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Job/Career path's.
Well Guys,
How many of you guys have are in the VPS industry as their primary job? The reason for me asking this is because I am seriously considering my job path's now. I am very keen in graduating to become a Civil Engineer, however I do know that there is a lot of study involved which I am pretty sure I can keep up with and all.
However, lets say my plans go wrong, I would want to become Self Employed. There are many trades which I don't mind persuing, I am keen on becoming an Electrcial and even going into the IT industry with server administration etc. Without enclosing too much information what are the figures we are talking about in terms of earning?
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Thanks.
Comments
im full time
my advice to you buddy is dont go down this route in this day and age everybody wants as much as possible for as little as possible so untill your established it takes a long while to become profitable. Took me 2 years of web hosting before being able to afford to go full time and even now i drive a ford fiesta (all be it brand new) as the profits are not sufficient for a more expensive car or insurance lol damn 6 points
why not work for a company during your last few years at school then decide
Thats my sort of backup job. I really don't want to get into the IT industry for fear of it getting tiresome to me and not being a fun hobby anymore..
I think if I do end up getting into IT it will be for a big firm etc.
im setting up a forum for my site if you wanna help run it
Sure, I can help out. I find that kind of thing fun ;P Call me wierd!
Just drop me a PM here or an email, I think you have it already.
yes i do
My fulltime job is with a leading financial firm and, while it's not VPS hosting as everybody here knows it, we (my team consists of 10 people) do run thousands of VMWare VPSs for "clients" (the other departments) so my primary job is building, maintaining, and administrating VPSs along with a couple hundred physical servers across the US.
This is a tough industry to get into, I wouldn't have this as your back up plan. A large amount of people don't go into careers that is within their major, it's sometimes how life turns out... You need to find the things you will enjoy...and make sacrifices.
I'm graduating with a BA in MIS in ~1.5 years, and my plans are to go to Air Force OTS, and go with a career in either systems administration (they have a fancy title for it), or health care administration. If I don't get into OTS, as AF OTS is highly competitive, and they've been cutting down on CO's in the last few years, I'll simply go for a civilian job in those types of fields, and take what I can get until I get the experience I need to reach the position(s) I really want.
@Go59954 Thanks for the advise, it's not so much that I'm in a hurry rather it's my furture plans are better when they are made early rather than late. I am defaintely going to stay on until university no matter what!
@KuJoe That's the kind of thing I was talking about when I said IT for a large firm. Sounds alright
@Kairus I thought that meant Air Force as in the Army. Does it? Anyways, sounds like a great plan
I'm having several thoughts about this subject as well - such as VPS hosting or Gameserver hosting and the likes. After seeing countless providers fail - HostRail, BroHoster and etc.- it's kinda scary for these industries sometimes.
I know I thought about starting something in the hosting business. I came here with those thoughts in mind. My career ended very abruptly about 2 years ago. After seeing the way the market is there is no way I would get involved in it at this stage. I have not been around here for very long yet and I have to agree with Boltersdriveer it is scary. The way this industry fluctuates it is a miracle anyone can do this full time.
Yep, but I'm mostly gonna focus on Asia and I hope most providers do now since the price point in Asia is nearly $10 for every 32MB.
In the hosting (vps) industry you need to be an inovator and offer something new. Example: Buyvm , low cost reliable and pretty decent vps with their own control panel and awesome community. Now its clear to me buyvm has the storage/openvz/kvm market in california under the belt , so theres no point competing with the same product or simular. Cough nordic cough.
Offer something which isn't being offered yet, have a page full of reasons why you are better than a competitor and what you offer different.
What @net said. I wonder why no one is considering Asia as a market. Lots of users there, but costs there are still extremely high. BUT it can be profitable, since the price for IPs there with APNIC still haven't rose a lot [yet].
Thanks @net
The cost is the real deal breaker. Imagine if you get someone that signs up and abuses a ton of bandwidth (ddos in other words). Is your LEB pricing going to be able to afford that?
Francisco
Well here is my input. I believe i.t in general is a competitive industry. I am running a small freelance group doing a couple of adhoc services here in singapore and been in the hosting industry for quite awhile. Cost of living rises ridiculously every year, so much so that if you earn 10k/mth its cOnsidered as an average income.
I am working fulltime in big firms but never really stayed as im always on the lookout for opportunities and connection of business in interest.
I told myself that whatever im doing now n decide to do in the present is a constructive building effort for the future plans. Slow but i am sure it be more stable and firm.
Never easy to set up a business unless u have continous flow of investment to sustain losses n mistakes
That was an issue (well a concern) with us. Not really solved but having multiple boxes allows one to spread things out a bit. Being in multiple datacenters like some providers here doesn't help.
Agreed. You don't see everybody running out to copy each car company's model with the same exact thing for the same exact price. I guess it's my sales experience at 3 large companies, one a Fortune 500 company and one a large international company in almost every continent, that is helping me transition over into the "VPS industry"
Yerp, I am not anywhere near starting my own VPS company up. If I were to do so it will be once I have money spare to invest in a startup and money for my own equiptment (that rules Asia out), I just can't go with leased stuff. I know that there is only really one chance and you have to suceeed in the VPS industry, once thats gone your reputation is gone forever.
And I totally agree about making your company unique, for it to stand out which many providers here have done
If I were to go into the VPS industry, I'd start off in one location, and they maybe expand to two maximum since it will be probebly only me and maybe a few helpers running it. I wouldn't specifically be in the LEB category either, I may have one or two LEB plans but the majority will not be in the LEB pricing range to start off with, maybe after a few years of sucessful sales.
Thanks all for the help
daimonb, Go59954, KuJoe, Kairus, Boltersdriveer, AuoraZ, net, Francisco, cripperz, drmike and FLVPS: I really do appreciate it.
Stay away from game servers. It's the biggest waste of time. Your dealing with mostly kids, minimal profits, and more to worry about. Not to add, gaming is dieing from a game server stand point for PC. Unless your Gameservers.com or aowc.com you won't make it.
Now for a VPS company, make sure you choose the right DC. No reason to go with someone like SoftLayer that charged an arm and a leg for the same service you can get for half the cost. Always look to minimize your cost, but still keeping quality as your main concern.
You also said that you want to own your equipment, but from my experience and point of view, renting is the best option out of the gate for a few reasons:
1: Your minimizing your initial investment. If after 2-3 months you decide this really isn't for you, your out a few hundred dollars instead of thousands.
2: you dont have to worry about replacement parts. If a HDD fails, it's not your problem ( make sure to have backups ) and you won't have to worry about keeping spare stock.
3: changing technology, you will never get any type of money back for your server. I just deployed a $3500 server, and after a few months I would be lucky to get $1500.
I was like you just a tad over a year ago, and I advocate starting out with renting. I did, and until I was on my feet and had a steady income, I started to colo machines. So just under a year we went from 0 to 30 servers on account ( 23 of the owned ). These are all large 32GB+ machines too not dual cores so don't let that number fool you.
I wouldn't listen to anyone saying you can not make it unless your known. If you put hard work in consistently and have a great reputation anything can be done. The market is huge, and it's as easy as offering a cheaper, better product to gain customers. I wish you the best of luck
The money is there, you just have to have the will to make it happen.
Regards,
Chris
Well, I can't stand for that. I ran a Ragnarok server some years ago and it was VERY PROFITABLE, and it was free! The catch was donations.
He was referring to hosting game servers, not running one.
Sure, RO can be profitable. But it can also make you a DDoS target. And speaking from extensive experience on the matter.. there is NO client group more aggravating than people hosting gameservers of any type.
I don't really like games so the game community is ruled out
@CVPS_Chris thanks for the advice.
Love this quote, so damn true.
It is the plain truth, and its what I live by. You have the power to do whatever you want
Kids are fine. Thank you very much. Maybe gaming kids have an issue....
By kids, I mean 15-16 year olds that are using their parents money. I myself I guess can still be considered a "kid" at age 22.
By for us it was a nightmare and will never consider going into gaming market again
I don't get money from my parents. I make use of what I have. I guess if I asked for money I'd get it but embarrasment takes it's toll.
Hmmm
At that age normally you ask for money o_O
But well, I guess every family have different behavior n_n