So, I've been in this "Web Hosting" business for 5 months now. I've had my ups and downs, but overall, I love it.

It takes a lot of work and a lot of personal attention is required for some clients. But its an honest job and if its done right it creates value for the customers and for me, the company.

I really think that a majority of the people who start hosting companies do not understand what they are getting themselves into. Its a 24/7 job. If support is needed at 4am and you don't have staff on call then, guess who answers it? You do. There is no such thing as a day off. It is not acceptable to be in a bad mood and not provide friendly service to all customers. And it takes marketing skill to get customers. A good site and all the software will get you no where if you can't both market yourself and your company.

In a market this saturated with companies, some mature and many new, its not possible to make a lot of money really fast. It is slow steady growth that wins in the end. Keep customers happy and your prices resonable and a majority of them will stay your customer.

I'm sure all of this has been said 10000 times here, but I wanted to post anyway.

Great to hear, are you going to take the next step and register? (legally), if you havnt already (and your making good cash) i think its a good idea to get all the legal stuff out of the way.

im not just picking on you :P but alot of web hosting companies are not even legal.

- Eddy

it's a never ending learning experenice and fun! i started with SuperCeleron with SM last year. grow little by little and have steady cutomers, some left, some stay but overall, the server is paid, and make enought money to try another provider, bought a copy of Helm and working toward to get a email server. MailEnable standard and UbieMiau work great but UbieMiau is a dead project and i need a better email server. i think a lot of pepole here started with too much money invested. like buying ad, getting a super-duper server that cost too much and not enought customers to pay for it, bought software right away...etc. why not start off with the most basic and buy software/service/hardware as you grow and after all these invesment they come back here and said they can't get any customers. they should get some customers first before all these investment. my point is start with the most basic thing that won't bleed you dry before putting too much into it (your host biz).

anyway, my two cent. :beer:

Originally posted by sirgamesalot
Great to hear, are you going to take the next step and register? (legally), if you havnt already (and your making good cash) i think its a good idea to get all the legal stuff out of the way.

im not just picking on you :P but alot of web hosting companies are not even legal.

- Eddy

Yes. Are there any good threads here that explain the processs I need to go through to get registered?

Originally posted by sirgamesalot
Great to hear, are you going to take the next step and register? (legally), if you havnt already (and your making good cash) i think its a good idea to get all the legal stuff out of the way.

im not just picking on you :P but alot of web hosting companies are not even legal.


In most states of the US you can typically run it as a sole proprietor without having to register anything. This is especially true if the Paypal and/or merchant account used to receive payments is in your own personal name. If it's in your company name, then basically you should register a "trade name" (also known as a dba) which in most states only costs $0 - $20. You would then still be a sole proprietor, but it would be "Mike Smith doing business as yourhostingcompany.com".

No business license required?

Originally posted by White Sox
No business license required?

Again typically you don't need it if you're a sole proprietor, but you can easily check with the Dept of Revenue for your state or SBA to make sure it's OK in your jurisdiction.

I would definitely hire an SBA for maybe even an hour or two and discuss these issues with him/her. In my area, there are a few non-profit organizations with small business attorneys that help people start businesses. Try looking into something like that.

Ok, thank you!

Have to agree with you on this one.

Web Hosting = Fun