Thinking of starting up as web host ... thoughts & advice please??

pmhoran

pmhoran

New member
Recently I have been thinking seriously of starting up a web hosting business ... actually it would be "targeted" hosting ... under a few different domain names but marketed via one main domain name. Confused yet???

Anyway ... one would be geared to businesses & persons in my local area ... linked to an Online Community I am setting up for the local area. You know ... local news & views contributed by various persons ... genealogy & local history info ... classified ads ... a yellow pages of area businesses ... blogs for members etc ... a forum & chat (all at no charge). But I was going to sell advertising on the site to local businesses ... and sell small web spaces to those local businesses that want to be on the net. I would also sell web spaces for individuals who wanted their own web space with a local domain name.

Another hosting idea I am thinking of starting at the same time is ... another domain name ... targeted to persons with a specific hobby ... and each web space would come with a pre-installed program that would allow them to upload a file and instantly be able to share what they want to share on the internet. I know that sounds sketchy ... but until I decide if I am positively going to run with these ideas, I feel I should keep the concepts guarded a bit ;). Just in case more people beat me to the punch ;)

I have had Reseller accounts for years so am quite familiar with WHM & Cpanel ... I've never resold the space ... I just love having all the bells & whistles :D

I am just totally ignorant on what I have to do to actually set up a business presence. Operating a business ... generally ... that will not be a problem as I've had decades of experience running companies. Just never an online one. Because I am disabled and exist on a very small pension ... I cannot dish out any money for a "front end" or "business template". But I have been looking at some free installs available via the Cpanel/Fantasico installs.

I cannot envision these ideas every becoming HUGE money makers ... so I am going to be my only employee ;) I don't think that will be much of a problem because ... since I am disabled ... I am rarely far away from my computer anyway.

So .. would these GPL installs available through Fanatasico (like OSCommerce, CubeCart and integrating PHP Support Tickets) ... would they be modifiable enough to set up a web hosting business with??? Are there other Open Source or GPL software that would be better suited?

Also ... would just using PayPal as a means of payment be acceptable for now do you think? Have the business customers pay by the year and have individuals given a choice of monthly, quarterly or annually??? And send out invoices accordingly??

Any and all thoughts & input greatly appeciated.
Thanks in advance
Peter
 
I have had Reseller accounts for years so am quite familiar with WHM & Cpanel ... I've never resold the space ... I just love having all the bells & whistles
Click to expand...
Yep, I love it. Shared hosting cPanels are usually pretty rubbish and theres alot more flexibility with all the features those two products offer.
I dont have the brain power to think about webhost startup at the moment, but I'll post it again, when I do!
 
You have a good idea. First, businesses will most likely fail when they try to please everyone. With your targeted market, you can tailor your services to potential customers.

Second, you may want to look at an automated billing software like Whois.Cart, WHMAP, or ModernBill.

Finally, PayPal should be fine for now, but only those that live where PayPal is accepted can use it. You should think about getting a 2CO account sometime in the future. If you get to be in the "big leagues", then you'll have to look into accepting credit cards directly from your site with no payment gateways.
 
Actually ... my bank (in its Commercial Banking services) apparently offers and internet interface for accepting credit cards etc for international sales & services etc. I was going to look into that. If I understand it correctly ... people would click on the link from my site and it would go to my business' page on my banks website and then the $$ goes directly into my account. And Canadian customers would have the added option of setting up a monthly debit on their Canadian bank account.

It all sounds good ... but until I get ALL the info its in the "just a thought" realm. Knowing the bank they would probably "service charge" me into bankruptcy before I got started hahaha.

But if I can go with them and their program ... they provide all the software for monthly billings, tracking payments etc etc etc free of charge.

I can get the info now ... but choosing to go that route before I even have any customers is kind of foolish hehehe.

Thanks for the input
Peter
 
Equinox - and here I thought I was the only one on this forum that suffered from brain farts and brain fog hehehe :)

Marc - I checked out 2CO, WHM AP & ModernBill. Thanks for the suggestions. It may require an initial cash outlay that I am not exactly prepared for ... but I can sure see where just biting the bullet and going for it might be the best choice I can make.

While checking out ModernBill ... I came across a site
http://www.modernauthorize.com/ca/psigate.php

It "sounds" like a good alternative ... but since I know NOTHING about these things ... I would appreciate other peoples opinions. I am confused a bit about if I would have to pay additional transaction & account fees to the companies I would choose to use to have the billings go through - or if their monthly fee & transaction fee covers it all. Not sure if I would want to get into monthly fees initially though.
 
Peter,
A local tax agent will be able to help you out better, but there are some things you can write off if you are doing this out of your home. Your tax agent could also inform you whether or not you'll need a Tax ID or if you can use your SSN. I would also suggest getting a seperate bank account for the business and seperate credit/debit/check cards.

Modernbill is very nice, I've used it, and we will be more than likely purchasing a liscense.
 
Exon said:
Peter,
A local tax agent will be able to help you out better, but there are some things you can write off if you are doing this out of your home. Your tax agent could also inform you whether or not you'll need a Tax ID or if you can use your SSN. I would also suggest getting a seperate bank account for the business and seperate credit/debit/check cards.

Modernbill is very nice, I've used it, and we will be more than likely purchasing a liscense.
Click to expand...

Actually ... I have had a company registered with all the tax numbers for about 10 years now. I used it for a totally different type of business ... but they will still work for this new incarnation (if I proceed ;)). I had to close my "last attempt" when my health went in the dumper :)

I just need to open a company bank account. Lucky for me I have a degree in Business Admin with majors in Accounting, Marketing & Business Law. Trouble is that education was over 30 years ago ... so just have to make sure what I remember is still current :shocked: Its surprising how things go. Ask me what I remember from yesterday or last month ... and I couldn't tell you. But from when I was in school ... I have no problem ;)
 
Peter,

It's nice to see you taking this step.

Do keep in mind that in the way of WHMAP, etc.... I personally own an owned license of whmAP, and can tell you, I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy to use.

There are many free alternatives to the above mentioned software titles, and they server their purpose just as well.

Of course you know the idea is to save money and keep your overhead down as much as possible when starting out. In fact, a long time ago, this exact theory is what got me in the habit of creating software lol.

Now, in regards to a website....at least in my opinion, it would be a good idea to go for the template idea if a full deveopment project is beyond your current budget.

You want your site to be professional, and appealing. A template is probably the most cost effective way of doing that.
 
Mark, out of curiosity, what is it about WHMAP you don't like.

I switched to it a while ago and I think it's great.
 
Blue, I think Mark summed up his thoughts pretty well in a post he made about one month ago. Here is his post:

ANMMark said:
Out of the two, I'd go with ModernBill.

We had just purchased an owned license of whmAutoPilot, and it is insecure.

They basically wanted us to open port 25 (smtp) for any script on the server, that wanted to use it. This of course is a spammers dream. They refused to help with the problem, insisting that we should basically sacrifice the server it was installed on to spammers, just to run their software. Not only did they want us to do so, but also suggested that opening SMTP to any software on the local machine is perfectly secure. When I showed them the error in their ways, they went silent, and stopped responding.

We became irritated to the point where we just built our own billing/account management software.

In any case, in light of the above, I would suggest ModernBill.
Click to expand...
 
Indeed. I think it would be a great software package, if not for the SMTP issue.

The issue presented itself when we installed it, tested it, and got localhost:25 errors.

While I knew this meant that it was the SMTP server it was having troubles with, since the code was encrypted, I just couldn't tell why.

After asking them to help with the problem, I was told to tweak SMTP to allow all local access to port 25.

I asked them if their was another way to do it, since that was insecure, and they then began telling me how secure it was, over the standard sendmail method.

The problem with this is, the server would also be open to any spam usage, as long as it came from the local machine (which occurs if by chance you have a spammer signup for your services). What's worse is that if you do have this open, the spammer can send the mail from the server, without first authenticating themselves, making it very difficult to find which account the spam is coming from.

While whmAP may not be rogue software, it's not them I'd be worried about, but more so what you need to make vulnerable to make it work properly.
 
Like others have said you can use some popular billing and signup software like WHMAP, paypal will be your cheapest and best bet first. Then move on to a real merchent account if you are getting alot of sales.

And remember to legally register the business so you dont get stomped by the government ;)

- Eddy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Supporters

Back
Top