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Starting a VPN company
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Starting a VPN company

YagoYago Member

I'm interested in providing VPN service to others but I have no technical experience other than briefly working with OpenVPN. It's just a little project of mine and I'm not under any pressure. What are some of the things I must know before starting such a company and what are some of the biggest challenges besides the fact there are lots of VPN companies out there already?

Thanked by 1mrKat
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Comments

  • You should know summer is starting.

  • lpnlpn Member

    Have you chosen a name for your VPN service/company?

    Thanked by 1Maximum_VPS
  • VPNshVPNsh Member, Host Rep

    Really research all of the different VPN technologies and get a decent knowledge on how each one works (PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN etc).

    I'd also recommend getting familiar with the setup of VPN's on multiple devices as this is where a fair amount of clients will need support.

    Any specific questions, please feel free to drop me a PM.

  • What are some of the things I must know before starting such a company

    Here's a list of 50 things you should know before starting any "company" :)

    http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/start-own-business-50-things-30077.html

    @Dragoon0309 said:

    You should know summer is starting.

    OK, make that 51 things you should know before starting any "company" :)

  • pavspavs Member

    Some of you guys are such pussies.

    Dude asks for honest advice and the best you can do is ridicule him. If you don't have something valuable to add why don't you keep your opinion to yourself?

    Thanked by 3sgno1 TerensM pluush
  • Yago: It's in the nature of a VPN company to get a lot of abuse complaints. It's therefor very important that you have a dialogue with your service provider how to address these complains, and your service provider should know and accept your business model. I'm too looking to start one, by the way.

  • I recommend anyone who is looking to start a VPN business to contact Keith at http://safesrv.net/freeradius-vpn-module-for-whmcs/ he makes this module for WHMCS to automatically deploy and manage OpenVPN/PPTP etc accounts.

  • FreekFreek Member

    I recommand you look into SoftEther if you're not planning on using WHMCS. It supports OpenVPN PPTP etc right out of the box. You can setup accounts that expire after X amount of days, throttle speed, bandwidth etc.

    I also thought about setting up a VPN company. Most VPSes come with so much bandwidth nowadays, that running a VPN on them will hardly cause me to run out of bandwidth. Maybe, one day ;) I've got enough projects on my hands already as it is right now.

  • If you offer free or trial VPN accounts, you will be attacked and your operation thrown out of the facility you are reselling VPS servers for VPN accounts.

    I can name about 3-4 I've personally tossed out from companies I've worked for and 2 of them have been casually mentioned on here in the past. 500k PPS attacks because you provide free accounts is irresponsible and out right idiotic.

  • @Yago said:
    I have no technical experience other than briefly working with OpenVPN.

    You should either learn more or hire somebody who knows what they are doing. Not trying to be rude but "idk" Is not an answer customers take lightly.

  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    Where would you advertise?

  • VPN is a crowded business niche.There are over 300 VPN Service providers.You must have a really deep pocket for advertisement(Some of the providers spend 100k/m) to be successfull in this nice.

    Thanked by 1pluush
  • GreenVineGreenVine Member
    edited June 2013

    For module, http://safesrv.net/freeradius-vpn-module-for-whmcs/ +1

    For market, I think China mainland is a good one, as I am live in mainland, you can contact me for more info.

    For network, Asian providers are good, e.g. Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Korea. But you need to prepare lots of IPs to prevent mainland goverment's GFW.

  • @EarthVPN said:
    VPN is a crowded business niche.There are over 300 VPN Service providers.You must have a really deep pocket for advertisement(Some of the providers spend 100k/m) to be successfull in this nice.

    Some are poorly ran and if you're paying that much for ads, you seriously do not understand the market, your customers and just love to throw money in deep holes.

  • DamianDamian Member

    @doughmanes said:
    Some are poorly ran and if you're paying that much for ads, you seriously do not understand the market, your customers and just love to throw money in deep holes.

    I've also learned over, by research over the past couple of weeks, that VPN providers seem to be quite adamant about offering "281491 servers in 191283 countries!!!!" which seems to be some kind of odd ploy to cover up a lack of quality exit points by having way too many exit points.

    Sure, you might get one or two people thinking "omfg a Mongolian exit point!" or "I really like the Svalbard exit point!" but would otherwise seem expensive to offer something that 0.0001% of your clientbase uses.

  • We do not spend that much however there are providers which spend this kind of figures.

  • CoreyCorey Member

    I wouldn't join the VPN business specifically because all of my competitors have 32 countries and 54 locations to choose from that I wouldn't.

  • Advertising budget is more important than the number of locations.

  • @Yago: first, consider your strengths related to this venture. Per your own admission, tech isn't it. How about marketing? Or maybe access to potential clients or a market niche? If you have that, consider starting off as a reseller of one of the many existing VPN service providers out there. I suggest setting up your own sales/billing/support frontend. This way, once your business model is validated, you have an option of moving on and setting up your own backend/operation or easy switching to another backend provider if need be.

  • @EarthVPN said:
    Advertising budget is more important than the number of locations.

    How about a quality infrastructure first and foremost, not like these VPN company wannabes that sign up for LEB providers with the idea of "oh wow, I'll sell 10 VPS servers" then the first few 1Gbps attacks start coming in and all the sudden servers start shutting down.

    I've seen many go this route.

  • @Corey said:
    I wouldn't join the VPN business specifically because all of my competitors have 32 countries and 54 locations to choose from that I wouldn't.

    What made you get into your over-saturated market?

  • @doughmanes said:
    I've seen many go this route.

    Professionalism versus summer.

  • Professionalism versus summer.

    You need to switch your USD$ pricing to $USD if you want to reflect professionalism on your site, FYI

  • EarthVPNEarthVPN Member
    edited June 2013

    @doughmanes said:
    You need to switch your USD$ pricing to $USD if you want to reflect professionalism on your site, FYI

    Thank you for noticing.According to google.com "usd$" have 7.060.000 results, "$usd" have "22.900.000" results.Any other ?

  • @GreenVine said:
    For module, http://safesrv.net/freeradius-vpn-module-for-whmcs/ +1

    For market, I think China mainland is a good one, as I am live in mainland, you can contact me for more info.

    For network, Asian providers are good, e.g. Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Korea. But you need to prepare lots of IPs to prevent mainland goverment's GFW.

    I don't think so. Most Chinese only like free vpn.

  • Most Chinese only like free vpn.

    For spam (email and SEO) and receiving DDoS attacks. Anybody who offers free VPNs is an idiot.

  • edited June 2013

    error

  • @lowendboxinchina said:
    error

    wutz o.o

  • xDragonZxDragonZ Member
    edited June 2013

    $USD 1 or 1 $USD
    Hmm

This discussion has been closed.