First 1000 Cleints?

[Grizzlyware Josh]

To be honest I a small host, but obviously I want to be bigger... who doesn't.

 

I live / operate in Cornwall (South of England, not as much technology minded people as London etc) which as far as I know, has no DEDICATED web hosts like myself.

 

I want to use this to my advantage and provide a service so I can go out to people and help them, a more personal touch compared to 1&1 etc. Now in Cornwall as I am the only dedicated host (I know you can host anywhere, but that's not relevant) does anyone have any ideas how to role this out and make it work? Has any body else tried anything like this?

 

I say 'dedicated' host in the terms of I only host. I design them and provide design clients with hosting, like other designers. But as far as I know none of the other companies / businesses in my area have the capacity to host properly. They don't give cPanel details etc. And they charge crazy sky high prices. There are no 'order online' hosts down here like I can offer with WHMCS.

 

I'm just really stuck on pushing this sort of thing out & getting it working...

 

Please share your thoughts & also how you got to where you are now? I want to expand out of Cornwall too. How did you start?

 

I'd really appreciate it

 

Thank you in advance,

 

Josh

[SilverNodashi]

Josh, you may need to think about the bigger picture.

 

a. why are there no "dedicated hosts", as you call them? Is it due to technical skills, natual disaster area (i.e. earth quakes / tornado's / volcano's / flood / etc) which could make having a datacenter a bit challenging, or is it cause there's no real demand for it?

 

b. where do the people in your town / city / region host their websites?

 

c. Are there enough people with websites?

 

d. What makes you different from the other, bigger hosts, in England / the whole UK, that they should host with you?

 

 

 

I can think of a fairly large number of towns and cities in South Africa where there are no "dedicated hosts", no data centers and little technical skills for people to offer hosting to those cities specifically. Some of those towns are about 150KM from us, some about 300, and some upto 1400KM from us - which is rather far if you think about it. Yet, we have clients from very smal rural towns, who have their own websites.

 

What I'm trying to say, is that you shouldn't limit your target market to your own immediate region, try and broaden the scope. In fact, go as far as you "currency" & "tax laws" stretches, i.e. as far as people still pay in Pounds (I presume?) and they won't pay export taxes, and or import taxes. And then, see if you can offer something to people in other countries. We are based in South Africa, yet we have servers in the USA & Australia. At some point in time we even had servers in the UK as well. It didn't cost us any import taxes so it's not a problem for us.

[mojowill]

Your not the only dedicated host in Cornwall there are LOTS, (we're falmouth based).

 

there are no Data centers in Cornwall as there is very little fibre access meaning there is not the network backbone to carry data center traffic.

 

There is very little money in Cornwall to sustain this kind of business that's why most diversify there revenue stream. Hosting requires a huge amount of customers to really make money and even if every resident of Cornwall was to buy a hosting package you wouldn't be exactly flush!

 

Think about what it is you can offer your customers that is different or makes you stand out. The personal touch alone won't cut it, not in Cornwall as it expected in such a small business community we know that from experience.