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02-03-2014, 04:37 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Dec 2013
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- 68
A couple GSP business related questions
Hey guys,
These may a bit to personal of questions but figured if I can get the information it would really help my business plan.
I have calculated the Net profit per 100 customers is around 800 monthly or a $240 profit per server. This is much lower than I first thought is this close to your business?
What is your customer/employee ratio? 1000/1? 10000/1?
Whats the cost to outsource live chat?
Whats the average charge to a customer? I estimated $13.00.
How many customers did you get in 1 month, 6 month, 1 year?
Thanks for all the help and support.
Really appreciate you guys.
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02-03-2014, 10:15 PM #2Web Hosting Master
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- Jan 2011
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- Dallas, TX
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The amount of customers you get depends on your marketing techniques and your quality of service. So I doubt people saying how many customers they got would help you any (or if they will even give this information)
≡ ExtraVM - DDoS Protected NVMe VPS, Website Hosting, & Game Servers
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02-03-2014, 10:33 PM #3Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Dec 2013
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Just interested in a average for the smaller providers. There are a ton out there.
I am having a hard time determining the market.
I am showing Minecraft server hosting gets 18k searches a month.
Dayz gets 1000 searches and it gets lower from there.
Getting an answer to any of the questions would be useful but I respect that a business may not want to divulge information.
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02-04-2014, 12:48 PM #4Aspiring Evangelist
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- Jun 2013
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- 430
Who cares about the profit, if you do it right you will make money. The real question is do you know how to set up everything and also how to do stuff without using a control panel as a crutch? Its not like web hosting where you set up c panel and call it a day. Gamers are demanding and expect the best all the time.
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02-06-2014, 10:13 PM #5New Member
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- Jan 2014
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- 3
As a small and young company I feel we can answer these questions fairly well:
1. Profit depends on your operational expenditure, sell price, etc.
Hosting in Brisbane, Australia is expensive - but it also limits our competition which is great for business. Having no paid employees helps as both owners run the business.
2. We are a relatively small company (<500 customers) and have two staff. We answer maybe 20-50 requests a week if that. Most of which can be pointed to an FAQ.
3. No idea, we're not at that point yet.
4. Charge depends on the game and the market. We normally set a per-slot price based on resource consumption and local competitor pricing.
5. We see a relatively steady rate of gaining customers and a small amount of loss. We have noticed that during long weekends we gain double or triple the normal number of customers.
Hope that provides some insight into the market.
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02-06-2014, 11:49 PM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Dec 2013
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- 68
Thanks for the info. I have had some preorders from Austalia but not enough to be profitable. Ill send them your way if you support the game in the future
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02-13-2014, 12:16 AM #7Newbie
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- Feb 2014
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- 8
I have been looking for a server for my son, and after reading peoples reviews on some GSP's it seems like a select handful are in it for the profits, and do not care about the service.
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02-13-2014, 12:29 AM #8Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Dec 2013
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- 68
I think everyone is in it for profit. No one wants to take the time/money to take a loss. Now I hope most are in it for the love of technology and gaming in general.
I am looking at making a 2-2.5x profit per server which I think is good but wanted to check how others were doing. I am also not overloading any boxes with my figures. You pay for a GB you get a GB.
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04-01-2014, 11:08 AM #9Newbie
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- May 2011
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- UK
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- 12
I think the GSPs that have been around for a number of years are generally very good and are in it for the right reasons. Every year you see a lot of new startup GSPs that are usually students on summer break setting up something without any longevity.
Profit is not a filthy word and you must make some in order to provide a decent level of service to your customers and have motivated staff, etc. Its hard to do thiat if your business is either voluntary or going backwards :-)
As has been pointed out here earlier the mileage will vary hugely from someone elses business to yours as your techniques, etc will be different. That said however I think your conservative estimates are a sensible starting point.
Best,
Robert
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04-01-2014, 04:07 PM #10Web Hosting Master
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- Oct 2010
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- New York
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As someone who has exited the GSP business recently, let me be the first to tell you, don't bother.
GSP market has little to no customers at this point. If you started earlier, you may of gotten a piece of the pie. Not to mention private server files and consoles are also making it a smaller and smaller market. You'll also most likely deal with the most immature customers, since most of them are probably going to be kids.
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04-01-2014, 05:20 PM #11Web Hosting Master
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- Feb 2014
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04-02-2014, 10:21 AM #12Retired Moderator
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- May 2004
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- Toronto, Canada
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No.. Artie is correct. They may light up the bandwagon as you say but:
- They will be extremely fickle willing to jump ship for 1ms ping difference.
- You will be inundated with requests for free service.
- You will obtain chargebacks from parents credit cards
- You will face DDOS attacks further eating your margin
For those that said some are only in it for the profit, any business not turning a profit is going out of business so a balance of both sustainable pricing leading to profit plus a love of the market goes a long way.
In my opinion the OP is thinking the right way and in the right ratio's. It is difficult to sustain the business with 4 dedicated servers and a couple of hundred customers. You need some level of scale, a lot of Marketing, and processes to handle support and sales. Finally you need time. It is NOT a get rich quick business (which business is?) but you can lose a lot of money quickly with it.CloudNexus Technology Services
Managed Services
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04-02-2014, 10:34 AM #13Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Dec 2013
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Thanks for the info. I decided to just do affiliation at this point as I do not have the capital/time to support the amount of pre orders.
If anyone has a global network of servers and is looking for 1000-4000 new customers for a game that's releasing soon let me know. I am currently getting bids for 20% recurring commission.
Still looking for an Australia providers (got like 30 request for servers there).Dedicated Server Hosting Database Dedicated Server Hosting HQ can help you find the right provider. Easy to use search to find a provider in every country at the prices you need.
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04-03-2014, 04:53 PM #14Newbie
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- May 2011
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- UK
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- 12
Yep we can definitely help you out with this one! Give me a shout :-)
I also think affiliate is a great way to get into the business without necessarily getting in too deep with finances, etc.
Best regards,
Robert
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