I know that alot of hosting companies set up a website with billing, control panels etc. But I also know about people who have 'freelanced' - Which basically means, they search forums for people who are looking for hosting and offer it to them or by word of mouth to friends/family etc.

In conclusion, which way is actually better? It may sound like a daft question... but putting together a website, buying billing panels and control panels all come at costly measures. I guess an advantage of freelance hosting is that its cheaper and good for people who cant be bothered to set up a website.

- Danny.

So you want to skip on the website portion of the business so you can sell a service that caters to websites of your customers!? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Honestly, a website, billing software, etc is peanuts in cost. Borrow the $1000 from your grandma and you're good to go!

Doing both would be better.

I definitely would not personally purchase hosting from a company that does not have a web presence of their own...

Set up a web presence as well as doing whatever else you can to get customers. My primary advice though would be to make sure you support your customers well as support is what can make or break a hosting company.

So you want to skip on the website portion of the business so you can sell a service that caters to websites of your customers!? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Honestly, a website, billing software, etc is peanuts in cost. Borrow the $1000 from your grandma and you're good to go!

Heck, you don't even need $1k. If you are really on a shoe-string budget just modify free website templates, use open source support software, handle the billing + accounting manually and upgrade to proper software when you start turning a profit.