturated, and unless you have a market niche that you can adapt the hosting for, you're going to be making a big effort for little gain. We do web design (and now e-commerce through CubeCart), and use the hosting that we normally resell to set up customer sites with. That way, we get a good price for it, and a backup support from the server company if there's anything unusual we can't figure out immediately. We're actually in the process of rebranding some of our products and services to reflect our change in strategy given that hosting didn't turn out to be nearly as popular as we thought, and we're actually putting out hosting prices up to new customers. At the end of the day, when it comes to hosting, people want a good deal. I know several people who have signed up to a hosting company that was offering over 10GB space. When I asked each of them some months later how much space they were using, none of them were using more than 1.5Gb. But the fact the had the extra space was somehow reassuring. They were also displeased over the technical support for that company. Another thing that seems to affect hosting sales - You need a catchy brand name. Something that's easy to remember. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest vrakas Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Only one suggestion as the other users have pretty much filled in the answers. IF you decide to do it then PAY and get QUALITY (Always from my personnal experience) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest netrix Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 With companies like Godaddy selling hosting at 3.95/m it would definately be hard to compete. I know a forum owner right now (against my recommendation) moving a forum with almost 7000 members over to GoDaddy's bottom of the wrung plan. Everythingweb - Just curious with your bronze plan being better an $18USD a month how do you set yourself apart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest EverythingWeb Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 netrix, I will take this onto PM, as promotional discussions aren't allowed. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 GoDaddy is actually a reseller for a hosting company in Texas, and as a result, are not necessarily the cheapest. I've PMed you more details about this due to new forum rules. You're right, there's a LOT fo companies offering cheap hosting, some offer better value added features and support than others, at the end of the day, your customers may make insane illogical decisions because of all the different information available. There is a lot of competition, and as a result, there's a price war out there! If I type in Hosting on Google, I get over a billion page hits! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chantesse Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 ....I am thinking about starting a hosting business. .... There might be some milieage in hosting ready-made Cubecarts for online shopkeepers who are allergic to heavy IT work and want all tech support done for them. I've seen similar around at about £30/month/shop and the shops even look a bit ramshackle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 In the 3 years that I've been working online, I think I've had at least 8 different hosting accounts with various providers. The first few were simply because I ended up needing features that they didn't provide, but later it started being an issue of reliability. I have yet to find ANY hosting provider that can maintain what they advertise, which is usually 99.7% uptime. (That 0.3% downtime represents only 30 minutes per week, or 2 HOURS per month!) It's frustrating to have the server go down and stay down for 6 hours at a time, especially if you've just had a major promotion go out. That just happened to me this past week. For the last year, I've been on a VPS (virtual private server) at $40 per month so that I wouldn't be surprised by upgraded software that was incompatible with my installed scripts, or another account crashing the server software. And even here, I'm supposed to get "guaranteed minimum" CPU cycles, RAM, and so forth, but there are many times when another VPS on the server is hogging resources and service grinds to a halt. What's worse is that I thoroughly investigated the company's reputation before signing up with them. Even good companies get sold, and there's never a guarantee about how the new owners (or the new support team) will respond to problems. I've heard "the RAID array went bad" so many times I'm starting to wonder if RAID is buggy or if that's just the line of bull I'm being fed. I guess where I'm going with this is two-fold. Any new hosting company might be able to get some customers, but how long you keep them depends on how good the service is. The longer you're in business and deliver great service, the more likely you will have "word of mouse" work for you. The other thing is that because of all the issues with sharing a server with other accounts, I'm starting to seriously consider a dedicated server at $100 a month. Far, far more than what I need, but if that's the price of rock solid performance and the elimination of worry, then it'll be worth it. As a consequence, I find myself playing with the idea of selling some hosting accounts to help offset the bill. At least that way, if someone starts to hog resources, I can shut that account down myself. But even then, I'll probably only provide hosting for people I know. Everyone who is cautioning you again starting a hosting company is doing so with the best of intentions. There are a lot of companies out there that will undercut any price just to get customers, and the customers aren't loyal to anyone. You'll spend most of your hosting income advertising for new customers. But if your hosting service is a sideline that doesn't have to bring anything in to pay for itself, or if you have a ready source of customers, then by all means go for it. Only you can evaluate how this will fit into your business structure and if it will help with your goals or detract you away from them. If you do decide to go ahead and start a hosting service, the idea of targeting CubeCart owners (or any tightly defined niche) is a good way to go. If you provide accounts where the base software is already set up, complete with database - you have something to advertise that the big companies won't duplicate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Brivtech Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 As far as dedicated CubeCart hosting goes - Seems from many of the posts on here, it's something that a lof of people over at .ORG are already offering, and there's also Fantastico that's constantly being mentioned here at .COM. I've heard "the RAID array went bad" so many times I'm starting to wonder if RAID is buggy or if that's just the line of bull I'm being fed I thought the whole point of using an RAID array on a server installation was firstly for data integrity - If the array goes wrong, the bad drive(s) can simply be swapped out - And there's systems where they are hot-swappable. I think thats bull with a capital S! If they got a bad RADI array, they obviously never set uit up right in the first place, and they're probably using sub-standard equipment. I don't think their server equipment is up to it, and they've just trying to cover themselves. One gift you'll get when providing your own hosting is a steady stream of complaints when customers don't have things working properly. Hardly anyone ever reads instructions or FAQs, and you'll spend a long time answering questins - This is one reason why I resell hosting rather than do it myself - Part of the support is contracted out. It's a good deal for me and the customer, as I don't have to be at the end of a phone line 24/7, and can concentrate on the more complex problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest EverythingWeb Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 The other thing is that because of all the issues with sharing a server with other accounts, I'm starting to seriously consider a dedicated server at $100 a month. Far, far more than what I need, but if that's the price of rock solid performance and the elimination of worry, then it'll be worth it. As a consequence, I find myself playing with the idea of selling some hosting accounts to help offset the bill. Just a word of caution: IF you decide to take this route, please remember that having a dedicated server might not actually solve your problems. Keeping one patched, secure, upto date and online are all things which aren't learnt easily, and if there is something that you aren't quite sure on, you will probably find your DC not very helpful. There are a lot of people who think they can buy a $50 dedicated server at a big DC in the USA, have it pre-loaded with cpanel and as if by magic they are going to have a perfect server. Unfortunately, this is a myth that those people learn very quickly when their server is rooted, or starts being unstable because of high loads and runaway scripts. It is in this instance where having your own server becomes costly! (I do hope I'm not being too negative, but just trying to give you honest pointers in something which I feel I am able to do so.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cubemods Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Hi All Thank you so much for all or your responses, it has been helpful, and has made me think carefully. I am planning on targeting Australian customers. I have concluded (through personal experience as much as anything) that providing a server in your own country will be more desirable due to the speed gained for Australian customers. I am also planning to start with a basic reseller account. As the client base grows (if it does) I can expand to other options. I have some unique marketing strategies geared up also. The plan is to make this a part time venture until it expands to something worth while. I guess for the business to success you would need at least 200 clients however 500 would be more ideal. And thats just to life really. How hard is it to get this many clients? I would expect to put the money from hosting back into marketing for the first year at least. In terms of the billing etc, I am hoping to make the website as automated as possible. I have noticed many hosting sites use a basic template, I am hoping to offer a website which looks good, and is easy to use. The customer can then control billing / support / upgrades through the site. I would also want to get the customers on a paypal subscription payment to ensure regular payment. I'm still thinking about the idea, its a lot of work to get it started. Is it a good long term business project if I take the time and do it right? I don't believe in starting something and not doing it right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cubemods Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 Hi Again I've been thinking more. Is it a good idea to outsource customer support? I figured, if I sign up with a reseller package, I could point support in their general direction. This will enable me to focus on sales only, and also mean I don't have to be available 24/7. Has anyone else tried this? Thanks Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 31, 2006 Share Posted May 31, 2006 One way to automate the signup and billing process is to use a piece of software called AgileBill. It has a hosting module that seems to work pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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