Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Dedicated Server : Need Help

[rajiv]

Hello Friends
I am Rajiv Mehta.
I want to lease dedicated servers and start a web hosting company for resellers only and I plan to get 1000 resellers in 6.
I have also joined bulkregister.com for providing my resellers domain at only $13 per month and I will register for $ 10.
1000 resellers basically means if a reseller sells 5 domains and 3 accounts per month then it comes to a lot.

I need a investor or a person who can provide dedicted servers.
Now most of you will ask why people will join me?
1.) Quility support. After a month I will provide 24 hrs. chat support at the site
2.) Billing solution for resellers. I am thinking of tieing up with verza.com to provide billing solution
3.) 20 plans to sell
4.) Can sell our designing to increase there income. I will 20% discount for designing for resellers
5.) Every low prices accounts
6.) E-commerce solutions @ low prices
7.) Nameservers
8.) Resellers can make their own resellers who will get nameservers
9.) Domains @ cheap
10.)Web promotion services which also resellers can provide at their site
11.)If reseller wants to do only marketing then we make the site, handle e-mails and take very low price
12.)Site maintanance services which resellers can sell
13.)Weekly newsletters to increase their sales
14.)Forum to discuss problems and get solutions
15.)Dediacted server to reseller who starts selling over 80 accounts per month.
16.)Resellers can make their own resellers and we will provide the namservers
17.)If a person comes to know that a person is our reseller then it will not affect as we sell only to resellers
18.)Customize plans but at $ 50 set up
19.)It is not nessacary that reseller should have account with us. If he has a site he can just fill a form at start reselling at his site.

If any one is interested in starting a company like this and can provide $ 1000 - 3000 to start. It will be great.
You can post your questions here or e-mail me at rajivmehta1999@yahoo.com
Thank you

Rajiv Mehta

[MikeA]

Hi Rajiv,

Not trying to rain on your parade, but you probably aren't going to find someone here who wants to help you start your business, especially if you can't offer any up front cash.

Here are some questions that I would have:

1) Do you have a business plan?
2) How do you expect to get these 1000 resellers?
3) Have you priced servers?
4) Have you checked on advertising? To do what you want will require advertising on some of the big boys which could cost you upwards of $2000 per month.
5) What is your background?
6) How old are you? I know that this shouldn't matter, but some people will have a problem giving that kind of cash to a young kid.

These are just a few. Typically, the best thing to do is to start the business on your own, then when you have several clients ask for investors.

Just my opinion.

[rajiv]

I expect to get 1000 resellers from the features I told you and advertisements in host search sites. I will start from $ 500 advertisements and when I start getting resellers and they start selling space. I will advertise on full and then get about 1000 resellers in 6 - 8 months. I live in India. I am 15 years old to be honest. I will not like to start a biz when I am not true. I know 15 yrs. people will think I am not serious and I am a kid but I know I can do it. Yes I have also priced the servers and I am thinking of getting servers from catalog.com or dailtoneinternet.com or rackspace.com

Thank you Sir

Rajiv Mehta

[kunal]

Rajiv, I spoke to you on ICQ. Anyways, your approach to the business is interesting and a little to ignorant. Paying 2000$ for a domain name + one month of d-server cost is kinda expensive. On what basis are you making your projections of a 1000 Resellers in 6months?

[rajiv]

I am saying this because of the features I am providing plus low cost plans for resellers and ofcourse the because of advertisements

[DanielP]

Rajiv, I've been there done that soto speak.

I've been in this industry for over 4 years now, I started in it when I was your age, 15, working for other companies.

It is not pricing or plans that will attract your customers. Its your dedication and support.

I can promise you those growth figures will take a MINIMUM of 1-3 years to accomplish.

Your 15, which means school, which means your going to miss a big window for business's. Advertising alone does not get you customers, age isn't going to be too much of a factor.

But knowledge will be the greatest factor. How much do "you" know about servers, linux, "i need this special thing done for this customer" can you handle anything thrown out at you.

Contrary to popular myth, the hosting industry is *not* easy. Sure , if your a webpage designer and are a reseller for someone 2 give your design clients a place to host that might be easy.

But when your talking about dedicated servers you bring a WHOLE new round of "what ifs" into the picture. What happens when the server crashes while your in school, or apache dies? Your school teachers going to apreciate you bringing a pager to call and getting paged, then having to rush to the nearest computer to try and get it fixed?

There is MUCH MUCH more to hosting than "plans" or "money".

It takes an ENORMOUS amount of time if you want it to succeede.

Just think about it hard and long.

[DanielP]

Also, advertisments do NOT bring clients.

They bring people to your site, after that, its your support and sales email responces and pricing which sells them.

Advertisments are only a SMALL very SMALL part of getting customers.

[Chicken]

Rajiv, this must be the 3rd time you have posted something like this in 6 months on various boards. The only problem with your whole plan, is WHY do we need YOU? I realize why YOU need someone else.

Your plan (shall we call it that), is not ground breaking. I have seen you post the plans you'd like to resell. What makes you think that offering 20 PLANS, is something that anyone would want? 20 plans??? I can tell you that as someone who looked at many hosts and their packages, that you don't need more than 5 tops (and I would personally limit it to 3). You can always add on a bit more space for $xxx.00 . Anyway, there is little point to discussing this again, as I commented the last two times you posted.

Bottom line:
You are 15. People with money would be wary.
You don't have a realistic plan.
You aren't going to get 1,000 resellers in 6 months.
You don't seem to have money to put towards this plan.
You seem to be looking for 100% financing.
WHY do we need YOU?

[Annette]

Well, Rajiv is nothing if not consistent (i.e., trying to get a boatload of stuff for nothing). I seem to remember this exact same type of post at a couple of forums in the past few months. Now, just as then, it is pretty far-fetched.

[Chicken]

Yep, he is consistant (I will giveum that). Although it is troubling that he has not managed to further his dream towards something a bit more realistic.

Reminds me of the chap who wanted a U.S. host to realize the potential for third world countries by offering $1-$2 accounts that they'd normally sell here (here being not in a third world country), for $5-$15. What a fantastic idea eh? Errrr... wait a second, did I just sell a 50MB 2Gig/mo account for $1.00 ???

I'm sure in his mind this somehow all works out.

[kunal]

Well, like most of the guys and gals have already said, it all depends on how much dedication you can give your service, a 100%? 90% 85%? if something below this, forget about it. Wait a little longer and then hit the hosting biz.

I thought like you, about a year ago, when I was 15 . I thought you could buy a book of the shelf and get into the biz, BUT when some one needs something done NOW, or something unexpected happens to the server, the book is of no or very little help.

[BC]

*cough**hack*HostSpot?*hack**cough*

Seriously, Rajiv, here are just some sample questions that a customer like me may throw at you (and I'm pretty sure you're sick of me by now )

1. Are you going to leave school to provide 24-hour support for your servers? Will you truly be there at 4:30 a.m. in the morning Mumbai time when my site has crashed and the client's losing valuable money per hour?

2. What does /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd/ reload do?

3. How are you going to secure credit card facilities (to accept orders)? The SSL certs need to be registered in your name and your hosting company (NOT the investor's) and Thawte/VeriSign will not give certs to just anyone (much less, under-age people). Quite frankly, they'd be laughing their arses off behind your back. And without a SSL cert, you can't guarantee the safety of your clients' credit card numbers.

4. I seem to recall you saying in HostSpot that you had secured an investor and had gotten things running. What happened to him?

5. Finally, and above all, give me five reasons why I should choose you over established hosts like Hosting Matters, WebExpose, Below $10 Host, Futurequest, Tera-Byte, et. al.

If you can eventually prove me wrong, I'll eat my words. Until then, you'll keep getting scepticism from me.

P.S. (ok, so I was a bit extreme with q.2, but still...)

[MikeA]

Originally posted by BC
2. What does /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd/ reload do?

What does this do? Just kidding....I think you threw an extra / in there.

Originally posted by BC
5. Finally, and above all, give me five reasons why I should choose you over established hosts like Hosting Matters, WebExpose, Below $10 Host, Futurequest, Tera-Byte, et. al.

I'm hurt that neither Martie (HostCaters) or myself (WebAuthorities) made it into your list. I think that I'm just going to cry.

[Blanket]

Heyas All,

I've been reading this board for quite sometimes now and after reading this post, I nearly cracked up and so I just had to register and reply to this post.

Rajiv, not being offensive or anything, but you really need to firmly plant your feet onto the ground.

Currently, I'm a Uni student(Doing 1st year IT and 3rd year Management) with a computer business of my own, selling computer parts and systems, and I was able to make a real profit within 2 weeks of going into business, and I must say that it was not easy during the first 2 weeks in trying to recoup my investment capital. You need to plan and plan really well because there are many factors which needs to be taken into account.

Advertising alone will not get you 1000 resellers within 6 months. Let's Assume that you make $5 gross profit per month from each resellers who signs up, that means that in 6 months, you'll be making $30,000 on that 6 month period from those 1000 resellers (gross profit).

This is pretty unrealistic for most people when they just get into business, especially at the age of 15!! btw, I'm 21.

Currently, I am also interested in jumping into this webhosting business as a reseller, and I've talked to Annette and the people from HostMatters and as well as some others, in order to learn more about this. I'm not very experience in this at all. Probably much worse than Learner, but I'm definitely willing to learn and be realistic about what I can achieve.

so.. Rajiv, do your research first and stop asking people to fund your business. If the bank won't fund you, I don't think any of us are willing to take the risk. For one thing, we don't even know you and so.. why should we take a gamble of $2k or so just on your words alone?. I don't think you've got any major assets! like a car or something.

Start small.. go sell candy or something, I did that when I was 10.

btw, sorry about the poor gramma, English is my 3rd language.
ps: What does /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd/ reload do?

[Edited by Blanket on 09-15-2000 at 12:34 PM]

[BC]

Sorry Mike, I'll remember to add you and Martie next time. My list of recommended hosts has expanded to about 10-13 hosts, so it's a bit hard remembering all of them at the same time

And yes, I know... But that was quite deliberate, you see... If someone knows Linux properly they'll know that that slash is not supposed to be there! You blew it