Let us discuss a high-tech couple approaching retirement. One has taught courses and labs using Perl, C++, VB, Apache, Linux, etc. He has also taught Microsoft network certification courses but otherwise would have to learn the reseller business. The other has her own business selling on the internet and through a store-front. She buys, sells, and provides customer support through email already but would also be a novice in the reseller world.

This couple does not want to be TOTALLY retired. (He wants to be able to tell his mother that he still earns his keep.) It sounds like reselling might allow the couple to keep in touch with activities they love (networking and commerce), earn enough money to make the effort worth while ($1000 a month ?), and allow the benefits of retirement by not tying them down. They also want to feel good about whatever they do. The customers must all proclaim their great worth.

So, now for the question. How big can a mom-and-pop operation be under the above circumstances. I have been around enough to know that "it depends" and that there is most likely no definitive answer. However I also know that experienced people will most likely have opinions (in consensus or not). I would like your swag on how many accounts would be reasonable. How many would work you to death and how few would leave you at your leisure?

Keep in mind the desire to provide the most outstanding service. Would it not be great to have to have a waiting list for such a prestigious service.

Can you count on $5 clear on each account? How many accounts? 50? 100? 200? Etc?

Thank you in advance for any replies.

Gary and Jeanne

Gary and Jeanne, welcome to WebHostingTalk and by the way, nice signature! :)

You don't sound like you're quite ready to hit the shuffle board courts yet, eh? What I'd say, is that if you are aiming to provide top service, you should be careful to choose a host that is in agreement with this attitude.

There's really nothing worse than hooking up with a provider that isn't cutting it, and then being at their mercy. 48 hour support replies won't help you (if you want to be able to have at least a 24 hour support time).

I suppose this is all obvious, but I'll just add that if you want to have more time for yourself, you might consider a host that handles support issues for you.

Just a thought, but what might make your effort more worthwhile is to combine reselling and basic web design. Select a host that will give you a reasonable price on a dedicated server and split it among 100-200 clients for both hosting and design (as their needs might dictate). Just don't get involved in any large projects so that you have some free time for that shuffleboard match with Chicken (by the way, I hope you kick his butt. :D)

An added bonus: you can show Mom all the cool stuff you designed too!

Originally posted by Spider John
Just don't get involved in any large projects so that you have some free time for that shuffleboard match with Chicken (by the way, I hope you kick his butt. :D)

*proclaims self KING of shuffleboard, then crawls back into his chicken cave*

projo,

Your question was basically the same question I was wanting to post. I don't really want the responsibility of a dedicated server so I have been looking at the http://www.olm.net resellers account. They provide 24/7 support via a Ticket system for you and your clients and 1-800 support for you. Sounds reasonable to make $5 per client and more if you offer additional services like design.

This seems like a reasonable place for one to start, what do you think?

Originally posted by Chicken
...you might consider a host that handles support issues for you.

OLM was the company I was thinking of when I wrote this. I just didn't want to confuse things until Gary replied.

You may want to wait a few days on purchasing the reseller account, I found out from tech yesturday that OLM will be using a customized version of ensim server exchange in its new NOC in CT. From the little I could find out they will have reseller resold accounts at 3.00/month using ensim's control system and still provide full end user support. Couldnt get to many details but they will have a new dedicated site online late this week. Appearently they have had this in the works for sometime, they made a post on their resellers news board a few weeks back. If anyones interested I can copy the post. 3.00 sounds like a great price.


TWA

Originally posted by twa

You may want to wait a few days on purchasing the reseller account...

If anyones interested I can copy the post. 3.00 sounds like a great price.

I would appreciate if you could email me that info and maybe a little about OLM, how you handle your billing etc.

(Added - Title should have said: Mom practices the "leave time for me" aspect of my hosting plan.)

First of all, thanks. This discussion, and even more so all the others, are helping me work out my plans. Second, the following is a working document, changing even as I write it.

Phase 1: Now

Plan: Evaluate hosting/reselling as a retirement activity in the light of my personal goals. Identify the technology and skills required and form an acquisition agenda (including personal skills). Form a knowledge foundation and develop a business plan that excites me. Listen to my inner voice and personal reactions to recognize business activities I like (and wish to do myself) and those I will find a chore (and thus farm-out or eliminate from the plan). Listen to other opinions but remind myself that their opinions are not based upon my goals and life-style.

Phase 2: Next 5 months

Plan: Continue above activities, modifying plans and opinions. Obtain experience by becoming a reseller through a cheap but reasonably-supportive host (a system that does not shield me from learning, e.g. an RAQ3 adventure might be good to manage hundreds of accounts but might hide account management from me. Just an impression at this stage.). Lease services for no more than 6 months so that I can easily change hosts when I know more. Obtain 3 to 5 local accounts as test subjects. Try to select customers who want a simple web presence and don't mind a learning adventure with cheap prices. Venture into site design (I have done this but not commercially). Set up a network stack, i.e. four computers in a rack, and assign projects to students this spring in preparation for a networking course in the summer; pull in graduate students. Present a conference paper on control-of-hardware-over-the-Internet to obtain exposure to a niche audience (testing the waters for quality service to special customers - I think I am headed toward a niche market - don't know for sure) . Install business superstructure, e.g. billing, banking, etc.

Phase 3: Summer and following year.

Plan: Evaluate and change service provider if appropriate. Conduct a workshop on business-site preparation, requiring participants to register (or already have) a domain name and to lease hosting services (mine or other). Increase permanent accounts to 20 but not more than 50 and increase prices. (I expect that some workshop accounts will remain on a permanent basis.) Present a paper on the educational value of the above student-related activities at an education conference (another possible niche market). Evaluate the idea/possibility of on-the-road workshops (this would add to the travel component of retirement).


Phase 3 Interruptus: Immediately

Go with wife to renew her driver's license. Back to you guys later. I will address your comments at that time. I must appear not to work the entire holiday. I already went into the office yesterday.

Gary

[Edited by projo on 12-27-2000 at 02:39 PM]

In honor of Chicken, a simple alliteration that rhymes about as much as a box of chickens can.


Life IS TRULY like a box of chickens

You may have to watch where ever you peck
You may even have to watch where you step

But if you 're a rooster and adequately hosted
You may not be bored nor eventually roasted


[Edited by projo on 12-27-2000 at 10:11 PM]

That was bootiful :)

*wipes tears from eyes*

Wrap up

Concerning support:

I'm taking your comments to heart about support and will weight it much heavier than a dollar or two difference in reseller-account costs.

Concerning size:

I like the suggestion to add value to my services to a small number of customers, definitely less than 100 or 200 accounts and maybe more like 20 to 50 local accounts. Some income could come from on-site education of their people to take on SW maintenance responsibilities. Maybe even workshops.

Concerning becoming bogged down with large projects:

This could easily be a problem. I have mentioned this activity and there seems to be a lot of interest in piece-mill work. It is my nature (being a teacher) to direct others in project work. I could take some jobs for myself. I have already conducted one graduate project where the student set up a business site and he seemed to get a lot out of it. (For that site I suggested Lucy's Hits for the site name but the corresponding domain name would have been embarrassing)

Concerning a ticket system:

Now that is very interesting. I wonder if it means that a customer fills out a ticked and the email goes straight to tech support with a copy to me. That would be worth extra expense. OLM does look good. I have added them to my good list (I also have a bad list based upon the conversations at this and other sites). So far the good list includes the following and I am adding others to eventually check. I am also reading other forums along with any discussions on individual hosting sites (it is a major factor in my impression of a site if they allow their customers a voice).

olm.net
hostrocket.com
tera-byte.com
hostingmatters.com

I have already looked at these four and they deserve a place on my good list but I believe two have affiliate programs and not reseller accounts. I will double check. I am definitely a reseller kind of guy.

The possible changes at olm are exciting but how can you make money on $3.00 accounts and afford to give any support at all? At some point price is not an issue. I just don't have the experience to know what that threshold is.

Concerning the chicken verse:

It may have been better with just the first and last two lines.


Thanks again. I will be watching and reading. I still would like to hear from someone who can suggest the calculation of "pain in the butt" and "I'm in heaven" factors. For example:

Number-of-hour-per-day = ( NumberAccounts-using-simple-pages X .25) + (Number-using-cgi X .5) + ….

Or more likely just a rough impression, e.g. 200 will kill you if you are doing all the work.

Thanks in any even.

Gary of
Gary and Jeanne

Two words: WYSIWYG editor. :)

Seriously, a good editor (I personally prefer HomeSite by Allaire because of the cool color coding it does for code) will shave your time in half should you choose (and it appears you will) to go into web design.


Another thing that might help is to develop a few templates in advance (perhaps a home page, contact page with form, and products/services page) with the graphics done already (or at least the templates for the menu buttons. Then all you do is land 15 or 20 customers who want a simple presence, stick in your menu buttons and graphics and ba-da-boom! Yer done. :)

Anyway, I personally wish you all the best of luck in your venture. You two seem like very nice people. And if you need any more help, I for one am more than willing to pitch in and lend a hand when I can.


* throws a rock directly into the 10 triangle of the shuffleboard court. CHOKE ON THAT CHICKEN. :)

Gary: (I have done this but not commercially)

I'm not sure at what point Gary is in his web design skills, but sometimes those editors (maybe not the ones you mentioned Spider?), just bugger up the code and confuse people. I know they confuse me.

I tend to use the one I have to insert   and not much more.

Ok, enough about the topic (*wink*), let's get to the real nitty-gritty (and prey no one has email notification on, heh)...

Although I truly have a limited knowledge base of shuffleboard and its rules, and have only played it once when I was 10 (kicked my 6 year old sister's donkey *stretches suspenders proudly*), I am unaware of this new EXTREME shuffleboard that allows rock throwing. Has this also become a contact sport? :)

I share your opinion about HomeSite, somewhat for the reason that Chicken mentions. Frontpage hides too much in the directory for me and does not like it if you manually tweek. I am a low level kind of guy and HomeSite lets you switch hit (like frontpage) but keeps the file system simple.

Your other comments are good advice for me and similar new-comers.

My wife's site that I just moved is: http://jdolls.com
If you want to see a picture of me (Why! I could't guess.) there is a link at the bottom of the main frame that says something like "It could have happened just this way."

(This is not a sneaky advertisement. I am not trying to sell you guys dolls.)

The original guestbook cgi was provided by the other service and a replacement is not in place at this new location but the old comments are available. Also my wife is taking the opportunity to totally replace all the catelog pages so there are no listings (just test entries).

The "All Categories" link uses a Perl CGI to display a composit of all individual catelog pages. The "All Photos" link uses PHP to display just the pics without description and prices. These features were working and just lack a data base at this time.

A site I am getting ready for my class work next term is: http://boldlygo.to. This is definitely under development and lacks useful content. But I love that name. It lends itself so well to subdirectories such as boldlygo.to/CET420, one of my classes coming up.

Oh, well. I know this is not the "evaluate this" forum and I am not presenting these for evaluation but the above seemed appropriate considering the direction this discussion has taken.

Thanks for your comments.

Gary

The domain name I have set aside for my reselling, (and Chicken you are going to love this) is Webroost.com.

I also have holusbolus.com, meaning "all together", which I thought about using but probably not.

Gary
Maybe for the last time in this thread.

Heh, webroost, eh? You're talkin' my language. I can envision the site already. :)

<ADMIN EDIT>

You can make as much money as you need if you work at it. Nothing comes easy but remember, thousands and thousands of new web sites are hosted daily. If you learn to market your service, the customers WILL come.

<ADMIN EDIT>

Thanks,
Matt

[Edited by Chicken on 01-18-2001 at 12:20 AM]