How long did it take to get your first client?

H

HOSTneeded

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I think that this is a really interesting question to see how long it took others to get their first client(s).

Also, how did you get them? Did you tell your family and friends that you are in the hosting business? Online advertising? ...

I took us about 2 weeks to get our first client, he came through an advertisement :)
 
It really depends on how you step into the business. Ideally you should be knowing the answer for “Why are you starting the hosting business?” and you should also ensure to understand the nature of the industry.

Set a targeted audience and work on to offer the feature that can attract them and find the right time to place your launch.
 
It took me around 2-3 weeks to get my first customer. One of my first 10 customer's is still hosting with me today which I find amazing.
 
It took about 2 Weeks for the first couple clients but still working on building and marketing to build up client base. It does help if you know people that need hosting service to get you started.
 
Already 3 excellent answers!
It's great to see how long it took others and how they did it :)

I hope that this can inspire new web hosting businesses to not lose hope at the start of this amazing journey.
 
Interesting BUT I got my first client before I even had a company and a website. They knew I knew about hosting they asked me to recommend and I went bought a reseller plan and hosted them and my own website. The rest is now history.
 
Initially i only had several shared accounts for my own sites and then merged all these into a single reseller account and was asked by a couple of other traders on a market i was trading at asked me to host their sites. when more and more asked i decided to set up as a web host and this was in 1999 and i am still going strong and still have 4 original clients which i had before officially started my hosting business as even to this day i am still a 1 man band
 
easyhostmedia said:
Initially i only had several shared accounts for my own sites and then merged all these into a single reseller account and was asked by a couple of other traders on a market i was trading at asked me to host their sites. when more and more asked i decided to set up as a web host and this was in 1999 and i am still going strong and still have 4 original clients which i had before officially started my hosting business as even to this day i am still a 1 man band
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Very nice to see how you've been at this for so long and quite amazing you're still a 1 man band after all this time!

By the way, your website is showing 'New Server' at the top and when on any page within /clients/, clicking the home button redirects you to /index.php which throws a 404 error.
 
Alex - A2hosting said:
Very nice to see how you've been at this for so long and quite amazing you're still a 1 man band after all this time!

By the way, your website is showing 'New Server' at the top and when on any page within /clients/, clicking the home button redirects you to /index.php which throws a 404 error.
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Cant see any errors etc. from my end.

I enjoy what I do, so never felt the need to outsource or employ anyone else.
 
cheapdedicated said:
Well many times its more because you are overwhelmed not because you dont love what feeds you! LOL
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I am normally at my pc from 8am to midnight GMT and all my clients are aware of this and even if a ticket is opened outside of these times an auto reply is sent with these timings even pre sales tickets.

But if a client asks for help at 23:55 then i will help them until they are satisfied (i wont just cut them off at midnight).
The longest time i have stayed awake to help a client is 53 hrs.
what i hate is having my phone go off at 3am to tell me of an urgent ticket and then finding out it is down to the client adding something to their .htaccess file that caused the issue.

Now i have a fast track ticket system, so if they have any urgent issues or issues that have to be dealt with outside my hours then they have to use the fasttrack system with is chargeable otherwise it wont be answered until i am ready
 
easyhostmedia said:
....I hate is having my phone go off at 3am to tell me of an urgent ticket and then finding out it is down to the client adding something to their .htaccess file that caused the issue.

Now i have a fast track ticket system, so if they have any urgent issues or issues that have to be dealt with outside my hours then they have to use the fasttrack system with is chargeable otherwise it wont be answered until i am ready
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Hehehe teaching them to behave or get charged LOL
 
cheapdedicated said:
Hehehe teaching them to behave or get charged LOL
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I don't mind if its a server issue that caused the problem, but when it is something the client has done, then why should i sort their mess out for free.

i have 1 client who is a website designer and is always breaking his sites with codes added to .htaccess and then tried to blame the server.
 
easyhostmedia said:
i have 1 client who is a website designer and is always breaking his sites with codes added to .htaccess and then tried to blame the server.
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I once had a ninja who was a wordpress developer and made it a point to test every plugin he saw and his website would break every so often and he would keep blaming it on us. So I decided every time he reported I would disable all plugins and his site would come back. He finally opened a support ticket and asked genuinly to be helped sort the mess and when I asked for a fee he left LOL
 
cheapdedicated said:
I once had a ninja who was a wordpress developer and made it a point to test every plugin he saw and his website would break every so often and he would keep blaming it on us. So I decided every time he reported I would disable all plugins and his site would come back. He finally opened a support ticket and asked genuinly to be helped sort the mess and when I asked for a fee he left LOL
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Simple solution, i have this in our TOS

Chargeable services

The Easyhost Media Group are quite happy to aid clients in anyway we can, but we are not a free service. This means that we are willing to help sort problems that require work/access to accounts on our servers if the issues are down to server problems, but if you ask us to sort any configurations, request us to add modules/purchased addons etc. or any work outside our servers (ie. domain registrars) then these are chargeable times. Our charges are £25 per hour/part of an hour with a min. charge of £25 (i.e. 10 minutes will be £25, 65 minutes will be £50. To install a 3rd party script or do work on a 3rd Party script will be chargeable from £5.95 depending on the script and work involved.

If we get a support request that requires assistance due to an issue of misconfigured website settings (i.e. .htaccess file changes) we will charge a fee of £30. If we have to work on a MySQL database due to a clients misconfiguration or lack of backups then we will charge £40
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I have only invoked the £30 charge twice and both times the client paid without any problem.
 
I'm a unique case in this respect.

Some 14 years ago, I opened up my first thread on WHT saying I'd work for a server. In less than 24h, I had so many people offering me a server that I was swamped. That first client went on to sell his biz a few years later, take over management of UK2 and now he's running one of the larger cloud platforms imaginable. Of course, I'm not working with him any longer, but we do keep in touch now and then.
 
Had a couple of friends that I offered free hosting too. Guess those aren't clients, guess my first client that actually paid was someone from a previous workplace.
 
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