Starting a Company

So, this is not my first company, but definitely my most accomplished (By that i mean, i'm not loosing money and i am enjoying the whole process) I'm currently selling VPS's. But i want to push it up to the next level, i'd love to get rid of my other job and move forward with the company and build it up more (since my job is full time and takes time away from the business).
If it were years gone by i would of just quit my job and went for it, but now i have a wife and kids that i need to support sensibly .
Really this is more of a advise board, where do you think i should start, advertising and not spending money is a joke, but then spending money on advertising is something that i am trying to avoid (since it would eat into any small profits i do make). Recently one of the forums that i use to get like 70-80% of my sales from has closed cause it was deemed useless by the people managing it, and they said i would be able to get it back if i was willing to monitor it, catch22, i have no time for my own stuff let alone another sites work.

I want to make it all work, get enough money to quit my fulltime job and then really build my company from there onwards.

 

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Curious, what was the forum that shut down but would let you have it if you would monitor it?

 

I personally feel providing web hosting or even selling VPS's is one of the toughest markets to tackle. Not only is it oversaturated with big competitors that are able to offer quality services for less it's very time consuming and risky. Are you the server admin? Have you been faced with any MAJOR issues yet? Are your clients requesting package and software installs? That can be a full time job in itsself. If you are able to extract a little bit of money from selling VPS accounts thats awesome. But I definately wouldn't quit your day job because that is one niche that is very difficult to survive and turn a profit.

 

The forum was actually more of a list it was the btcvps wiki, donno why but got slot of sales from there

 

Major issues not many at all, but our system is completely automatic, and an unmanaged service, anything the client needs can be done from our control panel including installs of OS's.
What area would you say would be better to get into in your opinion?

 

My areas of interest may not be yours so my opinion is quite irrelevant. Personally I would run away from web hosting services only because the profit margin is small and he upkeep/manual labor (maintenance.. administering etc) is intensive. If that's the path you want to follow I would change it up and offer something more unique. Or perhaps offer a service or web site that is hosted on a VPS where a company pays a flat fee for the complete package. (ie. Web Site & Software for Hair Salons... Service+Hosting=$399/mo).

 

Thank you all so much for the kind words, I understand that i am asking for an impossible formula for success especially with my time restrictions.
I truely feel that I can make it work, but getting into a new field and figuring out all the do's and don't and how to advertise a company without money i guess are all learning curves.

As i grow i hope to help serve the comunity better.
Any and all advise is welcome, you can also let me know what you think of my website and any improvments that you might think will help.

 

I agree with RideCut's suggestions. However, while I agree that you shouldn't waste time on social media (since you have a lot of other stuff to do), I suggest you take advantage of social media to promote your business. You said you don't want to spend money on advertising and you can promote your business for free using social media. Use the likes of Facebook and Twitter to introduce your company to the world and interact with customers.

 

First things first you need a business plan and plan out how you are going to start, selling VPS straight out isn't as straight forward as it seems, been there done that.

You need to work out:
- OpenVZ / KVM / XEN: They all have their up and downs and different markets. I prefer Xen some prefer OpenVZ, OpenVZ you are limited, Xen you can't oversell.
- Licenses: Billing system and VPS Control panel, you need to work out which is suited for you, and if you have the budget for them.
- Target Market: Cheap or Premium, cheap you can go low end and sell a lot at a low price, but premium you get different customers and less tickets.
- Managed or Non Managed: Managed is more of your time but more premium, and unmanaged to let the customers manage it themselves and it comes cheaper and then you can sell more.
- Server Specs: High quality SSD Drives or lower cheaper SATA2, the datacenter location, everything adds up.

Advertising is the next step:
- Word of mouth from your customers, that's the cheapest way to go.
- Adverts, you can post on here, and other forums they are free and help you get a market.
- Social media, Facebook and twitter are the best ways to give customer support and let's you interact with your customers and find out what they would like to see and have.
- AdWords, I hate this way to go because you get a lower return.
- Good SEO / Mobile friendly / SSLs are the other way to get customers, customers from Google etc helps get free traffic and the above helps.

Good luck in your venture .

 

My advice for you: you should use some business tracking software in order to optimise your business processes and make it more efficient. My company uses some business management solutions from software company called Comindware It specialises in such kind of business software which provides business processes management, tracking, cooperation management, etc. Take a look at it, I guess, it will definitely help you