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Wanting to start a free hosting company
- Thread starter Vuddyn
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Sorry if I sounded a little fierce.
I meant that after seeing several threads with tentative hopeful newcomers, all the replies come back saying "he isn't ready to do it alone". But if these prospectives worked together, they could probably dig each other out of trouble.
However, if my guess is correct that the original poster is working out of his second language, he might need a native English speaker consultant in customer service.
I meant that after seeing several threads with tentative hopeful newcomers, all the replies come back saying "he isn't ready to do it alone". But if these prospectives worked together, they could probably dig each other out of trouble.
However, if my guess is correct that the original poster is working out of his second language, he might need a native English speaker consultant in customer service.
You spoke my mind.. Its more of learning stuff than making money.. though I must say that I am loving it..
aowsmaster
New Member
Uhh and I'd also recommend tallying up the costs and doubling if not tripling it. Never lost so much money in my life... and I ended up GIVING it away.
Not worth the trouble man.
Not worth the trouble man.
crosswinds
New Member
NEVER do free hosting as a hobby. NEVER. It will eat you alive and spit you out.
Free hosting is a lot of work, especially at the beginning. I hope you have very thick skin and can keep your work seperate from yourself - you will get flamed a lot.
The free hosting community tends to draw a higher % of people that will never be satisfied (approximate 10-15% over the normal 2-3%) and will be very vocal about it.
You can offer mysql, they'll want pgsql. You can offer cPanel, they'll ask for plesk/directadmin/foopanel! They'll want 24/7 instant support and for you to edit/fix/debug their scripts for you because they won't read the FAQs and How tos. They'll expect you to give up holiday and family time to support them.
Most of the rest will like your service, but most likely move on. They are your bread a butter - not a lot of work, but not a lot of praise.
The last 1% are the jewels - they work with you, support you, have excellent feedback and praise, spreading the word of your existence for you.
Find a free host with an interactive community - many have forums and so forth that you can get invovled with and get a feel for the kind of support and requests that people have.
From that, determine what target you want to focus on - what set of requests/needs that you want to address. Then figure out the reality of how to monetize it - you need to pay yourself for the work. Relying on things like Adsense and forum posting does not cut it with the kinds of costs you are likely to incur.
It's a lot of work but it can be rewarding.
I've been doing hosting of all types (free, professional, fully-managed) for 11 years now, so I'm speaking from experience.
Free hosting is a lot of work, especially at the beginning. I hope you have very thick skin and can keep your work seperate from yourself - you will get flamed a lot.
The free hosting community tends to draw a higher % of people that will never be satisfied (approximate 10-15% over the normal 2-3%) and will be very vocal about it.
You can offer mysql, they'll want pgsql. You can offer cPanel, they'll ask for plesk/directadmin/foopanel! They'll want 24/7 instant support and for you to edit/fix/debug their scripts for you because they won't read the FAQs and How tos. They'll expect you to give up holiday and family time to support them.
Most of the rest will like your service, but most likely move on. They are your bread a butter - not a lot of work, but not a lot of praise.
The last 1% are the jewels - they work with you, support you, have excellent feedback and praise, spreading the word of your existence for you.
Find a free host with an interactive community - many have forums and so forth that you can get invovled with and get a feel for the kind of support and requests that people have.
From that, determine what target you want to focus on - what set of requests/needs that you want to address. Then figure out the reality of how to monetize it - you need to pay yourself for the work. Relying on things like Adsense and forum posting does not cut it with the kinds of costs you are likely to incur.
It's a lot of work but it can be rewarding.
I've been doing hosting of all types (free, professional, fully-managed) for 11 years now, so I'm speaking from experience.
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xd3vilx
New Member
From experience I have, while there are clients like this, I have free clients who are as dedicated as paid client. They regularly donate to us, one of them in order to support us even extend domain with us for 10 years. While there is a bad group of clients, those good clients seem to make your effort worthwhile.
crosswinds
New Member
Oh yes, those are the 1%. I love them! The complainers make your life hell. The rest - they keep you going.
My number is skewed down to 1% (if you get higher then I am please and a little jealous) because of the type of service I provide (no limits). I'm up to 2600 members from launch and the % are holding true.
That 1% that are active in the forums, asking how they can help out, offering support - those make me love the work I do.
crosswinds
New Member
Heh, I just tell it like it is. If I can save someone stress/bad experience and guide them to a way to do it and do it properly (including buying flame proof underwear) then I'm happy.
I love how you say "Do it properly" and you offer Unlimited Space and Transfer. That just cracked me up :lol:
crosswinds
New Member
Considering I've been doing this for 11 years, you might want to assume I know what I'm doing 
It *is* possible. It *is* sustainable. Heck it's *profitable*.
This even takes into account the economic downturn so far hasn't hit me hard and the minimum amount I need to earn is 4x less than I actually am to stay afloat - given the other threads predicting a 50% decrease in ad revenue in the next year, I'm still good.
I launched Aug 1. I hit 2600 users today and have a signup rate of approximately 100-150/day (with variance of course). Revenue now surpasses my incremental costs by a few times (3-4x somewhere) and is starting to pay off the investment nito the service itself (economy of scale rocks). I have set up a system that thwarts abuse without imposing limitations.
So chuckle all you want. I am. I chuckle with the new found income. Heck I chuckle now that I'm helping an ad agency successfully monetize traffic that was formerly considered "impossible to monetize".
I just wish I had the knowledge I have now back in 1997 when I started Crosswinds.Net.
It *is* possible. It *is* sustainable. Heck it's *profitable*. This even takes into account the economic downturn so far hasn't hit me hard and the minimum amount I need to earn is 4x less than I actually am to stay afloat - given the other threads predicting a 50% decrease in ad revenue in the next year, I'm still good.
I launched Aug 1. I hit 2600 users today and have a signup rate of approximately 100-150/day (with variance of course). Revenue now surpasses my incremental costs by a few times (3-4x somewhere) and is starting to pay off the investment nito the service itself (economy of scale rocks). I have set up a system that thwarts abuse without imposing limitations.
So chuckle all you want. I am. I chuckle with the new found income. Heck I chuckle now that I'm helping an ad agency successfully monetize traffic that was formerly considered "impossible to monetize".
I just wish I had the knowledge I have now back in 1997 when I started Crosswinds.Net.
Considering I've been doing this for 11 years, you might want to assume I know what I'm doing
This even takes into account the economic downturn so far hasn't hit me hard and the minimum amount I need to earn is 4x less than I actually am to stay afloat - given the other threads predicting a 50% decrease in ad revenue in the next year, I'm still good.
I launched Aug 1. I hit 2600 users today and have a signup rate of approximately 100-150/day (with variance of course). Revenue now surpasses my incremental costs by a few times (3-4x somewhere) and is starting to pay off the investment nito the service itself (economy of scale rocks). I have set up a system that thwarts abuse without imposing limitations.
So chuckle all you want. I am. I chuckle with the new found income. Heck I chuckle now that I'm helping an ad agency successfully monetize traffic that was formerly considered "impossible to monetize".
I just wish I had the knowledge I have now back in 1997 when I started Crosswinds.Net.
After 11 years you would thing YOU knew what you were talking about.
Ok, please, in detail, explain HOW it is possible to offer Unlimited Space and Unlimited Transfer?
Yeah you are probably profiting big time. From poor old souls that wouldn't know what disc space and transfer was if it hit them in the face. So, you use your Unacknowledged Knowledge against theirs and go in for the kill. And lie to them while they pay you.
I'm bloody glad I don't have to rely on you.
crosswinds
New Member
It's free hosting. They don't pay us - and try us out and check out how we work.
The proof is in the pudding - its free so you don't have to keep using it.
Unlimited space is simply a matter of adding more capacity as it is needed - and since we use a storage network, we just add more disks to arrays and more servers to the network. I like to keep about 33% free space as a minimum. Since we're new, we are currently at 92% free space. The cost per TB is ridiculously little and I tend to add a few TB at a time.
Unlimited transfer is easy. Per visitor (person looking at a site) max transfer RATE limit is applied to prevent pillaging. This only applies to very large files and kicks in only after the system figures out they are attempting to pillage a site. Total number of visitors or connections to the site is not limited - the more they have, the more b/w they consume - without limit. In fact we have an array of front end systems to increase the number of visitors that can see a given site. This prevents B/W consumption abuse while keeping the sites fast - and I want them fast. The better we are, the more our link bar advertises us, the more sign up.
Using numbers we gleaned from our professional hosting, we set the limits so that the 95% of people that visit for legit reasons see no impact. The 5% that are there to abuse are the only ones that get limited. They'll see fast sites with unobtrusive link bar that advertises us - so it's not in our favour to limit people. In fact, by removing limits I killed off a revenue stream (Pay $5 to buy this person 100 GB of transfer for the rest of the month!)
100% of my free hosting revenue is ad generated. I removed banners and popups about 3 weeks after launch because user pissoff factor vs income wasn't worth it. We average $20/day right now in advertising - eCPM of $6.33ish. $600/month vs the $150 of total power and b/w cost is nice.
In my pro service, I have found that enforcing quotas actually cost us more (resources - quotas *do* have overhead) and this year we turned off all quota enforcement (ironically the day before Yahoo announced they removed limits). Sites got faster and all the systems are currently underutilized.
It's not rocket science. It's about pleasing the 95% and befuddling the 5% that want to abuse and having an indirect revenue generation system that works.
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