I want to start a webhosting business. Does anyone know of a GOOD reseller? I'm thinking about hostgator. thanks
it might be a silly question, but do you have a business plan yet? If not, do it before choosing a vendor. When you have it, you will have better view for what you need. There are many good vendors out there, just pick the best one for your requirements.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=3 Please spend an hour reading most of the important threads and you will be shock. Alternative, you can refer to http://webhostinggeeks.com/bestresellerhosting.html. Hope this help.
you don't need one unless you're asking for investors. I have Business Plan Pro . I'm using it for this business, but I don't think a business plan is truly necessary.
I care about my money, I just don't think they're necessary unless you want to attract investors. Might be useful if you have a lot of liability. Yeah, I edited my last post.
in fact, you do need a business plan. What you want to sell? How about your packages? How about the market? Where is your customers located? How do you start a marketing campaign? etc. When you answer those questions, that's a part of your business plan. Even small, you still do need a business plan
What you want to sell? web hosting How about your packages? I'll set reasonable packages and I'll make custom packages for other people. How will I set the prices? By looking at my competition. If I see another webhost charging $2.99 I might charge $2.50. If I am losing money every month, I'll just increase my revenues by increasing my price. My prices/plans will probably be changing a lot at first because you can't ever have a perfect package. Things change. But I would only make minor changes, I wouldn't charge $5 more for a package out of nowhere, I would probably lose customers by doing that. Another option I might explore is that customers will KEEP their packages if they choose, even if I make changes. So changes would only apply to new customers. Where is your customers located? All over the world. Mostly US. How do you start a marketing campaign? Word of mouth, adwords, msn adcenter, forums, SEO, banners. I can use ad vouchers to save money. I might even take out ads in the paper, I've been thinking about that. How's that for a start? lol thanks
show me yours, then we'll talk. There is no millions of web hosts lol. Most don't last very long. I think most suck. I might eventually sell domains as well, or maybe I'll partner with a registrar and make money that way. You don't have to worry about beating out every web host out there, you just have to do your best and build a loyal customer base. Reliability can go a long way. Being up 99.99% of the site goes a long way. Customer satisfaction goes a long way. You don't have to beat yourself up just because there's a lot of competitors out there. Someone has to provide the web hosting. It's pretty easy to gain new customers, but I think the challenge is keeping them. I am asked all the time, "what is the best host?" I can now offer them my own. Yeah, business plan can be beneficial, but I hope you know that there are many businesses without one. It's good to have track of all the money, all the liability,all the assets, the budgets, the plan, etc. Anyway, show me yours, then we'll talk. Until then... thanks for the tip!
Well there are millions of webhosts and in fact in the beginning it can be hard to attract customers so its not just keeping them although keeping them is the more difficult part. It looks to me like your already in the works of your "business plan" so im not sure why you said you dont have one... maybe because its not an official plan written down or anything... but you did have answers for all of his questions which in my mind makes for the start of a business plan. Anyway as for the reseller could you give some specs of what you might be looking for? Space? Bandwidth? I may be able to help you out as long as your not looking for any ridiculous amount for a cheap price.
Millions? Uh, no. It's only hard to attract customers if you don't know anyone, it might be hard if you just setup a site and expect it to sell itself. You have to fight for customers. Everyone on this site is a potential customer, everyone uses a host, so why not mine? It's really not that difficult. But it can be. The overhead is low, so I don't need to rush or get desperate lol. Yeah, I guess that could be considered a business plan. I just meant I don't have any technicals leveled out yet