Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : How much can one person do?

[Rehan]

What's the typical scenario for a one-person web hosting company (if that's even possible!). If one person was looking after running the business, marketing and advertising, and customer support (server maintenance and business web site would be done by someone else), then how many clients could reasonably be managed -- in 30-40 hrs per week, for example?

Thanks for any insight (even if the answer is "just one or two clients!" ).

Rehan

[cbaker17]

If you want your busines to grow look at putting in 80 hour weeks. Im pretty sure just about everyone will agree with me, heck, were a fairly large company, and my self alone just for sales I put in prob 60 hours every week. And we have 2 other sales staff besides me, it just depends the more time you can put in the more money your going to make no questions asked.....

[Rehan]

Well, my view is that if you have 80 hours of work to do per week, you should hire another person and split the tasks.

I wasn't thinking of anything big... Maybe something like 100-200 clients, growing at a rate of 5-10 new clients per week. How much time would that take to manage?

I'm trying to get an idea of the web hosting business model, and whether it's worthwhile for one person to try to run it.

For example, if 300 clients is reasonable then: 300 virtual hosting clients at $15/client = $4500/month. Dedicated server and software cost would be around $500-$750/month. Business operations (including advertising, etc.) would be another $500-$750/month (?). So the net is around $3000-$3500 per month with those numbers.

How far off the mark am I?

[cbaker17]

1. Another person can not do it and will not do it as good as you can, even if you hire another person, if you want your business to be successful you will still be working long hard hours....

2. Anything above 200 clients is unmanagable when you consider support.

3. I think with 300 clients your looking at quite a bit of bandwidth hence your monthly service, server, software cost would be more. It all depends on how you work your packages...

[mkaufman]

You may consider becoming a reseller first, a lot of people get into hosting that way and then upgrade to a dedicated server.

[Travis]

I would have to respectfully disagree on the limit of 200 clients.

I go by a general rule of 1 support hour per day for each 100 clients, and that has worked well for QWK.Net. Mind you, this number completely falls apart if you don't have a good control panel and as many self-service tools as possible for your customers.

The numbers will change, though, depending on what type of clients you're trying to attract. I know we keep our support burden substantially down by not supporting FrontPage extensions.

We see average usage of well less than a gig per month per domain, so I don't think server costs will really amount to that much. Your budget estimate is probably pretty reasonable.



[Edited by Travis on 03-02-2001 at 09:28 PM]

[mpkapadia]

Rehan,

I think for upto 200 clients of so you alone shall be fine.
And from my personal experience if once your clients site is up and running there are hardly any support calls. what you can do is invest in a quality server , reasonably good control panel , have real exhaustive Faqs on your site, and you should be fine.

And yes, you will still have to give 70-80 hours per week,
Thats how i do , We used to be a one man company till not so long ago, now we are a team but still the hosting part I am handling personally. we have around 210 sites split across 2 servers and i am not recving more than 2 support calls daily.

Also i have noticed that many are now asking for support through email which makes your job much more simple.

Wish you good luck for your business

Regards
Manish Kapadia
Bombay-India

[Rehan]

Thanks a lot for the responses, folks. It's very useful information.

Travis: Which control panel do you use for QWK.Net?

Manish: If there are hardly any support calls, then what takes up the majority of the 70-80 hours per week? Is it mostly sales & marketing?


Rehan

[mpkapadia]

Yes Most of it is Sales and Marketing,
That too not about just hosting, and this includes field marketing , and my other office staff back me up when i am out for hosting.

Also most of our clients are very satisfied with our service and support.

Regards
Manish Kapadia
Bombay-India

[Travis]

Rehan:

QWK.Net uses a control panel developed in-house called QWKMin.

Ours doesn't yet have all the features of something like CPanel, but we do have billing completely automated, which saves a huge amount of time.

[akashik]

Here's something to put a perspective on things. It's a small part from an article in January/February 'E-Company Now'

"Multi-tasking doesn't even begin to describe what John Arnold does: Five flat screen monitors bombard him with a constant stream of news, national weather data, and prices for natural gas futures. A headset pumps more prices into his right ear, a regular phone dedicated to customers is cradled to his left; and a squawk box links him to other traders at other desks. Meanwhile his colleagues within earshot are also shouting orders at him"

To top that off this guy does all this with other people's money. He's a day trader for Enron, and is personally responsible for moving $1 billion worth of energy stocks ever single day. He's also only 26 years old *lol*

- can you say 'dead by 40'

Greg Moore

[kunal]

Originally posted by akashik
- can you say 'dead by 40'

I think he is already dead

[Jaiem]

Day Traders have a very short professional life. Burn out is around 95%.

[Marq]

hmmm... I think professional life is over soon Been working about 10 positions, mostly Support, 16-18 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 6 months, I did however take a 3 day vacation in there though. Guess how much I make? I make enough to pay rent, truck payment, various bills and insurance. Then I live off of $1.18 boxes of Pasta Roni, struggling to await the next pay day. Why do I work for so little? Success. The more dedication you show, the more you are the leader. As business grows, my spot goes nowhere but up. Im only 20 years old, and when working for a small web hosting company (2200 accounts) you can learn more in 6 months, than you can working for some big Corporate establishment. Granted it is very stressful to work these kind of hours, but it will pay itself off. My boss, the owner, he is 28 years old, started getting grey hair at 24. He hasnt taken a day off in just about 500 days. But damn, Id like 10% of the money he makes. But alls you have to do is looking into the future.

[Travis]

You know, no offense... I can imagine doing that to yourself if it was your own business, but why would you if you're working for someone else, especially if you're not getting reimbursed well for it? I sure hope there's a payoff in the end for you... I've seen too many people in your position get taken advantage of.