Hello!!

I am in the process of setting up a hosting company! I would like to hear from established hosts!!!!! People who can give advice from experience, things like wat steps should i take first, Billing Systems and support systems:D
Thanks for your time!:cool:

Search is most definately your friend. Three are a ton of great threads on getting started and everybody has their own opinion on what to do/what to run. You can start with a Reseller account, or a lower end Dedicated Server if you want. Either way, make sure it is from a respectable company.

Don't expect to be making any money for a while, in fact, expect a loss for quite some time.

There are many different options for hosting, it's best to find a niche market. Are you going to be another host who just offers CPanel hosting to the general public, or are you going to try and target a specific market.

Don't set your prices super low in hopes of gaining clients, you won't be able to support them, you'll get bad reviews, and they'll leave.

Getting new clients is very hard to do, best to start locally. Cold Calling is still a very good tactic.

Advertising is always a good idea, but make sure you research how/where/when/what to advertise. Just putting your site up on PPC search engines is far from enough (or even really effective anymore). Word of mouth is the best kind of advertising there is.

Make sure you have a business plan, fully written out and complete. Of course it will change as time goes on, but have a good, solid, achievable model written and make sure you stick to it as best you can.

Software - There are tons of different options available, what do you want out of your software (billing, control panels, support desk)? Everybody likes different things.

The list goes on and on and on.

Support system use the best and the simplest phone and email, billing just purchase a copy of Quickbook and you can start straightaway.

Make sure that whatever you put in place is scaleable.
This will allow you to grow to any size.

Don't skimp on servers or connectivity as this is what will make or break your reputaation.
The difference between a $100 andf a $300 server is not that much when you divide it amongst all the customers on the box.

Make sure you pay all the correct taxes. Employ a good accountant. Learn the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Don't offer services you cannot support.
Its the scaleability thing again.
Its easy to offer x, y and z when you only have 100 customers but if you end up with 30,000 customers you won't be able to do that and everyone will say you are not as good as you used to be.

Don't offer phone support unless you can really handle it as the business gets bigger.

Don't take anything personally. Some customers are just fruitcakes. You just have to live with that.

Clamp down on abusers and spammers. Ban poorly coded scripts regardless of the consequnce on sign ups. Its the best long term strategy.

Don't expect to make millions. I don't think anyone coming into this business now will become ultra wealthy.
I have been at it for 4/5 years and my business is worth about £1M ($2M), I earn a high salary and have a nice house (and a new Mercedes parked outside) but I have to work incredibly long hours and get very few holidays.
I don;t have a huge income though, a good income but not much disposable cash.
Youwill not get rich in this business unless you can persuade someone to pay silly money to buy out your business, and those days are really gone.

It takes a lot to keep on top of a web hosting business.
Dare I say, itt akes quite a lot of maturity and business skill.
I was lucky, I had made most of the mistakes in other peoples businesses prior to starting out on my own.

Good luck!

WOW!
First of all i would like to thank you all for your input especially GordonH and justadollarhostin
I have read you comments and i think i have learned more from 2 posts that 3 weeks of searching google! i have a better idea now for starting a bussiness and how to go about it! Thanks again!

Main thing is For you to created a structured plan on how you will achieve many clients and sales - and in what type of marketing you're going to invest.

Good Luck

If I were you I would spend time on Web Hosting Talk and on the Running A Web Hosting Business thread, this can help you big time. Also read reviews of other hosting companies.

Good luck and welcome to Web Hosting Talk!

Yes thanx for the input once again!

Good luck and happy searching!

I'm in the same boat, recently started out. For me the main thing is not taking on more than you can handle. If this means limiting yourself to x amount of customers to enable you to provide excellent customer service, then so be it.

For me, customer satisfaction is the #1 priority.

My advice is to sink some money into your marketing. Get your company listed in many different places to attract clients. Your local paper may be a good start, especially if you can undercut the local competition or offer something they don't have. Have some promotions to begin with too to gather interest. As long as your service is good word of mouth will be a valuable tool. about 25-30% of my clients are from word of mouth.

Its all a learning process, don't expect everything to go right. Lots will go wrong, make sure you have the money to fall back on.

Make sure you backup your data, you see to many people who lose everything and destroy there business.

Always be honest and up front with customers, even if something bad happens clients are ussually understanding if you send a message telling them whats happening and what your doing about it.

Pay your taxes! But make sure you find out about all the nice tax benifits of running a business as well.

Don't be afraid to say no to a customer, always put them first but make sure you define stirct limits in your tos to prevent people from abusing your service.

When advertising and making a website avoid words like "cheap", instead use words like "affordable" and "quality" :D

Use a good client management system that is scalable for the future.

Don't be cheap when getting a server. Get something in a decent data center that you know will have quality hardware. Although at the same time learn to spot a good deal.

Don't expect to get rich quick, expect to work long long hours for very little for at least a year.

If you go with a dedicated server make sure you know what your doing, research lots of stuff on security and don't be lazy doing updates, keep on top of it at all times or hire a admin who will for you. If your sever is comprimised it will be a major pain and would cost you a lot of time, money and clients.

Try your best to keep decent prices and try avoiding overselling if possible with your business plan. It may seem hard at first to get customers when theres so many companies offering amazing deals. But a year later when all those companies shotty business plans fail you'll be happy you did.

Thats about all I can think of right now...Good luck.