[Light]

Starting Hosting Company - Need Advice!

Information: I'm planning on starting a reliable hosting company, based around DDoS protection, speed and uptime. I'd love for the community to give suggestions about what I should/shouldn't add whether it be features/servers/OS/packages/etc, if you have a idea or suggestion just let me know in this thread.


The name isn't going to be released just yet, this is just a suggestion thread.

[Grammar Rays]

I'm planning on starting a reliable hosting company, based around DDoS protection, speed and uptime.

This is not good enough anymore to be a unique selling point, unfortunately.

[Light]

This is not good enough anymore to be a unique selling point, unfortunately.

Wasn't suppose to be a selling point, just something that I plan to 100% have. This thread is for suggestions and things I should have, to have a stronger selling point.

[Grammar Rays]

What are you good at? Can you target a specific niche? Local area?
Can you code websites? I assume you're going to do VPS? Only VPS or shared also?

We can't really give you your selling point. It needs to be something unique that you can provide, and only you will really know what you're capable of.
Hopefully the questions above can spark some ideas.

[FaberCastell]

I could be wrong but it seems saturated as fuck?

[Grammar Rays]

I could be wrong but it seems saturated as fuck?

Immensely saturated. I targeted the low-end market of VPS and made a killing but it was short lived and now I sold the company on as revenue started to plateau.

Extremely difficult business. Full of kids and full of standard hosts who all follow the same script.

[Light]

What are you good at? Can you target a specific niche? Local area?
Can you code websites? I assume you're going to do VPS? Only VPS or shared also?

We can't really give you your selling point. It needs to be something unique that you can provide, and only you will really know what you're capable of.
Hopefully the questions above can spark some ideas.

I'm not really looking for a selling point from you guys, I'm just looking for suggestions. Things such as OS offerings, packages, and maybe some features.

[horrendous22]

I've had a few successful hosting companies in the past, however we're talking around the '07 period. Since then, regular web hosting is not something you want to be involved in, unless you have a huge marketing budget (and even then you'll most likely find the pay-off not worth the investment).

What I would rather suggest you to do is provide gaming servers, I hear MineCraft and CSGO servers are extremely popular. Heck, you can even try to differentiate yourself by providing servers for Agar.io spin-offs which are growing by the day.

[Grammar Rays]

I'm not really looking for a selling point from you guys, I'm just looking for suggestions. Things such as OS offerings, packages, and maybe some features.

Offer as many OS as feasible for your budget. Offer perhaps 3 main packages per product, and custom on request. As for features, depends on your budget, your target market, and your skills.

Custom coded panels are trendy. Automatic provisioning is cool. 24/7 support is pretty standard.

It depends entirely on you. Are you selling on HF alone? If so, 24/7 support probably isn't needed, and instead you should opt for cheap cheap cheap but not shit shit shit.

[Eilif]

You have to have base of origins to target specific group.

For example, nobody buys a VPS from godaddy to host a popular minecraft server lol.

If I want DDoS protection I'd go for OVH/Intreppid/Blazingfast/Voxility and possibly some of their resellers for cheaper prices.

If i wanted instant support and have someone hold my hands at all times as I set something technical up, I'd go for softlayer/leasewebs.

If i want to host DMCA content, I'd go for sharkserve.rs, Abelohost, Ecatel or PRQ

If i need gameserver instance with minimum hassle/setup I'd go for Vilayer/Gameservers.com/Fragnet

If i wanted TS3 server, i'd go for Verygames/nfoservers

If i wanted to host bulletproof blog/site for my controversial topic (freedom of speech).. i.e, supporting some insane thing, i'd go for bahnhof.net since it's a den of ultra-nationalist sites with "far right wing ideas" about how we should deal with certain race(s). Basically if you suddenly want to host an offending website that breaks every single law out there, that is your host. https://www.bahnhof.se/filestorage/userf...policy.pdf Wikileaks also hosts here.

If i wanted to host spam, i'd go for cyberbunker.

You get what i'm trying to say? :P

If you don't have an area of specialization, you need a huge userbase.. this is why godaddy is able to sell VPS servers.. Out of millions of their users, maybe 0.001% buys a VPS from them.

If you have neither, you'll have a failed company with close to zero customers.

[Reece Morgan]

I would personally very much like to be able to copy everything I have on one server onto multiple others very quickly.
i.e, If I were to set some programs up to run on one machine, it would be very easy for me to create another 10 all running the exact same as the first one.

Reliable scalability is something I'm yet to see from many HF hosting companies (although, many 'legitimate' hosting companies do it already)

Edit: I currently use digitalocean.com primarily, they charge by the hour which is amazing for when I need a quick burst of processing power and they can have multiple SSD servers ready (as an exact copy of a previous server I may have had) usually within a minute.

[Zen]

Unless you have something extremely unique to offer you are going to crash and burn, hard. The hosting market is incredibly saturated (both on HF and off) with companies that dissappear every day.

[Light]

Unless you have something extremely unique to offer you are going to crash and burn, hard. The hosting market is incredibly saturated (both on HF and off) with companies that dissappear every day.

I'm already aware of the huge market, yes, it's huge. However, I'm still looking to go ahead and start one.

---

I would personally very much like to be able to copy everything I have on one server onto multiple others very quickly.
i.e, If I were to set some programs up to run on one machine, it would be very easy for me to create another 10 all running the exact same as the first one.

Reliable scalability is something I'm yet to see from many HF hosting companies (although, many 'legitimate' hosting companies do it already)

Edit: I currently use digitalocean.com primarily, they charge by the hour which is amazing for when I need a quick burst of processing power and they can have multiple SSD servers ready (as an exact copy of a previous server I may have had) usually within a minute.

I'm not really planning to charge by the minute or hour, at least not at the moment. However, for the servers I might be able to have a clone feature and charge by the day/hour.