| Posted by Earthblaze, 10-14-2013, 02:08 PM | | Hi all, Some advice would be greatly appreciated. I have found a little niche in the market to sell web hosting to a dedicated group (British ex-pats in a specific area in Spain. I have done a lot of market research and have also tested a managed VPS and an unmanaged dedi for several months. I am fairly tech savvy and have spent weeks learning about web servers, centos. I found Plesk easy to use but want to try cpanel. I mastered webmin fairly easy and also SSH.
My question is related to starting my business on which platform. My aim is to start slowly and focus on quality. I am not interested in profit for the first year as I have a regular source of income. I need low latency with UK IP addresses (my OVH dedi provided UK and ES IPs which was ideal) A mate in the business said IP country is irrelevant to the end user. Is this true?
From the reseller angle I would opt for EZPZ as I am looking for SSD/SAS with cloudlinux and liteserver. I am not setting this business up on a whim and want to ensure quality and reliability from the very fist customer. I am not sure if I trust a reseller with this.
A VPS/Dedi I am unsure about as I have funding up to £1500 for the first year. I am aiming for approx 250 customers in my first year. I would be looking for Intel E3 or E5 with EEC RAM preferably with OS and SQL onn SSD with accounts on SAS drives with 200 Mbit port. I would need a minimal install Centos 64 bit as I have found a software reseller with low costs. What specs would you advise for serving 250 quality accounts?
Thanks for any advice given and links to further reading are always welcome.
Earthblaze
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| Posted by net, 10-15-2013, 05:21 AM | | If you are just starting, reseller hosting is a good start since you do not have to worry about managing and maintaining the server. This will also help you focus on marketing.
Remember to always have a business plan.
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| Posted by HostXNow_Chris, 10-16-2013, 11:47 AM | | I would suggest starting with a reseller account too, and just upgrade to a VPS when your provider asks you too.
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| Posted by Earthblaze, 10-16-2013, 06:19 PM | | Thanks for the advice guys.
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| Posted by UH-Bobby, 10-17-2013, 10:24 AM | | For my vote, I'd go for a semi-dedicated reseller. It's kind of a blend of what you were looking for. Here's why I'd go that route: semi-dedicated reseller, works the same way as a normal reseller account. It's just that providers give you more resources, and don't put as many clients on the box. Although it would cost a little more starting out, you'd have better performance for your clients.
Clients aren't always forgiving. It's a good idea to make the best possible impression starting out. A VPS would be ideal, but only if you can handle the security prices. I'd start out with a semi-dedicated reseller. That way it's cheaper for you, but reasonable in performance.
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| Posted by ResellcPanelcom, 10-18-2013, 07:42 AM | | Reseller/Semi Dedicated Reseller. I would start off as a Reseller, then work up. This is exactly what i have done, and now i run my own dedi's..
Good luck.
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| Posted by SkyNetHosting, 10-18-2013, 08:21 AM | | Hi.
As for a start I would go with a reseller that has low pings to Spain so your customers in Spain have faster response times.
If you are good with servers you can also have your own dedicated servers and hire a server management company such as (platinum server management) manage your server.
If properly managed you can host about 500-700 shared customers on a X3220 server with 8GB RAM (while keeping the server load under 1-2%), since you are just starting out without much experience 250 customers would be perfect for a server similar to this.
Also having things like CloudLinux, Cloudflare, SSD's etc will give you a marketing edge. Also if you are starting out on a dedicated server you should consider keeping offsite backups.
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| Posted by Earthblaze, 10-18-2013, 06:00 PM | | Thanks for all the advice. I have opted for the reseller/dedicated reseller route as most of you recommend.
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