I just saw an article in the daily mail here in the UK, about Dot5hosting.

How a guy who is 18 setup a company called dot5hosting (if you havnt heard of it LOL) who's last years turnover was £270,000

I would personally like to shake your hand chris.

Looking for a partner? ;)

What do you guys think?

Maybe they could use that money to secure their servers and prevent their servers from being "compromised" any futher.

Whoa what a slam.

Turnover or profit?

If it's turnover, it's not really that impressive compared to some of the competition. Still not bad for an 18 year old.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrnnnnnnnn!



LOL. Good one Legacy

lol ouch :D

Oooh

the founder/owner is only 18 ??? wow...quite impressive

Wow. Impressive :) ... Well, not if they keep getting hacked :(

I wouldn't mind seeing the article, but it's in yesterdays paper at a guess? I'd ask you to scan the article but this likely goes against their copyright! drat!

Here's the article - http://www.webhostingtalk.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=1527506

[edit] Mods have removed that thread where the above attachment link was taken from.

Originally posted by theserverguy
. . .How a guy who is 18 setup a company called dot5hosting (if you havnt heard of it LOL) who's last years turnover was £270,000 . . .
Where did you get the figure of "£270,000" ?

I'm not doubting it. I just want the source. :)

I think thats what it said in the article,
For the exact figures you can just contact companies house and have a nice flick through last year's accounts ;)

Originally posted by aah-jim
I think thats what it said in the article . . .
Nope. The figures tossed around in the article were Chris claiming his business was worth 2 MILLION pounds [not a snowflakes chance in hell] and Chris claiming that he has knocked back 400 thousand pounds for it.

Chris also said he'd like to double the client base over the next 12mths, and take them up past 12,000 clients. This means they're claiming 6,000 clients now.

Yeah, but the ex-employee in that thread claimed they only had ~2600 clients.

I don't know... there's a lot of weirdness surrounding Dot5... claims of bad support; the ex-employee who posts here; their website stating that they "own" the EV1 datacenter. :crazy: (Has Rackshack gotten on them about that yet? I'd be all over that if I were Rackshack.)

Strange company...

Just to add to that... from their website (http://www.dot5hosting.com/datacenter.php):

The black box with blue labels is the VESDA system, which stands for something like "Very Early Smoke Detection something".

Riiiiight...

Big deal.. move on, who cares how many customers they have. The FACT is Chris (owner) is 18 years old, and despite the problems dot5 has had, he runs a legit business. Especially in comparison to other hosting companies lead by people his age and his competitors here at WHT, he runs a fine business. dot5 has been growing fast despite how competitive the market is, so congrats to dot5. They have had their share of problems, but unlike many companies ran by people his age, he stayed in it, offered some "make up service" to those affected, and got back at it.

Zak

Oh I see, you think his age justifies his tactics and apparent lack of honesty?

Originally posted by Simpli-Erica
Just to add to that... from their website (http://www.dot5hosting.com/datacenter.php):
The black box with blue labels is the VESDA system, which stands for something like "Very Early Smoke Detection something".
Riiiiight... That passage comes straight off of EV1's site (http://www.ev1servers.net/english/colo/noc.asp), actually.

At the very least, proofread the text before copying it over to your site. If you have a statement like "Since we own the entire facility" on your site and there is no truth to the statement at all, then you are flat-out lying to your customers, it's as simple as that.

The figures make no sense at all to me:

270000 / 12 = 22500 / month turnover

6000 customers (or so claimed)

22500 / 6000 = 3.75 GBP per customer per month.

Seeing as their cheapest shared plan is 6.99 GBP / month, you can understand my confusion over the numbers.

Somebody isn't very good at math. No wonder he quit school instead of going to college.

"270000 / 12 = 22500 / month turnover"

I think this was for last year.

Does anyone have a link to the article? The thread with the attachment was deleted.

Even at 2000 customers, the math wouldn't add up, as I'm sure not all their customers have their 2 cheapest shared hosting plans.

heh.. reminds me of myself when I was at that age :) didn't hae that much but I was making a nice profit from a web design company and back in the 90s it was actually profitable :)

Does anyone have a pic of the dot5 newspaper article? I lost my copy. :(

Originally posted by Eric Radtke
Riiiiight... That passage comes straight off of EV1's site (http://www.ev1servers.net/english/colo/noc.asp), actually.

At the very least, proofread the text before copying it over to your site. If you have a statement like "Since we own the entire facility" on your site and there is no truth to the statement at all, then you are flat-out lying to your customers, it's as simple as that. [/B][/QUOTE]

This is from EV1 Servers.Net...when I talked to the LIVE SUPPORT rep he said that their servers are in fact EV1 Servers.

----
Please wait for a site operator to respond.
You are now chatting with 'Tech'
you: Hi there
Tech: Welcome to Dot5hosting! How can I help you?
you: Do you guys have your own Data Center?
Tech: We have our datacenter with Ev1 NEtworks
you: so in other words it is their servers right
Tech: Yes
---

However I would like to grab a copy of the article as well...pretty impressive if true. :)

you: Do you guys have your own Data Center?
Tech: We have our datacenter with Ev1 NEtworks
That is still pretty deceiving. By wording it the way the Tech does it would seem they want to lead people to believe that EV1 provides the Network to the Dot5 datacenter. They don't own the datacenter and when asked if they do they don't answer plainly IMO. Why wouldnt they just say that they rent their servers from the EV1 datacenter?

As someone who is pretty loose with the linguistics... have some integrity and give it a rest already.


Congratulations to Chris Phillips (whom I've actually spoken to on the phone and who does seem like an bright young man).

Dont you guys have anything better to do ? Sheesh just drop it and move on.

What's that Bling?

Originally posted by Chicken
As someone who is pretty loose with the linguistics... have some integrity and give it a rest already.


Congratulations to Chris Phillips (whom I've actually spoken to on the phone and who does seem like an bright young man).

Ahh.. I was sure that you were going to be posting soon...

Couldn't agree more.

He's 18 - he's got a nice success on his hands, he got in the paper - heck I'm even sure he's got some happy customers. Maybe he does have somethings to learn, don't we all - but - newsflash - he's 18.

Crawling thru his site for things to rip him to shreads on just seems like pure jealousy to me.

Congrats to him - no doubt he has a rosy future

Originally posted by NovaW
He's 18 - he's got a nice success on his hands, he got in the paper - heck I'm even sure he's got some happy customers. Maybe he does have somethings to learn, don't we all - but - newsflash - he's 18.

Crawling thru his site for things to rip him to shreads on just seems like pure jealousy to me.

Congrats to him - no doubt he has a rosy future

His age should not be the focus, either he runs his company correctly, and honestly, or he doesn't.

So long as he is old enough to be held accountable for his actions, it does not matter if he's 18 or 81.

Originally posted by IHSL
His age should not be the focus, either he runs his company correctly, and honestly, or he doesn't.

So long as he is old enough to be held accountable for his actions, it does not matter if he's 18 or 81.

Agreed 100%.

I dare say, Dot5hosting is the only point I've ever disagreed with Chicken about. I don't care who he spoke to on the phone, their past conduct here at the forums is deplorable. Including the crap with having a family friend post that article in the web hosting forum. These guys are totally shameless. I wish Tony would tell more about that, now that he's out of there.

Originally posted by IHSL
His age should not be the focus, either he runs his company correctly, and honestly, or he doesn't.

So long as he is old enough to be held accountable for his actions, it does not matter if he's 18 or 81.

Well - lets hope the next success story at WHT is Jesus Christ - otherwise they are in for a lot of trouble.

"..well-known providers including Congent, Sonet.."

Originally posted by NovaW
Well - lets hope the next success story at WHT is Jesus Christ - otherwise they are in for a lot of trouble.

I think you'll find that each person questioning the article and it's integrity, probably had a very valid point, given dot5's checkered history.

I just don't like a person's age being brought into anything, as i think too many people use it as an excuse, or point of praise.

Don't praise the age, praise the company and the same in reverse

Your all jealous well done Dot5!

Well done to Chris Phillips for what he has achieved at such an age but it doesn't detract from the number of lies that seem to have been told.

You can be stringent with the truth, and (in some cases, although I don't agree with the practice) you can tell little white lies. However lying through your teeth is deception and should be frowned upon. If you can't make it in business without lying should you be in business at all?

If so many points have been proved to be lies before what's to say the figures in the article are correct? Does anyone believe them to be totally accurate? Do we yet know the cause for the article? did the press contact them, or did they contact the press?

I think all the above are important points to consider, and whatever the outcome Chris has certainly done well for himself. Whether the tactics he has used are morally correct or not.

18 and having a profitable business is really great. Most of the kids around his age would be playing games all day and doing other kid related things. I admire his skills and business. However, I have a feeling the statements made in that news report has many false statements. It's pretty clear that the newspaper which published this article has no auditing procedures, thus all the figures and statements are purely made from the writer to 'spice' up the report for 'newsworth' reporting. I mean if this was published in Fortune or Forbes magazine, I would be COMPELLED. None the less what Chris has achieve is surely making his parents happy and will spruce up a legion of young enterpeneurs who want to follow in his footsteps.

In my humble opinion, a company which has 26 servers would never be worth $2M pound.

Integrity is not measured by age. Mistakes made can be attributed to age but the real test comes when and if those mistakes are corrected. There was a multi-page thread about the Dot5 claims of owning the EV1 datacenter. Most of the people posting in that thread were in agreement that the claims made by Dot5 were deceptive at best. Since that thread there still have been no corrections made. Draw your own conclusions.

I think it's great that young people can grab the bull by the horns and have a go; at the same time it's disheartening to see young people believing that the end justifies the means.

In my humble opinion, a company which has 26 servers would never be worth $2M pound.Curious where you got the 26 servers from all of a sudden.

That would mean each server is generating a turnover of 865 GBP/month, which does make sense if it's all shared and reseller hosting clients.

I'm not saying anything bad about Dot5. Never used them and certainly have no reason to bad mouth them. I just like numbers to make sense :)

I can only dream of having a 270000 GBp / year business.

Originally posted by MN-Robert
Your all jealous well done Dot5!
Again, your use of the english language is commendable. :)

I guess each one of us reads and understands that article in different ways. If some folks have a negative reaction to it, then that's ok.

I was a little shocked to see that Chris is still a student, and operating dot5 part-time around school.

I also thought that a lot of the article was built on Chris claiming the business was worth 2 MILLION pounds. I guess we can all dream that our businesses are worth mega millions. Or maybe their actual datacenter comes with that 2 MILLION? :)

But Chris, you get my medal for bravery. Any bloke that publicly admits he has a poster of Justin Timberlake on his bedroom wall, is brave beyond measure. :D

But Chris, you get my medal for bravery. Any bloke that publicly admits he has a poster of Justin Timberlake on his bedroom wall, is brave beyond measure. Ow well, he just lost all his credibility :D

He indeed does get a gold star for bravery admitting this.

Originally posted by Tazzman
Curious where you got the 26 servers from all of a sudden.


I believe here: http://dot5hosting.com/status/

Originally posted by JonL
I believe here: http://dot5hosting.com/status/

All the servers on that page are shared and reseller servers,it dosent include dedicated servers.