Hello, after some hard times we have decided the only way to keep EARhost up and running is to merge with another company. This may or may not happen pending on our current situation.

If you decide to do this your responsibilities are as follows...

o 24/7 technical Support
o Setting up accounts
o Billing
o Software installations

What you will recieve is 50% of ALL profits!

EARhost is already established pretty well along with a pretty good reputation up untill we had to fire our techs. Right now we are struggling to keep that good reputation.

Before we stopped signups we were recieving on average 5-6 order a day.

We will only consider offers from companies that have a good reputation.

If you have any questions, comments ect. feel free to post or PM me.

Regards,

Originally posted by fractiousws
Hello, after some hard times we have decided the only way to keep EARhost up and running is to merge with another company. This may or may not happen pending on our current situation.

If you decide to do this your responsibilities are as follows...

o 24/7 technical Support
o Setting up accounts
o Billing
o Software installations

What you will recieve is 50% of ALL profits!

EARhost is already established pretty well along with a pretty good reputation up untill we had to fire our techs. Right now we are struggling to keep that good reputation.

Before we stopped signups we were recieving on average 5-6 order a day.

We will only consider offers from companies that have a good reputation.

If you have any questions, comments ect. feel free to post or PM me.

Regards,


Not trying to slam you here James but I have to ask if someone is going to do all that and is already established with a good rep, what are you going to bring to the table?

Originally posted by Monte
Not trying to slam you here James but I have to ask if someone is going to do all that and is already established with a good rep, what are you going to bring to the table?

50% of the profits, as he said. I guess that leaves the marketing and server costs up to him.

not to bring something personal into this, but is this the reason that the server I reserved last week hasn't shown up? :confused:

Yes, sorry about the delay. If you want your reservation cancelled let us know.

James,

I would be very interested in talking more with you about your offer, but much more information would be needed. Such as number of clients, how they pay, how many are paid up for "yearly plans" that will not generate any revenue for how many months.

Also how many servers are you currently leasing? Or do you own them? Are there any company assets? If this an actual "merger" or can you explain more what you envision this deal to be?

Please email us at sales@ezhost4less.com, or call me (Jim, the owner) at 1-800-845-2194, to discuss this further.

If I may ask, why did you fire all your techs?

I understand if you don't want to share that information, but if I am interested (which I am a little), it seems to me the job is to be the system administrator (in return for 50% profits), what's there to say I won't be fired as well?

Peter

If I may ask, why did you fire all your techs? I am also interested, I was going to ask that question but thought not to for some reason... but I'm eager to know too.

Alan

I woud like to talk to you James but I have been looking over your site and pricing and I need to get some more info on your business model and profit projections.
I am a little unsure of the amount of profit built in at those prices.
email me monte@techark.com if you want to discuss it.

Originally posted by ckpeter
If I may ask, why did you fire all your techs?

I understand if you don't want to share that information, but if I am interested (which I am a little), it seems to me the job is to be the system administrator (in return for 50% profits), what's there to say I won't be fired as well?

Peter

Well, anyone in my posistion would have. They said 24/7 support, which turned into 7/5 support in 1 week. They flat out "LIED" to me about everything. It came to a point when I could not believe a word they said.

So you are outsourcing support?

Have you tried Bobcare? I have heard good things about them.

Peter

I have been warned not to use them. Also I have been hearing some bad things lately.

Really? I haven't heard those yet. Maybe I need to keep myself more up-to-date.

Bobcare is known for bad sales, that's for sure. If that's why you formed your opinion, you may want to rethink your consideration. (of course, if you have more up-to-date information, then that's another story....)

Peter

James, i have to ask, what happens to your customers if you cant find someone to merge with. I was just about to start putting clients on my earhost account but im not sure i should now.

Don't worry tazd9t9, I am sure James could find a way. He is offering some very good terms, I am sure many people would take on it.

James, I am also rather interested. If you are looking for option, feel free to PM me.

Peter

I would assume you could not "be fired" if you were a partner? To me being a partner would be having legal documents for such drawn up?

Its cool, im not tryin 2 have a go at james hes a good guy, its just ive already had 2 move a lot of clients this year due to problems with a host and i would like to avoid it happening again if possible :)

Originally posted by fractiousws

If you decide to do this your responsibilities are as follows...

o 24/7 technical Support
o Setting up accounts
o Billing
o Software installations

What you will recieve is 50% of ALL profits!

That's pretty much all of the hard work. Why would any hosting company take over the support, billing, setups and server installations/upgrades for only 50% profit when they can take have 100% by doing the same thing?

Well, (I assume) James is going to provide server/connectivity and marketing.

Peter

If bad comes to worse I will sell the clients for dirt cheap, if not that i will give them away. Really all I want to do is make our customers happy again. :(

Originally posted by Kiwi


That's pretty much all of the hard work. Why would any hosting company take over the support, billing, setups and server installations/upgrades for only 50% profit when they can take have 100% by doing the same thing?

Yeah, I suppose you are right. Well how about just support and server upgrades and installations for 50%. Anyone interested now?

Also everything is split 50/50, profits, costs (server rental only really, I will provide the cash for advertising ect.), ownership, decision making.

I was under the impression that you would provide server.

You may want to consider doing that, even to the extent of lowering the profit shareing precentage. From what you have said, it sounds like your difficulty is with adminstration/techical help, not financial cash flow.

Peter

We had asked what I think is some very pertinent questions (I realize James is under no obligation to answer these), that were just simply passed over. It seems to me that anyone who is running a legitimate business here would have the same questions we had. If your truly looking to take care of your customers, then it seems you would be looking for a person who has a "real business", and real business experience.

We have been in business for several years. Both internet and other types of businesses. We are relatively new at web hosting (although we have been in related type businesses for 7 years), and would enjoy the chance to grow our customer base at a quicker pace.

You may find many who will jump at your chance, but any who do without asking some hard questions does not know much about business.

This could be beneficial to all involved but you both need to lay out what you can offer, and what you are expecting, and it needs to be in writing, and signed by all involved.

As I said we're still waiting for a response. If your not interested in the possibility of joining with a proven winner in many areas, we will not pursue things further.

James,

What would you be doing if the partner company was providing the 24/7 technical support, the billing, the setting up of accounts and software installation.
Would you participate in things such as support while you were online?
To me, in essence, it seems the partner company would be 'running' the business while you were marketing, and gaining a recursive 50% commission on sales.

Where do your dedicated clients fit in to this?

Good luck and best regards,
Matt

Well, he is at least providing 50% of the cost as well.

Peter

He may be providing 50% of the cost. But it doesn't appear as though he's providing 50% of work. I think that has some people a little confused as to why they should accept his offer.

What should I do?

I took advantage of a special progam James set up (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=53665&highlight=earhost.com). Basically, in exchange for a large (relative to normal pricing) one-time fee, I purchased "lifetime hosting" (defined in the terms as 5 years, or the life of the company, whichever was longer) I paid James $400 on July 5th (my wife's birthday) and got a custom deal with 6gb space based on the thread I linked to above.

Because of the issues with tech support and communication falling off the cliff right after I signed up, we have been very careful and not moved anything over except www.berevedparents.com .. my support site for parents who have lost children (in memory of my son). But until now I was sticking buy James, confident it was just a matter of time before he righted things... now I am not so sure at all.

Sorry to get off-track... these are my concerns... I got a really great deal from James IF he is capable of honoring it... but really, if he goes out of business tomorrow, how can he keep my plan in force for 5 years?? He told me I had no worries because they were very profitable, with wonderful projected earnings....

And if he merges, will the "partner" be willing to take me (and other resellers who bought in on this deal) on, considering I bring NO additional revenue to the table for the forseeable future?

My biggest fear now is moving clients over and then my service goes away. AND losing all that money. Then that great deal would have been a VERY expensive deal instead... and I cant afford that kind of loss... I have been out of work alot since my son died and this was going to be how I was going to try to make my way back (I have alot of local business contacts I was going to contact about webhosting)

SO WHAT IS THE REALITY HERE??? JAMES??? ANYONE??? PLEASE??? Please reply here or PM me... PLEASE :(

Sorry, in case anyone tried to see my Bereaved Parents site, I mistyped the address and this board will not let me edit my post... the correct address is www.bereavedparents.com

I am not trying to showcase the site, (SORRY!!) but I didnt want anyone to think my earhost server was down.

In fact, my service has been very reliable and fast since I came to earhost... All of this is very troubling...

Two weeks ago I was reading all the posts here about how great earhost was and then spoke to James, and bought his great offer... lets just say this is not how I expected I would be feeling only 10 days later!!

OK first from findspforums i see that July 16th Is James's birthday, so Happy Birthday James, im sure you dont need all this on your birthday :(

Secondly Eric, i got a good chea deal with him tto, not lifetime hosting but a v good price on a reseller account on the server that the main site is on, My friend also got one of these deals so i hope it lasts, otherwise i will need to find another reseller ASAP

Thirdly i think that this could be a bit of a panic reaction, the problems were with his tech staff and instead of just replacing them, i think the increasing negative posts around here and declining rep have led to James pannicing a bit and in his attempt to sort the problem he is trying to merge his company
(james please tell me if i am totally wrong here)

If it was me in the situation, i would either hire new techs or outsource support, if i had good cash flow like i think EARHost do have then i wouldn't be trying to merge my company. Customers can be remarkably understanding when you have troubles as long as they know where they stand...........And besides if he manages to get through this tough time, it can only make him stronger.

EricV,

Your scenario is exactly why we need more answers. Your hosting plan would not cause any problems to a company taking over or merging with James, as long as we both knew what each ones assets and liabilities were. At this point (by no choice of your own) you would be a liability, which would reduce the worth of his company.

I would have no problem taking over your account in any such deal, but in return he may have to provide me with 25 paying customers, or something.

I don't know how anyone on here can make any offers if James is not willing to let us know something about his "books".

Would you go out and buy a retail store for 100,000.00 without taking an inventory of what your getting?

Looks like this is a good match?

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60532

Anyway, it does seem James would need to rethink his plan a little. But he sounds like an honest guy, and I am sure in the end, something would work out.

ericv8, in case anything happens, contact me, I will be willing to help bereavedparents.com out.

Peter

Originally posted by fractiousws
[B]Hello, after some hard times we have decided the only way to keep EARhost up and running is to merge with another company.
Curious as to why you fall on hard times so quickly. I thought you only just kicked off?? What am I missing here?? Someone join the dots for me.
EARhost is already established pretty well along with a pretty good reputation
12mths+ is needed to call yourself "established pretty well along with a pretty good reputation"
up untill we had to fire our techs.
So these were just some outcourced mob like bobcares.com or something??
Right now we are struggling to keep that good reputation.
The damage is already done. Darwin was right.

Hope you can regroup and serve your clients well.

He may be providing 50% of the cost. But it doesn't appear as though he's providing 50% of work. I think that has some people a little confused as to why they should accept his offer.

That was my initial impression as well. It seems like all he wants to do is be in sales, and let someone else do all the hard work.

Initially I thought he was providing all the capital investment, but with a 50% cost commitment, it doesn't seem so easy for anyone to take on this partnership.

Peter

From what I can see, the potential profit its just not enticing enough for me to make any kind of "partnership" commitment. It seems more to me like slave labour.

James, can you please send me an email with your plans for the business, revenue, revenue projection. Just shoot us as much information as you possibly can to entice us.

Yes James if you are serious about the business and making a deal I think anyone will want to see your books. I know you sold a few of the lifetime 5 year accounts to raise capitol, how many?
How many servers, how many clients, have you oversold any of the servers space? I think if you really want an estabslihed partner you are going to have to answer these and many more questions.

Email will be fine NDA is aceptable.

Well, i might be interested in a deal. Please contact me at marc@mchost.com :)

James,
I am a little curious about your reasoning for not wanting to participate as a full partner in running the server operations, trouble tickets and such. As others have noted that is a significant part of the business. I also feel it is important for the sales team to have a hands on understanding of the technical operations so that they can field questions in an intelligent manner and it also helps ensure they do not over sell what the team can support.

Can you share what technical skills (if any) that you would be brining to the table such as sys-admin and web skills? If you are looking for partners I think a good first step is to share a resume of your skills as I am sure your potential partners would also be willing to do. I think this would be a good first step towards getting interest from serious partners. Right now without know much about your background it is difficult for me to assess my interest in any business arrangements though I do have some interest.

Can you share how many customers we are talking about along with their plans & cost? The break down of them by monthly, quarterly, annual and life plans would be helpful to understand

If you are looking to do a lot of the sales and marketing and if you are good that does have some significant value if you can bring on new customers but I am not sure it is worth 50%.

Whomever helps James out, please tell him to talk to his existing customer - otherwise you're going to inherit alot of people who are increasinly becoming agitated by his recent silence.

Hello James,

I am interested in coming up with a deal with you. Email me at omair@hostingbetter.com asap.


-Omair

Talk about a day late and dollar short.

Originally posted by Monte
Talk about a day late and dollar short.

Is that supposed to be for me?


-Omair

Yeah sorry, may be it is just my mood right now.

There are at least 3 threads on this whole ordeal already and a deal has been made.