Hello all,

Looking to buy a reseller package and hoping to gather up my local customers around here.

I got some questions:
If you are a college student and you're trying to start a business, where should the location be? At your college or your hometown?

Where do I register my business?

How will I be able to learn the technical side of webhosting when I am trying to buy a managed reseller package for twenty dollars a month?

Is forming a relationship with a college student majoring in web design a good idea?

Here's hoping for a good journey of my webhosting business.

Hi VanillaSky

First, I applaud your entrepenurial spirit.

I have an answer to only one of your questions. You asked: Is forming a relationship with a college student majoring in web design a good idea?

The answer is no.


Why?



You need to form a relationship with 10 college students majoring in web design. 100 if you can find them.

This is not a business to think small it's a numbers game and the bigger the number the better!

Happy journey!

Well, that's great to hear.

Of course, there is always hundreds of college students majoring in web design out there. I will have to put up flyers to every campus around my area.

Hey there :)

I totally agree with the above, its a hard business out there. not easy money like u think it is at the beginning.

Many Thanks :)

I can definitely see some advantages with forming such connections with people at your own school.

But you have to give them something in return. No one will promote your service unless they get something out of it.

So what you should do is tell your web design friends that you will give them $50-100 per sign-up that they refer to you.

As for learning the technical side of things, if you have a managed reseller plan there isnt much that you will have to learn besides the basic operation of your hosting control panel.

You dont have to register your business right off the bat. Typically you wont see any real amount of customers for your first few months - anywhere between 10-15 customers by your third month is considered good.

you would probably be better off registering it at your home town. after all, once you are done college you will have to update your address again anyway, right? so why not do it from the start?

Good luck! Let me know if you have any more questions :)

Yeah, well...

What am I looking for startup expenses?
-Reseller account expense - 20 dollars a month
-Support Management - 39 dollars for Kyakyo
-Advertisement - 100 dollars a month?
-Web domain - 200 dollars for an aged domain?

Yeah, well...

What am I looking for startup expenses?
-Reseller account expense - 20 dollars a month
-Support Management - 39 dollars for Kyakyo
-Advertisement - 100 dollars a month?
-Web domain - 200 dollars for an aged domain?

Sounds good.

Don't know why you want to spend $200 for an aged domain but if that is what you want to do then go for it.

Also, what does Kyakyo do for me?

Does it provide the software and support management such as handling tickets and solving problems or just the software itself?

Also, what does Kyakyo do for me?

Does it provide the software and support management such as handling tickets and solving problems or just the software itself?

It can handle support tickets and do more. I would recommend WHMCS though. It's $15.95 a month so you would save a little bit.

I also would recommend WHMCS, instead of just buying a support platform, get the billing and support platform in one for half the price. I have been very happy with it so far and although it doesn't allow really wide flexibility it works well if you just want to start a web hosting business.

I also would recommend WHMCS, instead of just buying a support platform, get the billing and support platform in one for half the price. I have been very happy with it so far and although it doesn't allow really wide flexibility it works well if you just want to start a web hosting business.

Agree with you. WHMCS is one of the best billing and support management tool.

Now how do you get people to help you solve the problems?

I mean when someone says FTP disk error, what does that mean?

Now how do you get people to help you solve the problems?

I mean when someone says FTP disk error, what does that mean?

Depending on the company you rent from any issues or errors should be solvable by submitting a support ticket to your provider. That is also a slight advantage of using a reseller account than going right into Dedicated Reseller hosting.

I see. Thank you very much.

Do you think I can learn from them by solving these kind of errors?

I see. Thank you very much.

Do you think I can learn from them by solving these kind of errors?

When they solve the issue some of the providers will reply with what they did. This will help you if the issue occurs again. You can also the host how they solved the issue. Most hosts will gladly tell you.

A few things you can do, as others suggested, is pay attention to how issues are resolved.
Take the areas with potential issues (everything) you will be working with such as how to maintain your control panel, e-mail system, billing, support, servers, etc. and browse the internet reading installation documents and articles (or forum posts) explaining fixes for issues you might run into with that application.

I suggest you build yourself a test environment while you have the help of a reseller. This way you will be able to plan ahead (learning) and there are several hosts out there with low cost VPS solutions that would be great for your test lab and learning how each application is installed, troubleshooting issues and how the apps work together. This way, you will have better knowledge of how to maintain your own environment when that time comes.

It can handle support tickets and do more. I would recommend WHMCS though. It's $15.95 a month so you would save a little bit.

I recommend Ubersmith, it's much more professional and almost has a great upgrade path(Lite to Pro to DE)

WHMCS Has been solid for me for couple months now.

Never tried ubersmith. Going to take a look into it. ;)

It sounds like your trying to go in over your head. Take your time reading articles and creating bookmarks to good information. LEARN SSH! Go though another webhosts knowledge base and see what their questions and answers are. Get familiar with your hosting control panel. Do multiple test signups and learn how to configure email accounts on different mail programs.

Honestly, I would change your major to advertising/management and get all those 100 designers under your wing and just go out in the city and knock your socks off.

I used to make good money off web hosting, but it took a LOT of work. I sold my past clients and then just recently started a new company that is geared towards web design. Yes, I still do hosting, however, getting $10/mo per client is pathetic when I'm now making over $1,000 per client.

I'm not saying that web hosting isn't a great business, I'm just saying that it's not easy to "make it". You have to determine how much you are worth to your potential clients. Are you worth $10 or $1000? I ask that question because webhosts are selling left and right (they always will), but look at those that seem successful when they bring in $25k per year. Sounds great until their expenses are $18k. Yep, saw that in the for sale area and I couldn't believe that... run the numbers. $583/mo profit for how much time and energy?

My biggest advice to you and anyone getting into this business is to NOT NOT NOT be the lowest price. People are willing to spend money when they know the product or service they are purchasing is worth it. Also, if you want a higher margin, sell locally.

Good Luck.

Let's say you offer a small business one of your web package - web hosting and design. Now if you contact a web designer and you say this whole package will be 500 dollars. What share of that do you get? 20%?

Well, charge your client what you think is fair for the amount of work. Then hire the designer to do the website. You are the #1 point of contact. How much are you worth? That's what I'm asking.

For example. If a project from a designer will cost $500. Then charge your 30% or more and keep the 30%. Since I do many of my own clients designs then its easy for me to make over 85% profit from incoming clients. It just depends on work load.

I know some businesses (not related to web design) that the company keeps 60% of the profit to pay internal employees and then 40% goes to the person that found the job. Finding a prospect is easy... it's landing the job which is difficult.