Hi all,

There are different levels of hosting from owning a DC to reselling an account.

Is it feasible to run a hosting company on your own, and I know there are a lot of people who do that already.

The good:

- No staff overhead.
- No hardware overhead.
- Only cost is for hosting and marketing (plus taxes and such)
- You can dissapear and nobody will find you. (usually)

The bad:

- No 24/7 support
- No sleep
- Ulcers
- No phone support

The question is, if a you come home after work and spend 1-4 hours on the business, depending on the logs from previous day, can you still be a relaible / viable host.

My thougts here are that if you get the service form a good a reputable host with good uptime, goot tech support and no other problems, you should only have to add new customers, mainain them and solve small issues which can be handeled in a few short hours ....

Thanks for input

If that person doesnt mind getting about 3 hours sleep a day - then yes its possible.

If you have a job where you have access to the internet, then you might be able to answer helptickets and forums, and maybe have IM support, when at work.

errr... a webhost with 1 man is one thing... (thats do-able)

But a webhost witn 1 man that also has another JOB!!! NO WAY!

If you expect to run a webhost with 1 person, that person should be dealing with the webhost as there job, nothing else - otherwise i feel sorry for the customers of that company.

If you have extra pair of eyes and hands than yes its Possible.

Matt, ok I'll buy that .. but ... I am sure that there are people who buy 1 or 2 or 5 reseller packages and then make money off that ...

And I don't think you can survive just with a few cutomers. From what I understand of what you are saying, I would need to buy/rent a dedicated server or two and then get at least 100-200 cutomers ...

I'm saying that I don't understand the economics of this ... To earn an exclusive income from hosting you will need at least 100-200 probably even more customers, but there are companies with much less than that who are still survining? So where is their money comming from? Columbian/Nigerian drug lords ?

If you only have about 20 clients with static websites and no forums/mySql and such and they all know you, there shouldn't be a problem either.

I agree with few clients it could be possible - But there is always a chance of someone suddenly needing support, when a client buys hosting they expect a good standard of support - If someone plans on not offering this it should be made clear before clients signup.

Bob: Hi, my name is Bob, I would like to offer you my hosting package and I promise to take your money and set up relatively quickly and then answer your support requests when I have time. I can not guarantee the connection as I am a reseller but they told me 99.999% up time and they would never lie, so what the heck, here you go 99.999% up time, but if we go down don't scream and shout as I can't do much about i. Otherwise you are on your own. Remember ... I .... oops I mean ... We really care about our customers.

Client: Wow! You are so nice and polite and honest, and your prices are soo good, I'm going to sign up imidialtely and then go post a review on WHT about how wonderful you are.


Ok, so a bit of sarcasm there ... but I can't see how else that would go, I think a lot of people are trying to make some extra money here and managing, so I just wanted to get views from them on how they saw this whole thing. (Not that anybody will own up to that anyway)

the genuine hosts win in the end ... we are the ones who are still here after years and years ;)

Viva RackShack-DS resellers ... oops I mean genuine hosts ... :stickout:

But seriously I do believe that there is still a market for a small 1 man outfit to make some extra money, and I agree with telling the customers up front. I think that a well thought out TOC/SLA outlining realistic support and commuication chanels as well as a small customer base, is a doable thing.

Started out as a 1 man show. We now have me and 2 staff. I still do 16 hours a day. Not that I'm complaining or anything. :smokin:

It is possible to do it as a 1 man show, even with a job. Right now I have the staff but I started as a one man show....and still had a job. My job (and I do this to this day) is working in radio. In my studio I have internet access. Nothing wrong with answering support requests while a song is on. Generally all e-mails that come to me are answered within 5 minutes. Over time our company grew and I hired the staff.....and I kept my radio program from 10am to 3pm.

My point is a lot depends on what your job and schedule look like. I certainly wouldn't do it if I were a truck driver. I can do it because I'm there for 5 hours straight.

I know I wouldn't be able to run my company good without my partner and the techs we have

Thanks for the comments guys ... I'd like to add an extra question or three here ....



- How many customers did you have when you started 0,1,2,...5 ?

- How many customers did you have when you decided it was time for colocation/dedicated

- How many customers did you have when you decided it was time to get help... ie: tech guys / partner ?

Well heres my input....i have a dedicated server just for my site....but then again my site doesnt use all 40 gigs so i offer hosting to friends for a very low cost. They all know if there is a problem then ill get to it later on when i have time. I work full time and run my website on the side and run the hosting in the small time i have left. Otherwise i dont see how you can do it with out help man.

Ok you can let your friends wait .. but how do you handle your other paying customers ??

Another consideration: What happens if you get hit by a big truck or something? Who takes care of your customers then?

Originally posted by UH-Matt
If that person doesnt mind getting about 3 hours sleep a day - then yes its possible.

3 hours? You kidding me? I have a staff and still go 2-3 days without sleeping!

Mort

It really depends. If you have customers like me, then you will be fine. For the first three months with my host, I have had seven support tickets, four of which were changing my credit card info. If you offer small web site hosting - 20MB space, 1GB of transfer, you willbe fine, too

Originally posted by Carboran
four of which were changing my credit card info.

Thats why I added the feature to let Customers change there own billing info in my sotware;) Thats like the number 3 call:)

Ok, So I see that basically if you keep your customer base small and managable you should be fine, once you grow you might want to invest in some pack mules aka: techies ... I agree with all of these although I am still very sure that there are a lot of people, a few even of the active people here that are running one man shows just aren't willing to admit that in public.

But thanks all for your comments ... keep them comming .. :)

It is also possible to outsource some of your support. We use actsupport as a back-up in the event a staff member is out...or it is a holiday, etc. It isn't that expensive to outsource some of your stuff....

A lot of the guys here start out on their own. When the business grows so does the amount of partners/employees.

Basically, a one-man show for webhosting is possible, but only if:
1) That is your one and only job.
2) You've a very good temper (because you're going to be the only one handling customer issues)
3) You can go without sleep for 2 to 3 days at a stretch in the case of unforeseen problems such as server crashes.

I know it sound exaggerated, but some of the hosts around here do go through the stuff I just mentioned ;)

It's also smart to have a disaster recovery plan: someone, usually a good friend who's semi-websavvy, who can take over for you should you be hit by a bus or otherwise incapacitated. It does take a LOT of documentation, as you need to write out all the information your emergency backup would need and then keep that documentation up to date and otherwise secured - you don't want your procedures scattered all throughout the Internet - but it's a nice bit of safety to have. I know that if I break a leg, or have the flu and can't even focus beyond the end of my nose, or have a family emergency to take care of, that my clients won't just be left in the lurch.

It's also nice, because I can ask my friend to take over for me on a single-day basis when I desperately need a break. :D

I would tend to think there are a lot of one-man webhosts out there...

Ok I'm getting the flow here that it's not a good idea. My question originally was for a small type outfit. I was thinking more along the lines of getting a small reseller plan and going from that. I am not looking to take over the world here, my thoughts are that if I start small I can have a few customers and see how it goes, with a minimal financial investment. Sure if it takes off then I think I would look into getting some extra help.

Your plan sounds solid: start small, be ready to grow with your business, but don't start out with a full staff and all the overhead that implies.

As long as you keep an eye on how many clients you have, how many clients you seem to add in a given two-month period on average, and much work you did to support X number of clients, and how many people you would need to add to keep from overextending yourself, you can stay ahead of anything but sudden explosive growth. (Which sounds like something that should be surgically removed...)

Being a single-person operation isn't all bad - you just have other things you need to be careful of. You don't have overhead, but you do have to take care of everything yourself. It's possible, especially when you're just starting out.

I work for a very large (I won't mention the name but in the top 10) webhosting and dedicated server companies, and I can tell you for a fact that there are a LOT of one-man (and one woman) web hosting businesses out there.

Frankly, I'm surprised at the number of people who haven't a clue but lease a server and start a hosting business -- and are successful! Flying by the seat of their pants with no backup plan, disaster recovery, etc. -- and making money!

I've also seen linux gurus fail miserably because they're great at building and maintaining super servers, but suck at customer service and marketing.

Can one man (or woman) run a hosting company? The answer is, it depends on what you're promising customers and whether you can produce what you've promised over the long term.

Automation is key! Automate the sign-up, billing, trouble tickets, and as many processes as you can. Write lots of great FAQs! Monitor your server performance/logs and keep up with security -- or pay someone else to. Have the means ($$) to use paid support or consultants if you must. Especially when it comes to upgrading kernals, control panels, etc. Do upgrades early in the morning when all the help (and usually the more experienced staff) is available at your dedicated hosting company or software vendor to save your butt if it all should go to hell.

Most importantly, have a backup plan that you know how to use. Or pay for a backup solution with your provider. No matter what happens, there is nothing worse than having to call your customers and tell them you've lost all of their data -- I've seen this happen over and over again.

I used to work for one of those big hosting companies to;) It used to drive me nuts when they had absolutely no clue what they where doing. I had one guy call in and ask how to setup his customers email accounts with outlook express... If you want to run a one man show and know what you are doing go for it. But if you have no idea how to administer a server and run a business dont do it. or at least learn FIRST

aNc
Originally posted by vikvaliant
I work for a very large (I won't mention the name but in the top 10) webhosting and dedicated server companies, and I can tell you for a fact that there are a LOT of one-man (and one woman) web hosting businesses out there.

Frankly, I'm surprised at the number of people who haven't a clue but lease a server and start a hosting business -- and are successful! Flying by the seat of their pants with no backup plan, disaster recovery, etc. -- and making money!

I've also seen linux gurus fail miserably because they're great at building and maintaining super servers, but suck at customer service and marketing.

Can one man (or woman) run a hosting company? The answer is, it depends on what you're promising customers and whether you can produce what you've promised over the long term.

Automation is key! Automate the sign-up, billing, trouble tickets, and as many processes as you can. Write lots of great FAQs! Monitor your server performance/logs and keep up with security -- or pay someone else to. Have the means ($$) to use paid support or consultants if you must. Especially when it comes to upgrading kernals, control panels, etc. Do upgrades early in the morning when all the help (and usually the more experienced staff) is available at your dedicated hosting company or software vendor to save your butt if it all should go to hell.

Most importantly, have a backup plan that you know how to use. Or pay for a backup solution with your provider. No matter what happens, there is nothing worse than having to call your customers and tell them you've lost all of their data -- I've seen this happen over and over again.

I see a few people suggested automation .. What would you automate, which functions of the service and which would have to be handled manualy.

I understand that logging tickets, taking subs, changing details and mantaining the site would be automatic while answering the tickets and emails would be manual. By automating what other part of the system would my life get much easier?

Thanks

Coffee, lots of automated coffee - definitely.

Summary:

Answer: YES a host CAN be a 1 man show.

Advice: Dont even try it :)

Matt, I disagree. Alot of hosts start off as a one man show. As for HostNexus, it started straight on a dedicated server with Rackspace with 2 techs - me and our US based tech. I was living in Japan at the time so that is how we managed 24/7 support from day 1. The company was funded by my partner who played no role in HN before I got to AU. So, in essence, there 3 of us, but 2 ran the tech side.

I decided to jump in with 2 feet so we weren't a one man show from the start but I can see how one could successfully do it. :)

All depends on what you call "rapid" support I suppose. A 1 man show needs sleep.

Matt, I agree that a one-man-show might not get extreme support ... but I have seen a lot of the BIG companies with lots of tech guys take longer to answer then some of the smaller guys, and sometimes the smaller guys have better quality of answers then the big guys. I think if I specifically state that an answer will be forthcoming within 24 hours and the customer agrees to that then if I spend a few hours every evening on it there shouldn't be to much of a problem, although I might be wrong, that's why I'm asking this publicly :)

Sure - Im not trying to start any arguments, just stating the obvious i suppose. :)

i havent followed all the posts here..

but in the early stages of a business, sure.. one man could run the show.

however it would depend on how they handle stress, time management, how familiar they are with business both technical and with the books..

the level of support you will be able to give your customers depends on if you work a full time job not related to your business, and if you have internet access there and are able to log into forums/email/whatnot.

i think that if you wanted to give it a shot, im sure you would be fine for a bit depending on growth, and the above.

Originally posted by UH-Matt
All depends on what you call "rapid" support I suppose. A 1 man show needs sleep.

i agree.

I see a lot of people saying that this will not work or will be very difficult. If that is the case, then why do most of the reputable and even the tim, dick and travis hosts offer reseller accounts.

Just a question since I see reseller accounts being offered in a lot of places.

Well a hosting company on a reseller account is very different to a proper hosting company maintaining servers and all the responsibilities which come with this.

General a host on a reseller account is small enough to be run by a single person - I assumed we were talking about full on hosting companies.

Well I am interested in all sorts of possibilities, but as we are talking about the whole hosting cycle I was thinking about starting small on a reseller and then growing with the needs of the company ...

Well in my opinion i find that it is possible.

I started off as a 'one-man-show' but after i saw how easily other companies got a reputation of such bad support i decided to take on a couple staff, fair enough you lose some money but the upside is that you get a more reliable and fuller service for your clients.

You gotta remember that at some point of every business you lose money just so that it's possible in the future to make money :)

The only place money comes before success is in the dictionary.

Well, im a one man show and manage no problems. Make plenty of money and most days only need to work for a couple of hours, rest of time is spent browsing wht...

Some days i have to work 8 hours... not that often though

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Well, im a one man show and manage no problems. Make plenty of money and most days only need to work for a couple of hours, rest of time is spent browsing wht...
I find that very hard to believe. :eek:

A one-man show should suck. You have no social life what-so-ever

A one-man show should suck. You have no social life what-so-ever

Well... i was out at the weekend like everyone else.

I find that very hard to believe.


well... 20 support tickets a day, i can answer them in a couple of hours without much difficulty. The work is done through out the day though when ever a ticket comes in.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Well... i was out at the weekend like everyone else.
How many staff do you have?

I don't even leave the house unless I have made arrangements with my 2 staff members. How can you go out like that with no staff? Just curious. :)

Spalshhost, I didn't mean to be rude, by the way. I was just making an observation that the business is too time consuming for a single person

j/k

Actually, one man can do it at the beginning if he has everything set up well...with a dependable provider....with a good faq or knowledgebase...with good new customer welcome letters...and with reasonable expectations given to customers. With the increase of outside support and hosts offering support for their resellers, it is even more possible. It just has to be well planned and your "partners' picked very carefully.

That said, I can only picture a one-man show for a limited time at startup. I do not have the sense of calm Alan does to go out and know no one is watching what's going on. However, in the early days you can find someone you trust for those times, then add people when required.

How many staff do you have?

0... i take a cell phone, monitoring goes to my cell phone. Also emergency department of help desk goes to my mobile. If something goes wrong i can phone the noc and get a reboot from my mobile, or phone a friend if its a more complex issue. If its a very complex issue i can jump in a taxi and be home in 15 mins..

Away to purchase a pda so i wouldnt even need to do that.

I also find saturday and friday nights are very quiet support wise, i got up on sunday morning with only 2 e-mails needing answered.

One thing i have noticed that my work load is definately related to the amount my company is growing, Im growing a little slower now which is good.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
0... i take a cell phone, monitoring goes to my cell phone. Also emergency department of help desk goes to my mobile. If something goes wrong i can phone the noc and get a reboot from my mobile, or phone a friend if its a more complex issue. If its a very complex issue i can jump in a taxi and be home in 15 mins..
I'm nervous if we don't notify clients of a server issue within minutes. After 15 minutes, I'd feel dead in the water. :eek:
Away to purchase a pda so i wouldnt even need to do that.
Good luck trying to bring back a server from a PDA. I didn't think they were that advanced. If it works for you and your clients, then more power to you. :)

I dont see why it wont be possible to bring it back from the dead with a pda, you can have ssh, 45k internet access and a foldy out keyboard.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
One thing i have noticed that my work load is definately related to the amount my company is growing, Im growing a little slower now which is good.
Just noticed you're back to "Host Unlimited Domains" too. That's somewhat interesting. :) Someone we all know has a trademark on those 3 words now. ;)

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
I dont see why it wont be possible to bring it back from the dead with a pda, you can have ssh, 45k internet access and a foldy out keyboard.
Probably a topic for another thread, but I'd love to know if anyone has actually done this. I know you have the keyboards. I just didn't know you could open a true SSH session on a PDA.

Bob... i noticed your back to it as well ;)

I just didn't know you could open a true SSH session on a PDA.

Yes you can... you could even do it from one of those new cell phones with java, but god knows how you would type in it lol.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com

Yes you can... you could even do it from one of those new cell phones with java, but god knows how you would type in it lol.

Have any more information? I'd be interested in one of those for sure.

However, cell phone isn't a PDA. There's some expensive PDAs out there with voice capabilities though.

in a cell phone that runs java? I just heard that you can.. someone even made a web server out of a mobile :eek:

All you have to do is get a nice lappy and a cell phone with internet connectivity put your lap online through your cell phone. Incase of emergency :D.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Bob... i noticed your back to it as well ;)
Ahhhh, no. We're back on "MULTIPLE Domains"....:smokin:

I wonder how mchost managed to tradmark "Host Unlimited Domains"... I might just get by with trademarking "Unlimited":idea: :pimp:

I'm trademarking the word 'the'. :D

ph33r m3!!!!!!!!!!

I see a few people suggested automation .. What would you automate, which functions of the service and which would have to be handled manualy.

Depends on what services and packages you offer. But typically, any process that you find yourself doing over and over again should be automated as best as possible.

- Sign-ups

- Monthly billing and credit card processing

- Customer access to make changes in their own accounts

- A decent trouble ticket system

- Reliable backup method

- Writing good FAQs to save you from having to answer the same questions over and over agian.

** I am sure I am missing some and some folks could probably add to this.

Here are some things I think you should do to avoid potential disasters, stress, and headaches -- for you and your customers. For that Saturday afternoon, or when you're at work, and you get a call from your provider saying that your server has been hacked, or complete hardware failure.

- Have a reliable backup plan in place -- your own or through your provider. I cannot stress how important this is. Also, know how to actually restore your DNS, control panels, users, etc. from the backup before you actually have to. For instance, Cobalt servers require scripts to restore the GUI, users, and DNS. You cannot just untar a backup file and expect it all to work. Some hosting companies will offer you a backup solution, but will not actually restore the data back on to the server -- they'll just give you a tarbal of your files. Make sure you clarify that with your provider -- through tech support, not sales!

- Keep up with the security patches and updates for all software and services running on your machine. Before installing any of these patches, or doing upgrades, ensure that you have the expertise -- or have someone around who does -- who can fix things if something breaks. I think the best time to do this is early in the morning. That way, if something should go terribly wrong, you can access the full support of your vendor when they open up for business and/or their most experienced staff who usually work the 9 AM to 5 PM (M-F) shifts. Some of you who've upgraded their Plesk to version 5 lately, may know what I'm talking about here.

-- Think about the future. Think about how to stop things before they happen. What should I do if I am DOS attacked? What should I do if I am mailbombed? Would I know if one of my customer's bandwidth (and consequently my bw bill) was going through the roof? Monitor your logs and look for spammers, formmail.pl vulnerabilities, relaying, password hacking attempts, and other things you can put the kabosh on before they become issues by intalling scripts or security packages (portsentry, ipchains, tripwire, bandwidth limits, etc.). You could learn this on your spare time, or you can try to learn it in the middle of a crisis with your customers screaming at you.

I see many one man (and one woman) hosting companies where I work, and the ones who do most of what I mentioned above are able to handle it quite easily with families and a "regular" job. Even when the poop hits the fan.

finally an amazing and, would you believe it, a relevant post! good job, vikvaliant

I agree that a 1-person operation is fine starting out if all is in order. Just please don't take up hosting as a part-time job. It is not a part-time job meant for teenagers to make money.

Weekend, nite and holiday support is important. I send in most support requests on Sat and Sun and in the early morning hours from 1-6 a.m. I guess that would knock out Splashhost for me. :)

Hi all .. thanks all for the input (even for for Uncle bob and Splash having a little fight there -point finger-) ... and thanks to the others for your good advice. I get the feeling that the 'big' hosts are discouraging or even bringing down the idea of a one-man show.

I realise that there are multiple problems with running any business by yourself, but I see that with a lot of forethought, planning and careful investigations it is a possibility.

And somewhere along the line, I think these sort of ventures could give the bigger guys a run for their money, definately price wise and with proper managment provide good service too.

Having said that, I think I will do some more investigations and research into this and once I get everything organised I plan to get something rolling early next year.

Once again thanks to all ...

Originally posted by HingyGuy
Hi all .. thanks all for the input (even for for Uncle bob and Splash having a little fight there -point finger-) ...
You call that a "fight" ??? :eek: :emlaugh:

You aint seen nothing yet!!! :D ;)

Bob, does that 16 hrs a day include the 12 hrs a day you spend on WHT? :)

Yea Bob, tell us that. :D

Just recovering from 36 hours of dodgy ADSL from Telstra - couldn't get to WHT. :bawling:

Goodluck HingyGuy hope the feedback helped.

Sorry to bump up the thread ... but it did help and is still helping ...
So thanks to all for the info .... I'm hoping that it will not discourage the prospecting businessmen out there

(I say businessmen as I can not spell entrep....?????)

Thanks guys ...

www.dictionary.com :)

Originally posted by chrisb
Bob, does that 16 hrs a day include the 12 hrs a day you spend on WHT? :)
hehe. I duck in and out. I'm not here that much really. I'm just a really fast poster. :smokin: :emlaugh:

in denial

Originally posted by NexDog
Yea Bob, tell us that. :D

Just recovering from 36 hours of dodgy ADSL from Telstra - couldn't get to WHT. :bawling:
Yeah, tell me about it. It's real patchy here. I have a backup dialup account for such instances. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by UH-Matt
in denial
Pretty much....yeah....:blush: ;)