Hosting / Domain Company is it worth it...

[w4rlock]

I have the knowledge and income to start a hosting/domain company. I have one big question which i'm going to throw out there for you guys to have an input.

Is it worth owning and running a business in this market?

There is loads of companies out there offering hosting and domains at a cheap price. Is it worth starting up and would it provide a steady income?

I thought of it like this... $5 a month hosting with everything unlimited bandwidth etc and then aim to get 100 customers in the first few months. $500 a month sorted? is it really that easy though?

 

[jmelwak]

its not easy at all, think about who your competitors are, godaddy, hostgator, rackspace, etc. its very very hard to compete with giants like that!

 

[blackhaterz]

well i started this business some time ago got 50 clients in 1st week and then they start rapidly growing.
but the main problem was you need enough initial funds to start that business. or you'll got fail like me.
yes it is a very profitable business but requires a lot of initial funds to start with.

 

[Kingu Buraddorei]

I've noticed a lot of hosts flop when they don't take care of their customers. If you make something that will keep your customers happy, it will be worth it.

 

[dar1x]

If you have enough founds to invest in advertise then go for it, you can advertise on forums like blackhatworld, wjuction, webhostingtalk, warriorforum etc... every forum which is related to IM and web hosting in global.
Also forget about adwords it's waste of time and money in web hosting niche, just go for direct banner advertising on forums ( make sure you have professionally designing, eye-catching banner ), you will get 100 clients with ease within a month, just make some kind of a special offers like free domains with 1 year payed upfront, buy 3 get 2 months gratis etc. small things which will make your future clients more comfortable to purchase the hosting from you.

 

[LaLore]

Are you starting your own company or just reselling another hosts products/services?

IMO, the best way to venture into hosting among a sea of "better & pro" providers is to niche your service.

Hosting for... porn, teachers, contractors, authors, real estate professionals, app developers, etc...

 

[fatboy]

I have the knowledge and income to start a hosting/domain company. I have one big question which i'm going to throw out there for you guys to have an input.

What knowledge / experience do you have (not being a cock, just want to know)

Is it worth owning and running a business in this market?

Depends on what services you are going to provide and what market you are looking to go for

There is loads of companies out there offering hosting and domains at a cheap price. Is it worth starting up and would it provide a steady income?

Yes and most of them are doing it wrong - people who 'run' hosting businesses fall in to a few categories:

- Those who think they know and don't and fail
- Those who set up for the school holidays / for a few weeks to make a few quid
- Those who resell other peoples services (always start here to test the water - but these people are dependant at the company they resell for)
- Thise who actually want to have a real go at it, don't mind late nights and losing money for about 6 months or so (at best!)

I thought of it like this... $5 a month hosting with everything unlimited bandwidth etc

I love the 'unlimited' brigade. Tell me when you launch as I will happily pay my $5 to upload my 3Tb of data that I will need to download at least once a day.

then aim to get 100 customers in the first few months. $500 a month sorted? is it really that easy though?

If it was that easy everyone would be at it - prove yourself as a decent host and you may get somewhere near that but make sure you stand out as something different, just not another hostgator wannabie.

 

[sam3724]

You have to do really kick the asses of the giants and do something spectacular to reach the pinnacle on what you are choosing.

 

[Roshaen]

There is a great market if you provide a cheap and affordable price while customer satisfaction and better uptime.There have been many hostings that started pretty well but could not keep up with the pace with price and customer satisfaction.And if you can go for a good offshore hosting or offshore seo hosting it could help you a lot to get good deals.

 

[prab1996]

first start as a hostgator affiliate , you will got $100 per lead .

you will need to get 50 leads , and you will have $5k to invest. you can then start as a host gator reseller.

after some time sell your company you will get more than $100k profit.

 

[IMTopgun]

The problem with going with Hostgator is that they will look for every opportunity to NOT pay you your earned commissions. Someone had a prior account with them at one point in the past (who hasn't who has been around for at least a couple of years), they paid the second month hosting invoice 2 days late, etc.

first start as a hostgator affiliate , you will got $100 per lead .

you will need to get 50 leads , and you will have $5k to invest. you can then start as a host gator reseller.

after some time sell your company you will get more than $100k profit.

 

[Freeopkiller]

I wish I had the gonads for a start-up like this... SUPPORT is everything. I had hosting with hostrocket for almost 15 years just because I was on a first name basis with the 3 tech guys. Being on hold for 20 minutes only to be transfered for another 20 minute hold because you couldn't understand the first person, sucks. These new providers who won't even post a phone number to answer questions about their service I won't deal with either.

I would concentrate on the newbie factor. They are completely lost when it comes to hosting. They wouldn't require much in cpu,memory or bandwidth. If you were known to 'hold their hands', make your accounts super easy to admin with a gui front/backend remove the intimidation geek/factor you might capture a profitable market share.

Personally I'd like an anonymous co-location rackspace with 1000tb fileserver and 3-4 1000gbps unmetered ports and a few blocks of ips.
I just don't think you would want to deal with the repercussions of that..

If you offered super fast services to 'most' on this forum, if they are anything like me, I'm sure when given the chance I'd take full advantage and probably grind the servers to a halt or at least lift some copper off the boards.. No offense ya'll. I wouldn't want to deal with that right from the start.

I would do the newbie market if you have the patience for the tech support..

Could offer an elevated hosting account. Just search for suspended accounts. Pull registar email and offer to transfer website. Most these types of owners are already pissed off and aggrevated. They would probably welcome the email and new services.

What about mobile website hosting ? yeah I know but look what 'unlimited bandwidth' did.

 

[Techxan]

I use a reseller account. I sell hosting to my customers of for $20 a month and that includes 1 hour of troubleshooting f necessary per month. That hour does not roll over.

The first customer paid for 1 years hosting with support in one lump sum, $240. Bluehost reseller account is exactly $240 per year, so he paid for the whole year.

Now when anyone uses my hosting, its all gravy.

I sell hosting for $5 a month without the 1 hour support, billed on a three month basis.

It isn't making me rich, but it adds to the revenue stream, and it cost me nothing to set up. Just find that one customer who will ay a year upfront with support and you are golden.

 

[HeRBaR]

I have the knowledge and income to start a hosting/domain company. I have one big question which i'm going to throw out there for you guys to have an input.

Is it worth owning and running a business in this market?

There is loads of companies out there offering hosting and domains at a cheap price. Is it worth starting up and would it provide a steady income?

I thought of it like this... $5 a month hosting with everything unlimited bandwidth etc and then aim to get 100 customers in the first few months. $500 a month sorted? is it really that easy though?

If it is done right it will be very profitable, but you should be very aggressive on marketing and spend some money monthly in advertising.
Your support should be top-notch and very user friendly and you server should be 99.9% UP.
Anyway anything is possible, but as I said you have to make some good advertising at the beginning.

P.s
To make your process faster, you should go and contact local website design & development companies, or freelancers around your city, country and tell them to cooperate with you. You will find for them leads and they will bring to you leads. This companies can bring up to 100 new users per month if they are good known companies.

 

[Gogol]

Why not buy a reseller instead? If you fear about the downtime, it is always gonna happen even if you own the server. So leave the tough things to be handled by the hosting company and earn hassle free.

 

[greenovni]

Here

An awesome PDF with step by step instructions http://www.scribd.com/doc/165345906/1-000-Clients-in-Web-Hosting

This walks you through everything from setting up http://www.whmcs.com/ which is your client manager, recurring billing etc solution.

Of course you also need some servers, got you covered there too buddy. Just head over to http://www.ovh.com/us/index.xml and get yourself a canadian server for only $39 a month.

As for the control panel you can offer your clients, we all know that most people are used to http://cpanel.net/ but I personally like http://www.ispconfig.org/ispconfig-3/ simply because it is robust, OPEN SOURCE and free It is also what I use on my home servers connected to my cable modem.

That's about all I can tell you before this pills kick in as I am hospitalized because of a bike accident & emergency surgery... no insurance to boot!

Hope that helps.

Green

PS. If anyone knows of dedi servers cheaper than $30 a month let me know via PM

 

[santhej]

i had tried this...providing cheap service is not a problem..but the thing is that providing customer service..it really becomes when u get faced with all those loose questions everyday...i would say its not worth it

 

[Gogol]

WTF? OP din't ask for a guide. He asked for the feasibility.. Did you read the OP?

Here

An awesome PDF with step by step instructions 1,000 clients in web hosting

This walks you through everything from setting up WHMCS which is your client manager, recurring billing etc solution.

Of course you also need some servers, got you covered there too buddy. Just head over to OVH and get yourself a canadian server for only $39 a month.

As for the control panel you can offer your clients, we all know that most people are used to cPanel but I personally like ISPconfig 3 simply because it is robust, OPEN SOURCE and free It is also what I use on my home servers connected to my cable modem.

That's about all I can tell you before this pills kick in as I am hospitalized because of a bike accident & emergency surgery... no insurance to boot!

Hope that helps.

Green

PS. If anyone knows of dedi servers cheaper than $30 a month let me know via PM

 

[jedrobert]

sorry mate but its so saturated i wouldnt even bother. think of all the big brand names out there already in which you would be competing.