How to start your own webhosting?

[michaelfoo]

Good day nevland,
This is my advice on how you can start your own web hosting company.

What Server Is Suitable For You
First off all, I would strongly recommend you not to jump into a dedicated server or co-location if you are a beginner. You will lose a lot of money if you do so. Trust me.

Here is what you can do instead:
1. Get a reseller account. Most basic reseller accounts are coming with 1GB Webspace. Get a pair of nameservers to make your provider transparent.
2. Register your company & domain name.
3. Start earning money!

If you can make out your own business strategy well, you will start earning money. As time going, just upgrade your Reseller account. Upgrade to 2GB, 5GB then 10GB. If you can reach 10GB, you should plan for your own server.

I would recommend you to go for Dedicated Server instead of Co-Location at that time because:
1. You can always upgrade your server as you like. Unlike your own server, due to its expensive pricing, I'm sure you will need to stay with it for a few years.
2. You should get a US Dedicated Server. US Server is a must if your clients are targetting worldwide audience. Normally US networks have better uptime record. Besides US, I would recommend you to go for either Japan (expensive) server, Hong Kong server or Singapore (cheapest) server. This is because from my experience, they both have very good network uptime record.

What Knowledge Is Required
Ok, now you got your server ready. It is time for you to study what knowledge you will need in managing your accounts.

I would recommend you to go for cPanel + WHM server because it has a wider market. Unlike some other control panel, they are either not powerful or the market is simply to small. So, you can get the documentation at cPanel homepage: http://cpanel.net/ Read them if you are unsure of your level.

Secondly, you should learn how to compile PHP. You will need it if you are managing your own server. This is because you will need to recompile your PHP when upgrading or installing Apache (HTTP server) The other thing is study Kernel. It is dangerous to upgrade/install Kernel if you know nothing about it.

Conclusion
If you are planning to start your business and are looking for reseller account now, please feel free to contact me (Yeah, it is a commercial break now :P)

[cartique]

okey about this topic which host can offer cheapest reseller program or dedicated server ?

[michaelfoo]

Good day Sir,
You can do a research in Webhostingtalk.com if you are looking for worldwide company.

As for Malaysian company, I guess you can get most of the hosts right here.

Thanks and good luck!

[cartique]

your opinion? where / what company that offered the price tthat we can say "OK"

[michaelfoo]

Well, I don't think I know any local company with reseller account. But anyway, there are some dedicated server provider which is good:
1. exa-bytes.com - If you like the uptime & speed of this site
2. webserver.com.my - Not bad if you are going for their server.
3. emerge.com.my - Have not tried before

Don't use:
1. spacesolutions.com - I have RM399 with them and they don't want to refund me.

I can help you get a P4 Singapore server at around RM500/month. It will be using SingTel 100mbps connection and it is located in STIX. Just contact me for more information.

Do take a look at my reseller plans if you are interested.

Thanks and have a nice weekend!

[cartique]

it seem like vey interesting hmmm your reseller plan also interesting then how about unitedhosting ( U.K ) what do you think?

[michaelfoo]

Hi there,
UnitedHosting is quite popular. They have nice server uptime & customer support.

For your information, they are using Ensim Pro control panel. It is more stable compare to cPanel 6 (I'm using cPanel 7 right now and I prefer not to compare it with Ensim since I just upgraded it not long ago) but the web hosting market is definitely smaller than cPanel.

[mnrbo]

The discuession is hot and most insteresting. The statisatic show that in Malaysia only have around 500 - 600 hosting provider and about 1000 reseller . I thing the is better we make PERSATUAN la of Malaysia Hosting provider.

[melwong]

Hi,

In rough average, how many new customer a webhosting company can get a month? As I know, running a webhosting biz can even be done parttime with very minimal costs. But how much can we get in revenue per month, say in Msia only. What bout world?

Melvin

[melwong]

Hi,

In rough average, how many new customer a webhosting company can get a month? As I know, running a webhosting biz can even be done parttime with very minimal costs. But how much can we get in revenue per month, say in Msia only. What bout world?

How may i contact you Michaelfoo to learn more on hosting from you?

Melvin

[vincevincevince]

In rough average, how many new customer a webhosting company can get a month? As I know, running a webhosting biz can even be done parttime with very minimal costs. But how much can we get in revenue per month, say in Msia only. What bout world?

You cannot run webhosting part-time and do it properly. You need to be available full time, and organise support for the time you are sleeping. It is a very high pressure industry. Forget about a peaceful weekend away with your wife - if you get an alert of a hacking problem, a CPU load problem, disk space problem, server stability problem, etc. then you need to get connected within minutes to resolve it. This isn't a joke - a 99.99% uptime guarantee needs you there 99.99% of the time, or to be paying an expert to cover the time you're not there.

You need to know about webservers, mailservers, DNS servers, FTP servers, SSH servers, linux system administration, ins-and-outs of domain names, and more - to an expert level - if you seriously want to charge people to use your web-hosting.

If you can't fix 99% of problems via an SSH command prompt then forget about being a web host.

Having learnt all of that, the next challenge is to find customers. If you approach 100 people in person or over the phone, expect 1 sale.

Say you are charging 10RM a month for hosting, and phone 100 people a day for a year. That's a sale a day.

At the end of the year you have earnt 21,900RM, out of which you must pay phonecalls or travelling expenses (100 per day, say 0.1RM each contact) which has cost you 3650RM, then you've paid for three webservers (don't try to put 365 customers on one server!!!) - absolute minimum 5733RM paid so far for the servers. Still a nice annual income of 12,517 RM.

Now think of the time it takes - 100 calls a day plus 2 hours average time for setup and support and half an hour for billing, accounting, and invoicing. You can't call more than 15 people an hour, so that's 6.67h of calls, plus the 2 hours setup/support - that's 9.17 hours a day every day - 3347h in the year. You are earning 3.74RM an hour.

In reality it will be much less than this. You also have to pay for expert tech support when you get stuck, and for when you are asleep. You've got to pay for handling incoming calls, your accountant's fees, your public liability insurance, and your internet connection. Don't forget to have a spare internet connection - if your line goes down you can't fix your server, or sell hosting.

Why not just go and get a job? Work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day or less, get holiday, and get paid much more per hour?

[<gempaq>]

Originally Posted by mizan

Server?
streamyx is nice, but maybe people will feel your server is slow because, streamyx only provide less than 2MB persecond for uploading and downloading. You will facing bandwidth problem too
Price = RM 88 monthly, cheap

But, if you placed your server at datacenter, e.g. idc, cyberjaya, their will provided you 3x155Mbps with unmetered bandwidth and 2 dedicated ips.
24/7 monitored and electricity.
You only pay RM 300 monthly, if you subcribe from MercuMaya.Net
For more details, log on to http://mercumaya.net/dedicated.php

That's all.

i think this is not right....there is no unmetered bandwith...bandwith is way to expencive.

i belive they will never allow u use 155mbps but they will caps u...some hoster did caps ur connection like 2mbps and some caps u at 1mbps!!

[vincevincevince]

I would certainly not suggest running a webhosting business on a residential/business broadband connection. Unless you can afford the money for a data pipe (this is very expensive, especially in Malaysia where bandwidth isn't cheap) then you must use a data centre.

Some of the cheapest bandwidth in the world is in the USA, I would suggest renting a server there rather than co-locating to get started. This doesn't actually cost that much more - and saves you from having to ship the server to the USA. It also means that you don't own business property in the USA - you don't want to be hit for US tax, do you?