Depends on what you are looking to do toots. I am looking for web host for my own stuff, plus some local businesses and select groups I know would be interested in hosting, and domains. I am not looking to get rich being a big web hosting company, or hostgator. Simply looking for more control.
So tell me, Whippet, what knowledges are required? Since that was my actually question on this topic. Tell me, you say it's very hard and difficult, so tell me which knowledges are required when using a reseller? (whom the most technical issues are taken care of by site5) And I mean except the web knowledges (coding e.g.), because I know them and have the knowledges for it. And btw, who says I'm a newb? I do have knowledges about website things, and I don't expect to get rich fast with it. No, the contrast even. It will cost me more in the beginning, and I know that. I'm not a newb with websites, I just haven't done a hosting company before, so there should be a way to start; resellers, I though, so I'm starting with that. So I don't know what's the problem, because knowledges I've got enough as far as now.
NOT TRYING TO BE OVERLY NEGATIVE HERE! --- BUT - This is a true story! ---- I owned a small hosting company for awile --- Everything was going great - I was recieving new sign ups everyday - THEN --- The reseller company I was using went down for a whole day and the support would not get back to me, so many of my clients got very mad and cancelled their services --- I did manage to salvage quite a few clients by offering them some free services for the hassle of the down time --- Another company that I was a reseller for was emailing my clients and trying to get them to actually host with them instead of me. So, I decided to get my own dedicated servers that were managed by the company I leased them from and migrate my clients to them --- That went well until the company that was managing the servers sold to another company and the support went down the tubes --- And so did my clients! I was lucky to be able to recommend my clients to another hosting company for the remainder of their contracts (the ones who had contracts anyway) WHAT DO YOU NEED TO START A HOSTING COMPANY? FIRST - The will to succeed and lots of hard work! When my company took off I literally could not get up from my computer for more than a few minutes at a time - Customers want ???'s answered right now! Not an hour later - I could not afford or find a good admin so I did everything myself which meant getting up at night every 2 hours or so to provide support and answer pre-sales ???'s - I know I lost valuable sales because I was not quick enough with the anwsers - I had to sleep though. SECOND - Find a very,very,very,veryvery, reliable host that can provide you with the reseller capability you need - Try it out "reselling" to make sure that you really want to own a hosting company. I would recommend LINUX hosting instead of Windows based hosting with WHM and CPANEL as these are being developed on a regular basis and are very easy to use even for your newbie clients and you will get a whole bunch of newbies with lots of questions--- Windows based hosting can be hacked very easily - and subjected to viruses on a regular basis - It works though. Third - Have or develop a very professional looking website that is for the hosting niche only - This will make your overall companies apperance as professional Fourth - Use a client billing software - Client exec works well but is not fully brandable (you have to leave their copywite info ) And most of the time it costs a monthly fee. I used account labs + and it was OK but support was slow I liked PHP coin which is free and with a little tweaking you can brand it right into you site - Instasllation can be done with Fantasico. ---- People now days want speed - so find a reseller account that is fast dual core XEON, at least a GIG of Ram etc. - These will not be the cheapest but will give you some really great selling points - If you decide that hosting is for you --- Start learning everything you can about servers (linux) - When you get to the point of having dedicated servers you will need to really be up on the technical end of things - i.e root access / SSH (secure shell), re-boots etc. --- Hope this helps a little - If you have any other questions please PM me FD
I would buy a server for around $1200(quad core 4gb ram), and ship it out to a colocation facility that will cost around $50/mo.(try using fdcservers) You can lease cpanel for fairly cheap, and a whmcs license(the billing system we use) will cost you around $12/mo. OR you can go the lease route, and start out with a small vps, and then upgrade to bigger packages as you grow.
I think becoming a reseller is a good start. The easiest way to get into the web hosting business. I myself am interested in having a web hosting company too, but I am sure it is really tough to manage. Hard working would be highly required to succeed in this industry.. and I am lazy...
You can certainly start out with a reseller package. However, like others have said, web hosting is a very saturated market. I would highly suggest starting out targeting your local market and providing a turn-key solution to local businesses. You can typically charge a LOT more and there is a LOT less competition. Good luck!
some of these posts are just absurd. getting started in the industry is not that difficult. as stated before, you could go with a reseller plan. if you do that, the only knowledge you really need is that of your control panel. it always helps to know something about the platform you're hosting on (linux or windows), but you can essentially forward all of your major issues on to your host. the problem with reseller hosting is that you can not host other resellers, which is a good chunk of the market. you can rent a server for considerably less than listed early. try servermatrix.com (i believe they still exist). if you rent a server, it's basically up to you to install everything essential for running your business. you are responsible for server reboots (remotely, of course), security, and updates. you can usually find someone to do all of this for you for a nominal monthly fee. it's not that hard to get started. what is difficult is separating yourself from the thousands of others out there who are underselling their services. you can't play the price game. you have to offer something they're not - usually it's competent support.