Greetings All !

A few weeks back, I remember passing over a post here... where somebody sort of casually mentioned that they were in the middle of creating another "copy" of their hosting company.

This copy would be be a separate domain name and site and was going to try to reach a completely different market than the first company.

Couldn't find the original post (but then, I wasn't sure exactly what phrase to look for)... so I thought maybe the poster was one of the "regulars" here.

I was wondering if this person was going to create a second official company (in other words, register a ficticious name, get a separate checking account, etc.)

One down-side I see to this is that if I'm involved in any other product reseller agreements (SSL certificates, shopping carts, etc.), I'm may be forced to pay for my reseller fees TWICE, unless I want my primary company name to appear to the clients of the duplicated company.

Has anybody "been there - done that" who can tell me how they did it / problems they had, etc. ??

Thanks !

Dave

Well, a few points on this...

One is that a domain could be used (for the SSL, nameservers, etc.), such as wwwSecureURL.com that both sites could use.

Also, as far as the company name is concerned, it does not have to relate to the site. Your company could be called Bob's Internet Schminternet Co., and both sites could be owned and operated by that company, rather than have the company be one of the domains.

It would be odd if your customers were being billed by Somename.com and if they went to the site, they'd find lower priced packages.

Hello
I missed this post but it might have been me.

Our company is called The Hudson Consultancy but we operate these brands:

hostroute.com
hostroute.co.uk
1minutewebhost.com
ecalpemos.com

all doing web hosting.

They all use the same servers and the same infrastructure but offer slightly different products.

Gordon

We also do this - mainly to keep the branding differentiated.

http://dean-martin.com is the main company and all plans are coordinate with our local business emphasis of providing managed hosting accounts for people who'd rather just run their business and let us handle site maintenance.

http://001host.com is identified with us but the plans are priced to try to meet what I call the 'commodity hosting' market even though we are still priced above average for those.

Support staff and billing is all handled through the same place and accounts.

Well, just to clarify, what I'm really hoping to do is go for a slightly different target market of people. I'm hoping to restructure the same products / services I have now to make them a bit more profitable... then offer them on this second site.

But I'd really like to avoid going through the hassle of registering a second business, getting another checking account, registering with one of my "products" affiliate programs a SECOND time and paying them a second registration fee.

On the other hand, I really wouldn't want customers from company #2 finding out about company #1's existence and somewhat-lower prices.

And, of course, running two separate marketing campaigns and two separate E-zines / newsletters seems like an awful lot of work for just one guy.

I'll have to think about this some more.

Thanks !

-= Dave =-