Hello All..

Just wondering how your firsts months in business were? Did it take a few months to get up to speed? Did you hit any major road blocks? What was your biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge we faced is starting up with no advertising budget which meant that the first 50 or so accoutns were the hardest to get. Remember to keep your head up :)

The biggest challenge was staying up 24 hours, sleeping 5 hours, staying up 24 hours ....

Our first month, October of last year, we signed up all of 3 accounts. It has continued to build since. October this year has been good to us - almost too good. Since I do this part time I was almost overwhelmed with the number of setups. And new setups = support requests.

Fortunately most of them went on Kiwi's servers which take about 2 minutes to set up. My other server is an Ensim with all kinds of special goodies that requires about a half an hour to setup.

Then making sure the site works, getting the customer in the billing system, sending the welcome letter, etc. And of course the inevitable questions from new customers.

I am now getting my wife trained to handle the setups and billing. I wouldn't change a thing - I love it! Can't wait until it can support us full time.

When I was doing reselling a managed to get 10 accounts in my first month and then after that it seemed it all equaled out. If I got another account, one would drop or vise versa

Originally posted by Dunthank
I am now getting my wife trained to handle the setups and billing.
:D
Sorry. Nothing against females, it was just funny.

Kiwi,

I fail to see what's so funny about women in the web hosting business. Perhaps you would like to share this with us?

:confused:

See the fine print in my previous post ...ooops, just noticed something. I didn't read the post correctly. It thought Dunthank would hand over -all- the work to his wife. Sorry & apologies. My fault. :blush:

I fail to see what's so funny about women in the web hosting business. Perhaps you would like to share this with us?

Relax. I thought it was funny too. It would have been just as funny if it said "my husband".

Originally posted by Kiwi
The biggest challenge was staying up 24 hours, sleeping 5 hours, staying up 24 hours ....

How do you suggest I do this and maintain good grades at school at the same time? :D

Kyle

I'm in school too and what I do is keep my email open and everything going while I'm doing my homework on the computer. If something happens, stop your homework, fix the problem and then keep doing your homework. It's not that hard.

Originally posted by Dunthank
I am now getting my wife trained to handle the setups and billing. I wouldn't change a thing - I love it! Can't wait until it can support us full time.

Me and my lovely Mrs. Amazon are doing the same thing. So more power to you and your wife! :agree:

If you think about it, it's a great idea. You're working with someone you complete trust and you keep all the dough in the family :D

:D OK, Kiwi, I probably just misread your post. Just seemed weird, especially since you specifically mentioned "females." But I can see what's funny about handing over the dirty work to your spouse! :dgrin:

Originally posted by Lurleene
But I can see what's funny about handing over the dirty work to your spouse! :dgrin:

Doesn't seem like it. See my very first post up there. :D

A good idea is to setup a simple wap site and check your emails from a mobile phone...

but you will need some sort of automated system for creating accounts on a wap site..

That's what I and my wife are planning. I think it's only a positive thing if you and your spouse can work together to control your financial future. It's been rewarding and we are dedicating many hours to make it all work out.

. I think it's only a positive thing if you and your spouse can work together My husband and I have been doing this for a few years now and _YES_ if you can do it w/o hurting each other it's an awesome way to go.

We've become more of a team then anyone could have ever imagined...

It's been a year since I helped set up a server, and I still have less than 20 accounts, despite the publicity of several magazines.

Still, I sacrifice sleep for this in hopes that it will one day turn into something...

Also, I'm in total favor of the girls doing the dirty work, wish I could get my sister to help.

I have to say that things are picking up for me now that I have entered my second month. This week has been nutz. I have about a dozen quotes out and I expect to get at least half... It's got my head spinning.

Chin up and head high...

Great,

It was very interesting and great.

I will ask my wife to help me too. You have complete trust to her so she is the best person.

Thank you for the idea

Mac

Today is the end of my first month!

26 hosting customers
4 Internet Access customers

Thanks to enormous setup fees I lost $500 the first month.
If I don't sign up another customer I'll pocket $70 this month.

Not the road to riches!

It's hard to attract customers without the word "unlimited". I'm around month 18 since I really got into it and I have around 60 domains.

...and another 30 that don't pay :D