I've been researching for the last few months and just about have all of the pieces together to start-up my web hosting and design business. I'm currently a freelance designer...

I have just a couple points that I would appreciate some input from more experienced resellers or hosts:

1. I'm planning to use an OLM Reseller Environment and my only concern at this point is the size of the accounts I will be able to sell...

From this chart http://www.olmnetworks.com/pages/r-benefits.html it looks like the average account would be about 35MB @ $15/mo ... Am I reading this correctly? Do these numbers sound reasonable for a start-up?

But this also brings me to my next question: Is it absolutely necesary to offer 200MB+ for $10-$15? What I'm asking is, will I be dead-in-the-water if I can't offer a package with a huge amount of space?

I'm just starting out and just wanted to get some input on this issue. The merchandising of features is something that seems to vary widely from host to host. We plan to focus more on value-added features and outstanding support, but you need satisfied customers before people know you're actually what you say you are.


Thanks for your time! And keep up the great work Chicken and BC!

Welcome Steve (and thankx)... I don't think 35MB is unreasonable. As everyone knows it is plenty for 99.9% of the sites out there, it just doesn't scream at you.

Not sure if you checked out this certain mailing list I subscribe to, which has a bunch of resellers of OLM. You can get it thru email, but here is a link to the site (messages sent to the list are viewable here as well):

http://www.topica.com/lists/olmwebaxxsusers/read

One of the nice things about the list, is it is monitored by one of the most competent techs at OLM (it seems). Check it out if you haven't already (and post to the list!)...

Thanks for the link Chicken. I will definately subscribe and post.

I just found WebHostingTalk a few days ago and I can't believe how much information and interaction there is here, especially for someone about to take the plunge in to the hosting business.

I will definately be a regular user / contrubutor here (when time permits of course :) )

One more thing... I'm planning to use the name NovaState.com for my hosting company. Any thoughts as to the fact that I will not have the word 'host' or 'hosting' in my name? Is it a bad move not to, or is not that much of an issue... (unless, of course, your spamming SEs :) )


Interesting Note:
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I was originaly going to use UltraState.com, but I looked it up at my usual 'domain look-up' site http://www.e-gineer.com/domainator and about 24 hours later is was registered.... I've had this happen before with about 3 domains, until I realized that e-gineer.com must log all domain look-ups and register any they find that are decent... I have no proof and I may be completely wrong, but I guess the lesson here is: If you want to look-up good domains, do it on your own server just to be safe.
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Thanks for the input!

Hello Stevem01
You`ve not gone wrong to get your hosting buisness started. The forum helped me with the whole process (especially Chicken) and I got it up in about three weeks.
Now some coments on your choice:
You`re saying your going to offer great support, well I think this is somewhat ironic since OLM is one of the few that is offering end user support. And why not offer a great featured offer with your other plans of service? I know I got the best deal I`ve ever seen on Liquidweb.com and the price is going down to 10$ once I`ve gotten 50 customers. Do a search on them in the forum and see what others have to say about them. Just my sugestion ;)

Thanks for the suggestion Haakon. I see your point about support, but the main reason I'm considering OLM is (among other things) their 24/7 support... Not to avoid my clients support issues, but rather to have a 24/7 support system in place that can service my clients when I am unavailable. Someone who can fill the gaps.

It seems to me, from my research and my own personal experience with web hosts, that the support aspect and the relationship that you develop with a client is very important...expecially if I'm not going to have some mind boggling deal to offer right off the bat.. (a Trillion Tera-Bytes! Unlimited Traffic!..etc).

LiquidWeb was one of the first hosts I researched and they were my top pick until I found OLM. I really could've gone either way. But after a couple months of research I decided to tough it out without the 100 and 500MB plans to offer, and go with OLM and grow into my own full-service hosting company. I was also attracted by the ability to resell domains and the wide range of programs available. I'm still putting together my initial plans and offers at this point... (and a billing solution! :) ).

Anyway, thanks very much for your suggestion Haakon, and good luck with your business! :)

Steve,

I believe these reseller accounts work on averages. Most people who start websites, use no more than 10-50 megs. You would still likely offer plans at higher disk space quotas knowing that people will not use nearly that amount. When looking at reseller accounts look at other features and control you have as well. As a reseller, you need to give your customers value added features, as well as an easy to use graphical user interface to manage their accounts.

Good luck on whichever you choose, there is a lot of money to be made in reselling.

Helexia-

Steve
I current have a RSE and offer clients 250 MB of space.
Yes Iam using the same plans your looking at. Reselling is marketing abd averaging, and even if I divided the 2.5 GB of space Iam alloted for 50 domains it may seem impossible to offer, you can. The average signup uses less than 10 MB of space. if I sign up 50 people and 2 use the full 250 MB and the rest used the average thats only 590 MB still plenty of space left.

I can always buy more space but Iam not close to using what I was allowed.



Regards
TWA

Thanks for the clarification TWA. I was about to post again asking the question to that very answer ;)

So if I understand correctly, when someone signs up for larger size account, say 250MB, that becomes their disk quota, but doesn't immediately allocate the 250MB for that particular customer, correct?

In other words, disk space available for new accounts is determined by the space acually used by each customer not allocated to each customer. Correct?

Then you just watch your actual space used, and upgrade as necessary... Wow, that makes alot more sense than how I thought it worked... :)

Thanks for the help TWA! Let me know if I've got things straight.

Steve, that's pretty much the way things work. Hosts always oversell disk space, because the law of averages does work. If you had an 18 gig drive and offered up 250M to each customer, you'd only get 72 customers on that server if space was allocated immediately. But most hosts get a lot more than that on a single server. How is it possible? Those averages. Most people don't ever come close to touching what their hosts gives them.

Steven

This is correct, you only have to worry about used space, not what you alocated to be possibly used.



Regards
TWA