Hi,

I've been reading threads here for a while now. One thread discussed how many hours per day folks running and building their business put in.

I was quite surprised to see many people report they put in 12, 14, 16 hour days -- 5 to 7 days a week no less -- running and building their hosting or reseller businesses.

So...lots of hours...but how much per hour actually earned for all that time put in building a business?

Not including the future value of the business you are running and building -- how much pre tax net income per hour is the hosting or reseller business you're spending your time building and running earning for you currently on a per hour basis?

Thank you for voting and sharing honestly.

Take care,

Louis

on the first of the month when we rebill our large resellers automatically the avg income is over 4k/hr


when we hand hold the newbies our income is zero

we tried to add this up and found a $/hr ratio unattainable

however ITS LESS THAN YOU THINK

keep the money rolling in by being supportive
face it you have cpanel, we have plesk they have whatever its all the same its the customer relations that are key- those are hours spent for zero return however without them there is No return...

hows that for confusing

dos centavos

Hi,

Of course there will be quite a difference in what one earns in one hour on one day compared to another hour on another day. That's not what I'm talking about.

It seems like many here have hosting/reselling businesses that consume a lot of their time -- 12, 14, 16 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week. Others, of course may just be in it part time and have a small company.

What the poll ask is, ok...you spend "X" number of hours on average over a given period of time...lets say a year...figuring your pre tax net income your business provides you, just what does that work out to in dollars per hour terms?

Just to be clear -- please don't take this as an insult to your intelligence -- lets say someone pours 14 hours a day into their business 6 days a week; that's 84 hours a week. Lets say they don't take vacations, so they work 52 weeks a year. Wow -- 52 times 84 is 4,368 hours in a year. Their business earns them $44,000 a year...so..they average just over $10 an hour...that's what I'm talking about.

Now they go vote, and hopefully a good discussion comes of it.

Basically, just what are real people making from their real businesses? Again, from the standpoint of the income they live on from it while they work at building and running it -- not what the business may be worth some day if they sell it.

Maybe it would be nice if someone said "I voted, and I put in 12 hours a day on average 6 days a week" or whatever their numbers are.


I think this is helpful to know. Especially for those thinking it's fast, easy money -- or those thinking they would be better off working at a regular job when they consider how many hours it realistically takes to build and run a decent hosting company.


Take care... and thanks for sharing honestly.

Louis

the point well taken and well missed

Hi miami_g,


No big deal. Guess I could have been clearer in my original post.

Anyway, thanks for sharing...and voting, I hope! Nice to meet you!


It's interesting to see how the first 22 votes distribute. I hope more folks both vote and share honestly...even if they make up an ID to post here with!

Lots of post I've read have been along the lines of "I'm a newbie planning on starting a hosting company. How much can I make, how soon, and how much time will I have to put in?"

Since the drift of what I get from those here who have been running their businesses for a while is that it quickly grows to be *very* demanding time wise, I think it's good if an accurate, (albeit general) picture could be presented to those thinking of starting a hosting company. Much more helpful than just "it depends". Sure, "it depends"; but sharing with a newbie *what* it depends on seems helpful and needed to me.

Maybe those figuring on only a few hours of time spent on their hosting business (and maybe lots and lots of profit for those few hours spent) might reconsider making their plans more reasonable.

And those willing to put in the time to build a really good comapny that's an asset to the industry (rather than a black eye of poor service or whatever), can have some realistic idea of how valuable the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is or isn't -- so they can make a decision of whether it's right for them to put in the time it takes to build a good and viable business they can earn a living from.


Anyway, thanks again. And I look forward to the honest voting and sharing of others here...even if they get a fake ID to share honestly while not revealing the regular identity they post with! *wink* *wink*


Take care,

Louis

I make money, but god please don't make me actually think what I make per hour. I'm "on the job" probably 10-16 hours per day 7 days a week.

Oh well, now that I do the math, I might actually make minimum wage!

You probably won't make any money for a while. Once you get going with clients its alot easier! It all depends on alot of stuff though. Those are my $.02

Hi MattS,

I realize one is unlikely to make any money for a while when starting out. What I'm wondering is, for those who have been building and running their hosting businesses for a while, what are typical incomes folk's hosting businesses provide for them? Since folks vary in how much time they pour into their businesses, I figured a per hour figure would provide a clearer picture.

so far, the vote distribution is interesting. Looks like around 60% of folks are making less than $5 per hour for their time; I'm guessing these are mostly folks who either do this on a part time basis, are just starting out, or are plowing their profits into operations, advertising, marketing and sales to grow -- figuring the profits will be there later.

I'm guessing those voting $51 or more per hour are those with large, established operations. How large and how established, I haven't a clue.

And I'm guessing those voting $16 to $30 per hour are also those working hard at growing their businesses -- and have been at it for a while -- but who take out enough to live on rather than plow everything back into their businesses.

Please, anyone, correct or enlighten me. I'm very interested in this...and suspect many reading this thread are as well.


Thanks for honestly voting and sharing,

Louis

Good post man ;) You sound right to me. Those saying $51 and up an hour could also be lying..

I want to see what everyone else says :D

Hi all,

I want to thank everyone who has voted and posted so far. Thank you for voting and sharing honestly. I hope some of you continue to do so -- because the poll results and comments are quite interesting.

Would any of you care to share your thoughts on what types of businesses at what stage in their lifespan/development are in the categories folks have voted on? I made a guess in a post above; but would really appreciate some additional insight from those of you who are knowledgeable and experienced in this field.

Thank you very much,

Louis

Interesting to calculate this.

I did the math for our group, adding up the 60-80 hours/week put in by the founders, and 40-ish hours put in by employees, and came up with $12/hour for February.

If our projections are on the money, I'll be able to revisit this post in 6 months or so and report double that.

Getting there...

if my calculations are correct, i am making $2.339499999999 per hour :) (j/k)

Hi magnafix,

Thank you for honestly posting and sharing.

Two questions if I may....(others also please feel free to answer)

What takes up the 60 to 80 hours the company founders put in? Lots of founders report working 10 to 16 hour days; that's why I posted the poll on a pre tax net per hour (rather than a per year) basis. I'm wondering how most founders divide their time between which task as they build and run their businesses? 60 to 80 hours is a lot to put in week after week. I've worked 60 to 100 hour work weeks before. I always found after a few months they really wear on a person.

Second, I hope your projections end up reflecting reality for you and yours! Best wishes in making your plans succeed!

If they do, will the pre tax net hourly rate earned double because your company will do double the business, or because of other factors like increased efficiency, being able to cut back on marketing and support expenses after reaching a certian level and all the new customers get past the initial period of requiring lots of support soon after they sign up and that sort of thing?

I'm wondering about the general nature of this business and if, after a period of significant growth, one's company is basically the same, just a lot bigger -- or if it's different in regards to what it takes to run -- how time, money and effort need to be deployed.

I hope these are not inappropriate questions. If they are, I understand if you wouldn't care to answer them here. I'm simply trying to learn more about what committing to building and running a hosting company involves before I decide to take the plunge -- and what life will be like over time if I do.

Thanks you very, very much -- and best wishes in all regards!!

Take care,

Louis

What takes up the 60 to 80 hours the company founders put in? Often times the founders (especially if there are only one or two handling everything) are kept working due to the need to answer a simple pre-sales or technical support email. With the industry commonly promoting 24/7/365 support its important that someone be there at all times to answer the email. It may only be one single email at 4am but if its answered quickly and correctly it brings in more sales over time.

Later the increase in wages can be felt due to increasing the sales enough to support more help. Dividing a 24/7 work week between 4 or 5 team members as opposed to the first one or two can really help the 'founders' to cut-back on their hours. As long as their paycheck remains the same their 'hourly wage' has increased due to the less amount of hours being worked.

As the company grows there will be more email to work with however the number of emails can increase a great deal before the 'work' is increased. Receiving one email per hour vs. 10 emails per hour still only requires a single rep to be there for that hour to answer the email. The only difference is that the rep spends more of the hour answering the email then s/he does posting on WHT ;)

Then there is "all of the other stuff" that people have to deal with in any business, however I do believe the most common reason for the number of hours hosts are working is the odd ability to operate a 24/7/365 business with as little as a single human to do -- everything --

Very few industries are able to pull that off as well as the hosts are....

Hi Deb,

Thank you for sharing. For those hosting companies starting out as a one or two person operation -- and likely holding down other full time employment while they build their hosting business, what are your thoughts on outsourcing support to someone like bobcares.com until the business earns enough to afford full time paid staff 24/7 support?

I would think outsourcing support to a company in India is less desirable than doing it oneself -- or providing it by on site help under one's supervision and direction. But would it be OK, bad, what?

I'm thinking for someone starting their company while holding down a full time job, and not having several months salary for support help when one starts out, that outsourcing support to some company like bobcares.com might be the best (or even only) way to go.


Any thoughts on this? (Questions open to anyone, not just Deb)


Thank you very much for sharing,

Louis

A huge amount of our time has been (and continues to be) spent improving our service offering. We have four founders, all of us competent web application developers on some level, and we have nearly always chosen "build" versus "buy" when rolling out new services. So that's huge amounts of time we've spent developing secure real-time signup, user control panel, system administration tools, etc.

One of us spends maybe 80% of every day answering support and pre-sales questions between maybe 11AM and 1AM. Another founder handles early morning emails (7AM-11AM).

Another guy spends a lot of his time creating advertising campaigns, finding places to put them, and monitoring their results, as well as tweaking our site to make sure we can convert visitors to customers as frequently as possible.

Finally there's the sysadmin founder, who is constantly swamped with regular maintenance, upgrades, customer brushfires that exceed the rest of our cababilities in solving, as well as continuous development of improvements to our infrastructure.

Outsourcing support -- we wouldn't. Don't want to that opportunity to interfact with customers.

I think that it's helpful to note that 60-80 hours per week is common for any entrepreneur; it's not something unique to hosting.

Oh, and as to the reason we anticipate our "hourly wage" will double in the next six months -- sales are flying :D and our existing infrastructure can handle plenty more sites. Of course we'll likely be addding more staff about then too.

Just wanted to say....

thanks again to all who voted and shared honestly!

This type of information is very helpful to those considering starting a hosting business.

Thanks you one and all,

Louis