OK, I've been reading these boards for a good amount of time now. I've hosted my own sites on a dedicated server, Been with prolly 15 or so other hosting companies starting back around 98ish.

I'm thinking of getting another server and starting to host. I've been juggling a lot of ideas around in my head and am looking for a bit of feedback.

Plan 1

Start it up on a shoestring budget. This would be the hard road of course. Since I love my MMORPGs I was thinking of finding some gaming guilds that need hosting and hosting them for free with an agreement to have some links to me and a note saying that hosting was donated by my company.

This would mean likely a reseller account instead of dedicated. It would also be a departure from what I really want to focus on. I'd try to hand out flyers and such at malls and so on (putting them on cars while parked).

How viable would you all say this type of strategy is? What time frame would you think would be reasonable to expect to show profit or money to reinvest?

Plan 2

This plan assumes roughly $5000 - $10000 startup money.

In this I would have a dedicated server with many more bells and whistles to market with. I'd focus on local ads as apposed to online ads. Direct mailings to local buisinesses, possibly partnerships with local computer repair shops, newspaper ads, and maybe billboards around town.

I just deleted a bunch of other stuff, but I think it all boiled down to this....

What have your experiences been with offline ads vs online ads?

If you do have offline ads, what % of your advert budget goes towards that? What if any are drawbacks of targeting local businesses instead of the internet as a whole?

Are there any services that you can think of that a local biz might be looking for that might not come to light when they're searching the net for hosting?

OK, this is more than enough, I'll be lucky to have all of this answered. Thanks for your time.

Shin

Don't start with dedicated! Go with reseller first. You have to learn the ropes of hosting before you go onto dedicated, wait a while, get used to hosting.

well considering I've had up to 4 dedicated servers of my own just for my sites, dedicated isn't something i'm worried about...that isn't the issue here.

Sketch a business plan. Figure out your target audience.
Your business plan will tell you what you need.

If you already have dedicated server, you could use bandwidth/space there to try your venture out.


Plan,Plan,Plan. You have to offer something others are not.
Since you mentioned you are staying local with ads, you have to learn how to sell.

1) you have to believe you have a better product/service then what they are using.

Good luck

I would also recommend a strong business plan. Try to organize all your thoughts and then you can calculate exactly what capital you will need. Just to let you know, expenses usually run 2-3x what you plan. Good luck!

Originally posted by clients4sale2005
Just to let you know, expenses usually run 2-3x what you plan. Good luck! [/B]
where do you get that figure from?
what is the point of planning then?