Lets face it. All of us at one point were the little guy in the hosting business. You know what I'm talking about. Not being able to get many clients because you weren't knowen. I have come to realize something though. Some of the little guys are even better than the big guys. Seriously!

The big guys get thoushands of support emails a day. They don't really rush to answer them all. They give half fast answers because they don't have the time to explain everything step by step and they don't care if you don't get it and have to write back.

The little guys are staying up late answering every email that pops in their box within minutes. They treat the customer like a Greek God. They want that customer to be 100% satisfied and they want that customer to help spread the word. They will stop at nothing to help this customer. They offer the best support.

I don't speak for everybody out their I am just speaking from my personal experience when I was one of the little guys. I hope people start to realize that the little guys can get it done to.

Is there anything I can add to this? Don't think so.

Yep it's worth paying a hire price for a better service :).

Including people like igor at ChampionHost?
:puke:

very true, but some little guys do get out of business due to lack of resources and time and knowledge.

They want to do best but they don't have proper backup and plans.

Anyway, true little guys who wanted to grow works hard. ;)
:)

What, you think going into a business venture with a flawed plan is limited to little guys?

Do the words "dot com" mean anything to you? MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of dollars BILLIONS gone and all because of some VERY flawed plans.

Give me a million bucks and I could guarantee the success of my company! Because I'd put the million bucks into guaranteed interest investments of various sorts and use only part of the interest in the business, reinvesting the other part in other interest bearing accounts, sure the money won't double no time soon but it damn sure won't go nowhere (unless the FDIC fails!)

I've built successful companies for other people on their payroll, I've watched a dot com fail right out from under me despite my best efforts (I was only a lowly unix admin so all I could do was watch the spectacle). This time I decided to do it for myself.

Currently my 2 single pof's are the fact I only have 1 server and I might die. I'm 30 customers away from solving problem #1 not much I can do about #2 I suppose.

But flawed plans surely too goodness aren't just for us little guys!

True, true & true, i think the key to succes, is keeping that kind of service. Even now, i don't see myself as a real bug guy in the Dutch webhosting biz, we try to keep that kind of service, and it works. This made us at least 10% to 20% above the modale prices. Resulting that we don't get those el cheapo's running for the best price anymore (god bless), only serious people, that mostly came from another client of us, that recommended us (in this is the real big money).

The secret to ANY business is to do that, however to get yourself settled out there, you have to be: cheap, offering a new produkt, or make a veryvery large advertisement program. Back in 1999 we chose for the last thing, and it worked. Right now we have around 450 costumers (not only webhosting btw), and maybe thats not that lot for you people, but i can assure you it makes a hell of a living for me and my staff... :)

Originally posted by Dixiesys

Currently my 2 single pof's are the fact I only have 1 server and I might die. I'm 30 customers away from solving problem #1 not much I can do about #2 I suppose.


You could always be a little more optimistic...!

Originally posted by netsolutions
Lets face it. All of us at one point were the little guy in the hosting business.

:eek: You've grown big?

I was semi-big at one point. I guess it all depends on what you define big. It just heped me get my point accross. I was doing okay and then I decided to sell the company when another offered to buy me out.

What sucks is when you (the little guy) have more technical knowledge than your ISP (the big guy), and yet they want to charge you $150.00 hour when something goes wrong and you have to tell them how to fix it.

Which is like dixiesys says, sometimes the big guys know less than the little guys. But the little guys who know nothing usually don't become big guys. So how does it happen?

Anyway, I wish we had enough customers so where I didn't have enough extra time to read all of the posts on wht, and spend time answering questions on here.

I get so bored. Makes me want to get a day job again.

I guess we're doing things right though. Because we have over 1000 customers and don't have a lot of tech support requests. Our FAQ and manuals must be well written.

Originally posted by bitserve
Which is like dixiesys says, sometimes the big guys know less than the little guys. But the little guys who know nothing usually don't become big guys. So how does it happen?


That's easy . . . the little guy that knows his **** gets busy, so he takes on staff and ends up spending all his time on management issues.

Meanwhile the staff you take on will never be as dedicated as the company owner so your support starts to slip a notch, after a while you expand some more and your original employee becomes the manager whilst the founder goes off doing 'director things' - the manager takes on more staff to replace him which again may be even less knowledgeable.

And so it continues until you become a real 'big boy' with heaps of half trained staff that couldn't give a **** about the customers
( just the pay cheque and how close to knocking off time it is) .

Before you know it you're employing Homer Simpson on your support desk and only have to pop in to the building once a month for board meetings.

Then my friends, you have truly arrived as a BIG hosting company ;)

Okay flatron you win this post. That is pretty good logic.

Originally posted by Palm


:eek: You've grown big?


;) ;) ;) ;)

I consider Verio big. If you compare you to Verio I doubt you come close, but we all have to start some where right? :)

Err, have you forgotten? Netsolutions is the world leader in shared hosting. Verio cannot even be compared to the size and leadership at netsolutions ;)

:D

Originally posted by Palm
I consider Verio big. If you compare you to Verio I doubt you come close, but we all have to start some where right? :)

:D :D :D

Hi
I was told by a sales rep at INWW (the domain registrar) that Verio register 15,000 domain names per month through them.

Now that is big.

Gordon

Originally posted by Hostexp
Err, have you forgotten? Netsolutions is the world leader in shared hosting. Verio cannot even be compared to the size and leadership at netsolutions ;)

:D


what is url of Netsolutions ?

flatron, good theory. then this topic is absolutely right. the smaller guy is better than the bigger guy. woohoo!

:)

PS: Oh wait. Then I have to hope that we never get too big, which isn't something that I shouldn't be hoping for. Aargh. :erm:

I think Netsolutions is the name of a fishing affiliation? The URL stated in the profile for this user is http://www.bass-fishin.com/ ? Looks like 'Net' must relate to a 'fishing net'?

Eh Netsolutions.......WRONG FORUM MATE :)

Try http://www.gonefishing.com

Thanks for your advice though bud, I totally agree, even the largest corporate businesses do start somewhere, this does not necessarily mean small. Many comapnies are 'shelf' or 'sister' companies to larger well established businesses and have considerable working capital at their disposal.

I myself am considering a reseller package, I wanted to sign with www.splashhosting.com who I am lead to believe is a small 1 man business who has recently been established and offers great support, everyone on the forum speaks very highly of Alan and he has been very co-operative in supplying me information regarding his services. After careful deliberation I am going to side with a more expensive host, www.mchost.com, why? Simply because I cannot take the chance of that 1 man being taken ill or having problems which affects the day to day running of his business, unfortunately nobody knows what is around the corner (if you know what I mean)..

Being aware of smaller businesses and the number of staff employed isn't always a good thing, honesty is, but unrelated facts are not. This information has lead me to look elsewhere.

My advice to any small business is first and foremost design a very appealing website. Many people will gather a first impression from the content, spelling and grammar so quality is definately more important that quantity.

Secondly, remember the saying................first impressions last and you only get one chance to make a first impression.

;)

How small is small? How big is big? What makes a medium sized host? If you host, let's say, 1200 domains....what does that make you? Small? Medium? Certainly not the large catagory yet..

Originally posted by Webdude
How small is small? How big is big? What makes a medium sized host? If you host, let's say, 1200 domains....what does that make you? Small? Medium? Certainly not the large catagory yet..
everything above the avarage of all hosters makes you "big", everything below that "small"

There's a comedian in every crowd...LOL.. Ok smartass, what's average?

Originally posted by Webdude
There's a comedian in every crowd...LOL.. Ok smartass, what's average?

for .nl: host -l -v -t any nl >host.txt :stickout

i consider

< 500 = kids :D
< 2000 = small
2000 ~ 5000 = medium
> 5000 = large
> 10000 = huge
> 20000 = titanic
> 50000 = BigB

of course the average price per plan i considered is $10 per account per month. :)

so if you go by revenue multiply above figures with $10

:cartman:

sportpants, just wanted to let you know ive got backup in the form of big brother.

*cough*sorry sir*cough*

Ooops........ :)