Azavia
10-28-2005, 09:34 PM
Hello,
I know there are several threads discussing most of these issues, but I thought I'd try to get some suggestions specific to my situation anyway.
Let me post a bit of background information first.
Firstly, ignore my username. I used to do hosting if you'll see my old posts, and eventually sold it due to it not being on a very solid foundation, something that I regret. I'm unable to change the username until January due to WHT rules.
Now that that's over with...
Again I used to do hosting. I feel I got into it a bit too quickly from excitement over the business and wanting to make it a success. I've already mentioned the end result.
But now I'd like to take another go at it. I've given myself a minimum of a year to plan everything out, develop and design the site, study the target market, and so forth. It may be longer than that; I'll have to see where I am next year at this time.
I want to be able to offer several services, including web hosting, web and graphics design, and web programming. I think so far that the market will be small businesses who want to have everything done at one place, again including the design, programming, hosting, domain registration, and any other details a business might need to get their web site up and running.
Firstly, how does this niche market sound? Is it too general? I'm horrible at figuring out a niche, but I think this is the best market to target for what I want to do. I myself am a programmer, but will of course have people on my team who can manage servers, do support, etc.
Another difficult part is finding something that would make my services unique, which I know is important. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on this? Or at least some pointers.
So far I know I want to provide superb support; I'd like to even provide phone support at some point. My pricing structure will very much support this I hope.
I'm thinking of prices such as the following two sample packages. These aren’t set in stone, but are samples of what I'm thinking of.
Package 1
300 MB space
6 GB data transfer
The usual, some emails, ftp accounts, subdomains, domains, databases...nothing unlimited though.
$19.99/month
Package 2
800MB space
16GB transfer
$49.99
I plan to offer both windows and Linux. The Linux would probably be a bit cheaper because the windows would be offering either asp/asp.net or Cold Fusion, along with PHP and Perl, but the Linux would just have PHP and Perl
Is this a decent pricing structure? I've thought about this extensively. Of course it doesn't appeal to the budget hosting market but that's not what I'm going after. If the service were superb, would people be willing to pay these prices?
And also, I'm trying to figure out what the maximum package should contain. I want to be flexible enough to host even larger web sites, but larger packages might attract sites which are better off on dedicated servers. One of the people helping me plan all this out suggested a maximum package of 5GB space, but this sounds too large to me. I'm thinking of maybe 2GB maximum.
Also, is it a bad idea to incorporate from the beginning? I, and those who will be part of the management, plan to incorporate from the start, and set up a solid business structure. We really want to make this long-term. We thought about an LLC but we don't want one person owning it; the structure of a corporation sounds more appealing
Also, what's the best way to research a market? I just want to find out what exactly we can offer to make it all the more appealing and unique, but I need to find out what the people in this market would want. Does anyone have suggestions on this?
Also need to figure out the best places to advertise. I plan to have a few thousand dollars to put into the business, including advertising, but I need to figure out what'd be effective so the money isn't wasted.
Sorry for such a long post. I have a lot to figure out before starting up, and I've definitely learned from the mistakes I've made before. But I'd greatly appreciate any and all suggestions anyone can bring to this.
Thanks,
Brandon
I know there are several threads discussing most of these issues, but I thought I'd try to get some suggestions specific to my situation anyway.
Let me post a bit of background information first.
Firstly, ignore my username. I used to do hosting if you'll see my old posts, and eventually sold it due to it not being on a very solid foundation, something that I regret. I'm unable to change the username until January due to WHT rules.
Now that that's over with...
Again I used to do hosting. I feel I got into it a bit too quickly from excitement over the business and wanting to make it a success. I've already mentioned the end result.
But now I'd like to take another go at it. I've given myself a minimum of a year to plan everything out, develop and design the site, study the target market, and so forth. It may be longer than that; I'll have to see where I am next year at this time.
I want to be able to offer several services, including web hosting, web and graphics design, and web programming. I think so far that the market will be small businesses who want to have everything done at one place, again including the design, programming, hosting, domain registration, and any other details a business might need to get their web site up and running.
Firstly, how does this niche market sound? Is it too general? I'm horrible at figuring out a niche, but I think this is the best market to target for what I want to do. I myself am a programmer, but will of course have people on my team who can manage servers, do support, etc.
Another difficult part is finding something that would make my services unique, which I know is important. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on this? Or at least some pointers.
So far I know I want to provide superb support; I'd like to even provide phone support at some point. My pricing structure will very much support this I hope.
I'm thinking of prices such as the following two sample packages. These aren’t set in stone, but are samples of what I'm thinking of.
Package 1
300 MB space
6 GB data transfer
The usual, some emails, ftp accounts, subdomains, domains, databases...nothing unlimited though.
$19.99/month
Package 2
800MB space
16GB transfer
$49.99
I plan to offer both windows and Linux. The Linux would probably be a bit cheaper because the windows would be offering either asp/asp.net or Cold Fusion, along with PHP and Perl, but the Linux would just have PHP and Perl
Is this a decent pricing structure? I've thought about this extensively. Of course it doesn't appeal to the budget hosting market but that's not what I'm going after. If the service were superb, would people be willing to pay these prices?
And also, I'm trying to figure out what the maximum package should contain. I want to be flexible enough to host even larger web sites, but larger packages might attract sites which are better off on dedicated servers. One of the people helping me plan all this out suggested a maximum package of 5GB space, but this sounds too large to me. I'm thinking of maybe 2GB maximum.
Also, is it a bad idea to incorporate from the beginning? I, and those who will be part of the management, plan to incorporate from the start, and set up a solid business structure. We really want to make this long-term. We thought about an LLC but we don't want one person owning it; the structure of a corporation sounds more appealing
Also, what's the best way to research a market? I just want to find out what exactly we can offer to make it all the more appealing and unique, but I need to find out what the people in this market would want. Does anyone have suggestions on this?
Also need to figure out the best places to advertise. I plan to have a few thousand dollars to put into the business, including advertising, but I need to figure out what'd be effective so the money isn't wasted.
Sorry for such a long post. I have a lot to figure out before starting up, and I've definitely learned from the mistakes I've made before. But I'd greatly appreciate any and all suggestions anyone can bring to this.
Thanks,
Brandon