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Why did you decide to get into the hosting business?
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Why did you decide to get into the hosting business?

taiprestaipres Member
edited May 2012 in General

It seems like new hosts are popping up daily, so competition is always fierce, and a new companies shelf life seems to be getting shorter. So why did you(hosts) personally decide to enter this space, and what has been your biggest challenge(s)? I'm particularly interested in older hosts who've managed to survive so long. Here are some superstars in terms of longevity that I think are on here that it'd be great if they could chim in.

Prometeus 13 years 304 days
InterServer 13 years 33 days
Hostirian 11 years 122 days
Hostfolk 11 years 63 days
Infinitie Networks 8 years 310 days

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Comments

  • CloudxtnyHostCloudxtnyHost Member, Host Rep

    We were first a UK ISP called dawnuk.net and were around before unlimited dial-up!

    That business became too competitive and we moved out of it and simply stuck around doing web development. A good few years ago with the expertise I had personally it seemed like the right thing to do was offer hosting as we couldn't trust any one else's services.

    Thanked by 1taipres
  • @httpzoom said: We were first a UK ISP called dawnuk.net and were around before unlimited dial-up!

    Unlimited Dial-Up? When, I sware it was always expensive per the minute.

  • miTgiBmiTgiB Member

    @taipres said: Hostirian 11 years 122 days

    Primary.net (Hostirian Parent) has changed hands a number of times over the years.

  • InfinityInfinity Member, Host Rep

    I remember it being per hour, and mum and dad limiting our internet usage to an hour and waiting years for downloads to complete.

  • ElliotJElliotJ Member

    @taipres said: Hostirian

    I still read HostIran, every single time.

    Thanked by 1gsrdgrdghd
  • InfinityInfinity Member, Host Rep

    @ElliotJ Ahahaha, so do I.

  • prometeusprometeus Member, Host Rep

    @taipres said: Prometeus 13 years 304 days

    Domain Name: PROMETEUS.COM
    Creation Date: 24-may-1997
    Expiration Date: 23-may-2016

    15 years this month ;-)

    Domain Name: IPERWEB.COM
    Creation Date: 06-aug-1997
    Expiration Date: 05-aug-2016

    Domain: prometeus.it
    Created: 1997-10-13 00:00:00

    Domain Name: PROMETEUS.NET
    Creation Date: 08-jul-1998
    Expiration Date: 07-jul-2015

  • SpencerSpencer Member

    Ahhh back when I was a teen my father worked for AOL so we got free dial-up. Those were the days!

  • flyfly Member

    @httpzoom said: That business became too competitive and we moved out of it

    rofl welcome to LEB, I guess?

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    I got into the hosting business because if you're not a provider, you don't get access to the LET Premium Members section.

  • ElliotJElliotJ Member

    I got into hosting, so at the age of 12, I could call myself a CEO.

    Thanked by 1bijan588
  • flyfly Member

    Announcing kbarvps.net.

    urbana, IL - hi i'm going to buy some reseller packages and sell them to you guys as a school project. pm for test vps's

    ok where's my invite.

  • taiprestaipres Member
    edited May 2012

    @prometeus said: Domain Name: PROMETEUS.COM

    Creation Date: 24-may-1997
    Expiration Date: 23-may-2016

    15 years this month ;-)

    Domain Name: IPERWEB.COM

    Creation Date: 06-aug-1997
    Expiration Date: 05-aug-2016

    Domain: prometeus.it

    Created: 1997-10-13 00:00:00

    Domain Name: PROMETEUS.NET

    Creation Date: 08-jul-1998
    Expiration Date: 07-jul-2015

    Thanks for the correction, the 13 years+ was based off the .net since I believe that's where the deal I got was on. 15 years is amazing though, wow.

  • BlueVMBlueVM Member

    @raindog308 said: I got into the hosting business because if you're not a provider, you don't get access to the LET Premium Members section.

    ROFL... still waiting on access to that.

    --
    I started because it was something I liked doing (working with servers). It just kept spreading until it took me over XD

  • rds100rds100 Member

    @prometeus you win :) Our oldest domain is from 01/06/1998

  • DerekDerek Member

    @raindog308 said: I got into the hosting business because if you're not a provider, you don't get access to the LET Premium Members section.

    Now I'm Irate!

  • KuJoeKuJoe Member, Host Rep

    I enjoy helping people. This is why I would rather run a free web hosting company than paid any day (hopefully I'll get back into this shortly).

  • prometeusprometeus Member, Host Rep

    in the 1997 my wife needed some place to publish the site for a few clients. I looked at the hosting offers of the time and I thinked I was able to do it better

    I leased the first server in May of the 1997 if I remember well (it was a SGI server with irix), the second was a SUN with solaris and from the third I settled with linux...

    I was payng $600/month for the server and colo. Then we got one rack and this is one of the billing statments:

    256IP x2 = $200
    Colocation: $900
    Advanced Traffic Monitoring: $24.95

    Bandwidth: (10GB x 6) $1,200

    TOTAL: $2,324.95

    And this was a quote for a server ;)
    PII 400, 256MB Ram, ASUS PIIIB-F MainBoard, FDD, 20GB 7200 RPM HDD, Diamond Video, mitsumi cdrom, intel 10/100 netwk card.

    buy: $1065.00
    lease: $89/mth

    Rack mount 2-U would be aprox $200 more....

  • SpencerSpencer Member

    @prometeus said: 256IP x2 = $200

    Not bad

  • prometeusprometeus Member, Host Rep

    @PytoHost said: @prometeus said: 256IP x2 = $200
    Not bad

    >

    It was the late '90 and it was supereasy to get ip. at the beginning of 2000, when my wife was pregnant and we decided to hand the operations to our biggest reseller (which was already helping us to manage the hosting business) we had more than 3000 ip in use.

  • subigosubigo Member

    I got into hosting for all the hot bitches and the millions of dollars that come with it.

  • SpencerSpencer Member

    @subigo said: I got into hosting for all the hot bitches and the millions of dollars that come with it.

    How is that going for you :P

  • subigosubigo Member

    @PytoHost said: How is that going for you :P

    Pretty good. We have hosting orgies and my pool is filled with hundred dollar bills. We snort our coke off of old hard drive disks.

  • mmh the old dial-up time :)
    I remember installing a keylogger on my parent's PC to get their AOL password and later use the first version of Ophcrack & rainbow tables to crack their windows password :D
    Omg thats already so long ago, i was like 12 back then :(

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    I originally just did it as a fun thing out of my house with an @home connection and a small server I built from scraps. It was originally mostly there to host a personally site I had. After a year or so we decided to move it to a shared box and things grew from there.

    Frantech wasn't originally started as a hosting company, rather a web development 'firm' in Victoria. I had a good amount of interest and lots of contracts but I kept getting stiffed by people for fairly decent sums of money.

    At the time #deltaanime was my primary channel on daIRC and I started to hear constant requests that we start offering VPS servers. After I worked a few months in construction I saved up and invested what I had (around $4000) into our first equipment.

    When we originally started we used XENSERVER but it was just a terrible beast.

    Francisco

  • CVPS_ChrisCVPS_Chris Member, Patron Provider

    Just one reason.

    WINNING

  • CVPS_ChrisCVPS_Chris Member, Patron Provider

    @DotVPS said: You're gonna quit soon then?

    When your out of business, sure.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @DotVPS said: @CVPS_Chris said: When your out of business, sure.

    I wont be quitting before you matey.

    TAKE IT TO THUNDERDOME!

  • AldryicAldryic Member

    LowEndDome

  • CVPS_ChrisCVPS_Chris Member, Patron Provider

    @DotVPS said: I wont be quitting before you matey.

    Lol. If I really wanted to, Id have you out of business tomorrow ;-) But Ill let you be and think your all that and a bag a chips for today.

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