I want to start my own webhosting businness in my country, any tips or advice for a new guy?

How do i market webhost plans?

<< please contact the user yourself... and since it was posted on the forum, it would be a good idea to make your suggestions here itself.. it would help others who sail in the same boat... - kunal >>

<< please contact the user yourself... and since it was posted on the forum, it would be a good idea to make your suggestions here itself.. it would help others who sail in the same boat... - kunal >>

What's wrong with their posts?? :confused:

the best way to start webhosting business, it to take your own server, take a look of plans of old webhosting companies, make a plan that will beat the old webhosting companies plan (ex. if they are giving 5pop and 1gb transfer in $5 then u must give 10 pops with 2 gb transfer, make secure your order page, submit your site with hosting directories, and place add...........
and then wait and see the results............

i don't think that there is any way excpet this .... if somebudy knows. .. then let me know

Originally posted by asimbaig
the best way to start webhosting business, it to take your own server, take a look of plans of old webhosting companies, make a plan that will beat the old webhosting companies plan (ex. if they are giving 5pop and 1gb transfer in $5 then u must give 10 pops with 2 gb transfer, make secure your order page, submit your site with hosting directories, and place add...........
and then wait and see the results............

i don't think that there is any way excpet this .... if somebudy knows. .. then let me know

How are you going to make any money with this plan? If you take a look around, you will see hosts offering bandwidth for prices like $0.66/GB with their packages. I don't see how you can make a profit by lowering your prices even more..

Originally posted by certify
What's wrong with their posts?? :confused:

Most likely they posted their email address asking you to contact them. This is a forum and the point is to share information, not to mention this is not permitted per the forum guidelines (yeah, I know everyone hates it when we bring up that one, but...)

ack! i missed that question.. sorry about that..

yea.. chicken is right... they asked you to contact them.. which defeated the purpose of this discussion board..

i'm sorry i should have posted here instead.

I agree with Mr. Amazon as you can't make any profit by lowering the price as the web hosting industry at this point is as low as possible right now and when you lower prices you certainly compromise quality which is a big NO for anyone who want to stay in business.

Wether you should get your own server or not depends on your skill and experience.

If you are good at business and have average computer skills then start as a reseller and make up for the high cost of reseller acc. by getting more clients.

If you are an experienced computer user and know some things like linux and the DNS, etc. then get your own dedicated server.

When I started out, I made a spread sheet of almost everyone elses 'deals'. Whilst its impossible to include everyone, this gave me the opportunity to see whats 'holes' in the market needed filling. Plus, it enabled me to compare other plans to that which I wanted to offer - being able to see the bigger picture, allows you to 'tweak' things here and there.

From a personal point of view, I didn't want to be the 'cheapest', I wanted to offer a deal at a reasonable price - but with something my competitors didn't (hence the spread sheet).
For obvious reasons (without insulting everyones intelligence) under cutting others prices isn't the secret of success. Remember, some customers (especially in web site design) add a 'snob' value to the costs they are willing to pay. In other words, you may be providing exactly the same level of service as another host / designer but because you charge a little more - they (the customer) feel that they are getting better value for money. If you are 'cheap' (again even though you offer identical services) some customers wont do business with you. Finding the right balance of cost / overheads / expenses ..... is a fine line.

Personally I operate via dedicated and reseller deals. I retain a couple of reseller deals (rather than put all my eggs in one basket) as past experience has taught me a few hard lessons. I also retain my domains and there renewal fees on a seperate account ( just call me over cautious).
Whenever I design a new site for a customer, who also requires it hosting, I place them on my own dedicated servers. Anyone who just wants hosting accounts are initially allocated via my reseller accounts, then if they remain with me over six months I transfer them to dedicated.

My advice is be prepared to be 'flexible', work long hours and accept that you can't please everyone - all of the time!

Hope it helps, regards
Eladesor.

Instead of launching a run of the mill webhosting reselling website, which there is nothing wrong with, why not identify a specific part of the webhosting market and offer niche services for that specific part.

You would be more specialized, but should get higher quality customers who would pay more because you are serving to a specific need. As I said, just a though :smokin:

Depending on what you want to do, or how much money you have to spend... you may want to outsource your support and sales.

This way, you could leave the technical stuff up to the outsourcing company and you just work on marketing and billing. I've spoken with Cylynx.com a bunch of times. Great group of people over there. You might want to check them out. They have a really great system. Even if you just want to use them for off-hours support so you could offer 24/7 support without actually workint 24/7. :)

The thing I like about starting off as a reseller is that it lets you sample the water and decide if this is the kind of marriage you want, and it is a marriage. If you then decide you don't want to be other people's host-toy you don't have a lot invested. You can even sell the accounts you collected.

And, if you enter the price-war (you really need other added value, not cheapest price) you "wont" make much money. Do the math. If you had 1000 accounts (you wish) and cleared $3 on each. That is $3000 a monlth or $36,000 a year. I really don't think one person can manage 1000 accounts. So, how many people are you going to split $36,000 a year with. Well, with just one partner you are down to minimum wage and no life.

Comments?

Gary

I recommend you start off as a reseller and then jump into your 'own stuff' bandwagon. There are quiet a lot of resellers to choose from, you can browse through the posts in this forum and evaluate one which suits you best.

Reselling involves low startup costs as compared to your own servers, there are no server management problems, extra costs for control panels etc. But choose your host wisely because your business will depend on it.

Originally posted by certify
I want to start my own webhosting businness in my country, any tips or advice for a new guy?

How do i market webhost plans?

provide good support to your clients. becuase it cost around $15 to get new client and if you loose them it is a great loos. so always keep your customer support level at top and they will send you more business.

best of luck for your new company.