Just wanted to leave a couple comments for people are about to start a Webhosting Business. Its not hard to setup and get running at all. You could probably research on the net and get a machine up and running websites in less then a day. The hard part is marketing. I run two webhosting companies right now, one has been running successful for three years with very little problems. Another I just started up with 4 other friends about 4 weeks ago just to kinda help them get into the market.

After starting this new one up I know remember the pain in the but it is to get the first few customers and my business partners are realizing this for the first time. I think some have doubts but I keep telling them give it time, time is the biggest factor. It took my first company about a year to get 10 customers, but after that word of mouth ran and now we are pushing acouple hundred.

so if your brand new to the business, hang in there and things will start flowing for you.

Thanks
Jeff

A whole 2 domains pointed.

Ya this company is brand new, just on the market, check it in a month.

Jeff

BTW there is 4

Originally posted by Emagine-Hosting
I think some have doubts but I keep telling them give it time, time is the biggest factor. It took my first company about a year to get 10 customers, but after that word of mouth ran and now we are pushing acouple hundred.

I would definitely agree. Web hosting is not a get-rich quick scheme. You have to plan in "years" and not in "months" to get a good stable customer base.

Do you do get profit/paid from your friends company?
Hope you're not doing free marketting getting them customers that could potentially be yours.
Just a thought.

Originally posted by E_man3
Do you do get profit/paid from your friends company?
Hope you're not doing free marketting getting them customers that could potentially be yours.
Just a thought.

I dont think that's necessarily true. There are thousands of people looking for a web host every day. The expirienced marketer will be able to spot that, and target those people. There is nothing wrong with helping a friend in need.

Actually I am co-owner of this newer webhosting company. It is just I like working with these guys and figured a company with a knowlegable staff that we have would be a lot better off then a company of one person. We currently don't make any profit because it just got up and running but eventually we hope too.

Thanks
Jeff

Originally posted by Emagine-Hosting
Actually I am co-owner of this newer webhosting company. It is just I like working with these guys and figured a company with a knowlegable staff that we have would be a lot better off then a company of one person. We currently don't make any profit because it just got up and running but eventually we hope too.

Thanks
Jeff

Wouldn't it be a conflict of interest running two companies? Wouldn't it also hurt the company that is just yours (unless assuming you are walking away with the same profit in your pockets)?

Thanks for the response Josh

No actually I should clarify a bit better when I say running two webhosting businesses. The first one mainly operates as a Game Server company offering small webhosting for basic clans and small local area businesses with not databases or need for large space. This newer venture we are trying to keep it more on Webhosting and Webdesign for companies, but will take on residential customers. We are also in the process of moving machines to a much better bandwidth provider in order to also offer some game server support but it won't be the majority of the business.

Thanks
Jeff

also rember 85% of business fail within 2 yrs. not to discourage anyone but anyone who want to start a biz should alway prepare for the worst. i alway assume that next month maybe the month that all my customers walk out on me or some did and only leave me with few that i have to pay out of my own packet. so i alway save allocated some money if i make some for the month in case people start walking out on me.

does any of you set aside some money just in case you're left to hold the bag (pay server, software...etc)

Originally posted by jt2377
also rember 85% of business fail within 2 yrs.

Just out of curiousity, what is your source for those numbers?

>It took my first company about a year to get 10 customers

That took me about a day ;)

Originally posted by thomas.smith
>It took my first company about a year to get 10 customers

That took me about a day ;)

10 customers in one day? Please tell us your secret. :)

>Please tell us your secret.

There is no secret. I have an established client base with almost 2000 customers and am spending a LOT on ads. I am also having a couple of other websites that are referring clients. I am hosting a couple of sites for free and getting clients in return. A couple of special deals with designers etc. That + word of mouth... Actually if I had more cash and more staff etc. I think I could get 100 per day.

Yeah... time is one of the big factors.

I've been running my local web hosting & design/development firm for about 4 months. Now we don't have clients more than 5. Nevertheless, those are loyal clients.

We first started with the belief in internet marketing, without any research. But when we realized that local market is more important one, we planned & do several local marketing campaigns.

Local market is very potential one for every web hosting businesses. Even though your local market may be small one, you can still get clients if you have wisely planned marketing campaign.

We are still focusing on local market. We mainly focus on tourism services as there are many tourism firms in our market.

It's nice to discuss with new entrepreneurs...

thomas.smith, could you spell out your business name & web address?

Thanks for the post Dark

We are also currently looking at marketing or dropping fliers into the community. We actually can hit a few local areas because 2 of the 5 running this new hosting company are located in different states. I believe this will be a strong advantage in the local marketing sense.

Thanks
Jeff

Originally posted by Dark_Coder
thomas.smith, could you spell out your business name & web address?
Thomas keeps his biz off WHT. I for one would love to see Thomas's site, but he keeps that secret.

Originally posted by Josh Stein
Just out of curiousity, what is your source for those numbers?

SBA