Starting a hosting company

[Fr0z3N]

How would you go trying to start your own hosting company?

[hismajesty]

www.google.com

[Thing]

How would you go trying to start your own hosting company?

Don't.  It sucks.  People suck.  People are stupid.

[quasi-modo]

Look, it takes money to make money. You would need to buy a good line that has a lot of bandwidth (full t1 to start maybe, but you will quickly need higher uploads if you get numerous clients and they have popular sites), and you will need fast boxes, several probably. Then you need to buy your software, which can be pricy if you want to run a windows server or use a db like oracle or something. Then you have to worrie about the monthly electrial bill on top of it which is a hidden cost. The cost of the line per month alone is going to be killer, that will be the majority of your overhead. Unless you have a good amount of money and are willing to take a risk do not bother, I would not reccomed anyone takeing out a lone to do this either, unless they have clients lined up, because this industry is packed, and the odds are you will go belly up.

[Thing]

peofeoknight is right.  I spend $3,700.00 per month just to turn the lights on.  That is just for bandwidth, rent, phone and utilites.  Add even more for salaries, three company cars + insurance and all the other crap that you have to buy.  Then you get to deal with all the asshole dumbass fuckers that call you up twice per month because they can't remember their password.  And then there are the idiots that send you email saying that their email is down!  WTF?

Dive on in and soon you will learn why they are regarded as lusers.  You will also need to save back some money so you can get plastered a couple of times per month and cleanse yourself from their diseases.  Hopefully you won't get DDoSed while you're loaded.  Engineers at the NOC don't like it when you slurrrr your speech.

I could go on but I won't.  It's just too painful ...... I need a beer.
Oh yea, We're opening another location in McKinney, TX in about two months.  The workers are remodelling the place now.  Maybe I need to start drinking liquor.

[Crypticflare]

peofeoknight is right.  I spend $3,700.00 per month just to turn the lights on.  That is just for bandwidth, rent, phone and utilites.  Add even more for salaries, three company cars + insurance and all the other crap that you have to buy.  Then you get to deal with all the asshole dumbass fuckers that call you up twice per month because they can't remember their password.  And then there are the idiots that send you email saying that their email is down!  WTF?

Dive on in and soon you will learn why they are regarded as lusers.  You will also need to save back some money so you can get plastered a couple of times per month and cleanse yourself from their diseases.  Hopefully you won't get DDoSed while you're loaded.  Engineers at the NOC don't like it when you slurrrr your speech.

I could go on but I won't.  It's just too painful ...... I need a beer.
Oh yea, We're opening another location in McKinney, TX in about two months.  The workers are remodelling the place now.  Maybe I need to start drinking liquor.

Ahhh, that reminds me why I got into the networking field to begin with :p

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

outsource!

[quasi-modo]

outsource!

exactly what I was going to do if I took my freelancing any further (the few clients I had had their own hosting, which conveiniantly had not caused a conflict... all were on windows servers), but I am not going to need to be hosting clients since my friend is going to have me do his design/development for his site and his client's sites, I will be his employee rather then freelanceing... which is brutal.

[Banana fanna fo fanna]

Build them a website for cheap and then rip them off on hosting? Write it in the contract they can only host with you.

[quasi-modo]

on top of that make them say that they have to stay with you for hosting and maintenance then you can charge them monthly maintenance fee on top of hosting.

[Tuberload]

I personally don't think screwing people is the way to go if you plan on starting a successful business.

[Akamas]

Well, It really isn't screwing the customer, if its a legitiable charge, like if your actually performing the action of maintenance. You also have to bare inmind that there are MANY other hosting companys with equally competitive prices, in some cases better.

[Tuberload]

Well, It really isn't screwing the customer, if its a legitiable charge, like if your actually performing the action of maintenance. You also have to bare inmind that there are MANY other hosting companys with equally competitive prices, in some cases better.

I don't mean charging for services, it just sounded to me like they were talking about hidden charges to make money and I don't agree with that. Then again it is the clients fault for not reading the contract. Either way word of mouth is the best advertising there is and if you get a bad word spread about you I don't think you will get to many future clients. On the subject of other companies competing, it will always be that way. Provide a better service and you will get a good word spread about you. As long as you keep from falling under you should do good. Quality of service is more of a factor that the price IMO. All of this of course is just my opinion.

[Akamas]

I agree, if you end up screwing your customer once he's paid for the services he's not going to want to say many good things about your company. Ususally its the customer who helps get the word out.

[quasi-modo]

remember, business only takes place when both parties benefit.