I've been toying with the idea of starting a web hosting company for some time now. I've set down and done a lot of planing and thought about this quite a bit. Who I want to sell to, what kind of server I should get, bandwidth needs, etc.
Seeing how I have worked at the same ISP since 2001 (networking and system administration) and work directly under the owner I get to put a server next to all of ours on our DS3 and I'm not being charged. I just had to buy the server. Which today I bought from him (p4 2.8Ghz 512 MB ram) I dont really see the need upgrading the ram as of yet. Seeing how I can walk of to it and add more if needed I feel I can wait on adding more. My wife is a stay at home wife who will answer the sales calls and any other inquires that could come from a telephone call. I'll answer trouble tickets during the day when I'm waiting for something to happen at work. I have figured out how I'd like to advertise locally, but I really haven't found a decent way to advertise online. Overall my recurring monthly costs are low (CPanel, Fantasico, Clientexec (or simular), telephone, and advertising). I'd like input on how to advertising online and of my over all plan.

Server: FreeBSD w/ Cpanel

Hi-

although my sales are starting to become much more than cost, I still work retail to pay the bills. I had done a lot of planning prior to starting my company, and have come a long way since day 1. A lot of hurdles overcome and problems solved, etc....

The major thing in your situation that I can see as a problem is the fact that you work at the datacenter. I was talking at length with the admin from the DC where I colo my servers a few weeks ago about just that. He talked a lot about the troubles that may arise from someone (much like yourself) running a business while working at the DC....

The major thing that stands out in my mind is what he said right away - "If the **** hits the fan, and you've got a lot of work to do (both places), which customers come first?" Maybe this is just my 2 cents, but I could see it becoming an issue with your particular situation......

Say it's really busy and you've got stuff to do (for the DC) at work..... PLUS a bunch of helpdesk issues with your hosting company... which comes first, and what would your boss think? I'm not saying your boss would be on your *** necessarily, i dont know him/her at all or how they handle business...

That's all I have to say on that.

As for advertising, most of my business is done through word of mouth. It has been extremely cost effective for me. Your results may vary, but word of mouth is 95%+ of my new business, and I am getting 2-3 new customers per week steadily. I have started posting on this forum as well, in the advertising section (shared/reseller hosting offers). Depending on how you format the post (study posts, titles, times of day, number of views, etc) you can get a lot of people checkin out your site. I think the latest post I made had over 100 views (posts in there average 10-25 views or so), and I got 4 new clients from the 80 people that followed a link to my site.

Hope my words have helped you. mind you that I am 23 and have been in business since Feb 2004, so I am in no way, shape or form an absolute expert on this - just someone who set out a while back and is operating in the black now.

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Your post was helpful. I started out doing telephone tech support. Doing that I noticed I get alot of the same questions being asked (which is why we wrote a "cheat sheet" for new tech support to follow). I would imagine the same would be true in the hosting industry. I was planing on training my wife on how to handle the questions and actually give an intelligent answer to them (by writing a "cheat sheet" for her much like we did for new tech support). If it's not to intrusive how many customers have you managed to get over the last year? How are you advertising locally? Flyers, ads in papers, etc?

Thank you for the reply :)

Hey-

no problem man. I have gotten about 120 paying clients in the past 2 years. I initially used Google AdSense and some other advertising sites, but all of them were extremely unfeasible economically. Google AdSense, in particular, even though it is pay-per-click system, cost me between 100 and 300 bux a month, and I think over 3 months I used it got me 1 or 2 clients. Waste of money in my experience!

The best method of advertising is word of mouth. I started my business because I was really, really pissed off about paying too much for webhosting. I had been paying various companies for a reseller account ($30-$50/month) for many years. I had acquired 4 or 5 friends that I hosted for free along the way, and I continue to host them now. The best investment I ever made was hosting them for free. I have gotten 10 or 11 customers from one guy in particular, and all through his recommendations.

I post here, and I have friends I host pimp the service whenever they get the chance.

As for getting NEW, unknown clients to do the same? I treat them really well. I let them know how I run the business and be totally open and honest. With every new client I spend time letting them know my situation (single server, 1 guy, colocated machine, work retail, 23 yrs old, etc). The reaction I get most frequently is surprise - sometimes I spend hours helping people get settled in, moving their site for them, restoring databases, etc, etc... and the reactions are really good to that.

Far and above is getting answers to questions in a timely manner. A few times in the not so distant past I have been slightly sluggish on responding to an email, and the result was losing a client. A client lost gives zero recommendations to others, a client "wowed" can give your website address to hundreds of people.

Above and beyond all is to be honest with people. Don't promise anything that you cannot deliver on, and be realistic with timeframes, solutions, etc.


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D4hosting - interesting. I'm agree with you. Most of my clients are come from friends. They recomend me to small companies & their friends.

D4hosting - interesting. I'm agree with you. Most of my clients are come from friends. They recomend me to small companies & their friends.
Yeah, best way to go in my opinion. There are SO MANY hosting companies out there, and the lifespan of most is a couple years! Most either get bought up or run into the ground... There are always and will always be people who need hosting. The best way to get and retain customers is, again, in my opinion, through personal service.


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