I'm going to be starting my own web hosting business in the next 3-6 months and am looking for advice on initial costs of starting up:
1. Domain $8.95
2. 2CheckOut $50
3. DBA (UK business) $???
4. LLC (UK business) $???
5. Server (6 months worth so I have the money to start with if sales don't pick up in these first 6 months enough for me to pay for the server) $1144.59 (P4 2.0GHz with cPanel from Rackshack.net including 8.8% tax)
6. ModernBill $200
7. Advertising Campaign $???
8. eNom (deposit) $100
9. Sales and Support reps (how many? 24x7? should I start by outsourcing?) $???
Total so far $1503.54
There are most likely things that I have missed and as you can see I'm not sure on some things, especially registering DBA and LLC in UK, ad campaign (how much $$$ to put in, and where?) and how many support reps to get, should I outsource, etc.?
What else do I need?
Please help me get my total so I can look more into this

Edit: I want to get a good impression from the beginning and am not great at web design. How much do you think I should chip in to having someone design my site for me?

And sorry about the below post...Mods please delete

Originally posted by Internet Tec
I'm going to be starting my own web hosting business in the next 3-6 months and am looking for advice on initial costs of starting up:
1. Domain $8.95
2. 2CheckOut $50
3. DBA (UK business) $???
4. LLC (UK business) $???
5. Server (6 months worth so I have the money to start with if sales don't pick up in these first 6 months enough for me to pay for the server) $1144.59 (P4 2.0GHz with cPanel from Rackshack.net including 8.8% tax)
6. ModernBill $200
7. Advertising Campaign $???
8. eNom (deposit) $100
9. Sales and Support reps (how many? 24x7? should I start by outsourcing?) $???
Total so far $1503.54
There are most likely things that I have missed and as you can see I'm not sure on some things, especially registering DBA and LLC in UK, ad campaign (how much $$$ to put in, and where?) and how many support reps to get, should I outsource, etc.?
What else do I need?
Please help me get my total so I can look more into this

Edit: I want to get a good impression from the beginning and am not great at web design. How much do you think I should chip in to having someone design my site for me?

Maybe you should try a good reseller account first then move yourself to a server after you get clients. I started with web design and my clients sent me emails asking me to give them the same service in hosting. I got a reseller account and started hosting my local clients. Then we decided to get our own servers. We spent around $2500 on the first server.

Modernbill
pearldesk
Site Studio
Flash tutorials
Authorize.net merchant account(works great with modernbill


Offer some free hosting to high traffic sites in return for your banner.

get hooked up with google adwords

get listed in as many hosting directories as you can

I have not done much advertising yet but we are in the process of doing some. We just purchased a banner on a host directory site.

All my profit goes back into the business improving our network and adding stuff like site studio and so on.

You can by a hosting template from a company. Just do a search for reseller templates or hosting templates.

Good Luck!

Thanks for your help. It's not an issue of spending an awful lot of money. I can afford to spend a fair sum. It's more of a what to spend it on? How much to put into advertising. Yes, I looked at Demodemo tutorials and am thinking of getting those too since they seem (from posts I've found here) to cut down on tickets a great deal. Can I just ask why you use PerlDesk with ModernBill? I'm pretty sure ModernBill has a ticket system built in, no?

You might want to add in Syadmin, if you don't have someone who will be administrating the server.

Things I thought of

1.Look at a live support program like phplive
2.business cards
3.seo company to help with listings
4.overture is a good place for clicks

I will admi the server ;)

Thanks for all your suggestions so far. Keep them coming.

With advertising do not throw a bunch of money into it right off the bat. Start with many small campaigns(find out what works). If you get good results from one of the ads put more money into it, if you continue to get good results put more in etc...

Support is going to be a major issue, you need to have great support for your customers. Possibly at the beginning outsource your support(at least for the hours you cannot be on).

Check out acrolive.com, actsupport.com

Derrick

I use pearl desk because I really like it. I do not use the modernbill help desk at all. And yes the others are right do not spend allot on advertising right now. Focus on spending your money on programs and other stuff to better your service. And the tutorials are worth it. I bought all four tutorial sets for Ensim pro. Not bad for the money I spent. make sure you have your logo ready for them to put on the tutorials. I would highly suggest demodemo.com

Just spend your money wisely and get some customers and as you grow start advertising. here is a list of places you can add a link and some you will have to pay for. Oh I forgot about phplive I am installing this as we speak.


http://forums.webhostdir.com
http://www.hosthideout.com
http://www.sitepointforums.com
http://www.freewebspace.net/forums
http://www.hostingdiscussion.com/
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/

Choose your control panel!!!! I love Ensim pro..

EDIT>Nevermind

#1 initial startup cost = your time. What is the opportunity cost of you spending time on starting a hosting company verse doing something else. Everyone will have a different result, just make sure you realize the time involved in getting going.

Good luck. :cool:

i wouldnt suggest 2CO or modernbill, too many ppl have too many hassles with 2CO. modernbill i personaly dont suggest from personal experience. PayPal (www.paypal.com) is good, and using your bank for CC transactions mught be a good idea. If you dont need automation, then i suggest client exec (http://www.clientexec.com), otherwise Host Admin looks pretty damn sweet (http://dreamcost.com/index.php/page/hostadmin/).

Definantly have to factor in the cost of a custom website, i would put in $240 for that, to include extra expenses like Logos, flash, design template, extra pages, etc. This really depends on who you go with (NOTE TO MODS: JUST AN EXAMPLE, NOT AN OFFER/ADVERTISING). EG: with my company you would pay $80 for the template, $50 for the content to be done, then $30 for flash work if you want it, $19.99 *so you get the ai file* for a logo from Mike Rose. this would then come to $179.99. Then you can also look at a skin been made for any forums you have, again as an example, not a quote, spinnaskins do forum skins from $30USD. this is just another thing to give a good impression. If you think you will be doing a few changes to parts of the site, you could look at a content management system (CMS) to be done at about $40, or get one for free (not usualy suited to hosting sites).

also you probably wont need techs to start with, yourself should do, or you could hire one experienced person and pay per ticket on a monthly basis.

You will also need some live chat program, like phpLive (very buggy and crashes alot though).

Also, if you are getting a RS server, i would suggest not getting cpanel, or plesk, or ensim, and getting direct admin instead (http://www.directadmin.com). it has all the features of the others, but i think its much much better. You should contact them about pricing options, as they will sometimes do it cheaper.

You probably dont need such a high end server, just a 1.7ghz celeron would do... you could also look at other dedicated server companies.

We havent don any advertising as such, eg: banner ads. we usualy get 3-10 signups a week, which isnt too bad for no advertising.


Note to mods: all prices contained herein are theoretical. I am not advertising my services, i am just providing an example. I do do work for direct admin, but it is for free. i personaly prefer direct admin, this is the reason i work for them.

How do you expect to get new business? Are you going to rely on web-based advertising or are you looking at (gasp) picking up the phone and calling people?

Before you start worrying about what hardware/software you need, you MUST figure out how you are going to get new business.

Depending on your method of attracting new business, you would have different costs associated with it.

And before you snear at the thought of calling, it is the fastest way to get business and these customers usually have a greater loyality to you than web-shoppers.