New Business Idea - Web Hosting?

Percy1983

I will start by saying this idea has come about while running a video business, I had an idea for a website and a friend let me on his server and I built a site which is going great.

Now within this I have been looking at many web hosting deals and came up with an idea.

As cheap as people can get individual hosting (around £2 a month) I figured I could actually beat this by getting a multisite deal and splitting the costs and offer service at around £10 a year + domain costs (which can vary) or potentially less if there was enough people interested.

The main key is I would be offering a service with very little support, If the server went down I would sort that but past that it would be a case of here is a login, here is a guide, your on your own. With that there would already be a default template in place so not just a black hole.

Dare I say I am thinking of very much the cheap and cheerful here and can see it may not be a service for everybody but for somebody who wants to start there own site this would offer no size limits and no strict templates.

Just from posts in here I would say there is market for this, but I see the bigger problem being is of course we don't have a name in comparison to the bigger companies (google search will find many of them) and of course offering little support (at least being honest on that front) might put too many people off.

I guess my thinking is its setting up a small business to help small businesses (like many of you in here), I am looking at taking some of the pain of hosting away so its litteraly just login and build. Cost wise I am trying to push the 'why not' kind of pricing.

As said this just an idea, but would there be a market for such a 'value' service?

Of course any ideas/feedback are welcome.

motorguy

No.

Bad idea.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4412551

motorguy

Percy1983 wrote: »

The main key is I would be offering a service with very little support,

Would that be your USP??

Percy1983

I guess the USP would be very cheap, without the limits you usually get on the cheap deals. I would be going for simplicity, probably using wordpress.

Interesting read on the other thread, I will say my own website currently runs perfectly (not in relation to this idea) to which if I was to have a go at this a website would run perfectly.

On the flip side I could build sites and offer an all in one deal, I am currently in the process of building a site for a friend, to which it would be an upfront cost for the build followed with cheap hosting.

As you would guess I am looking at reselling and not running my own server. But would be using one of the big companies with reliable servers.

Percy1983

Just looking more into it, I currently have more people interested in websites locally, so it looks like I will need to up server costs anyway.

Costs wise it won't cost me too much so I could just offer a service and if only a few people take it no problem, I am not thinking of trying for a multi million empire with this anyway.

Chai_2

Cant you just get a reseller account with someone like hostgator and they can do all the server work for you??

imoneyop

Chai wrote: »

Cant you just get a reseller account with someone like hostgator and they can do all the server work for you??

There was a thread on here recently about someone who was using an "unlimited" reseller account to host 1000 sites for customers.

His costs had just been increased 10 fold by his supplier due to the large number of tickets he was raising making him unprofitable to them.

Percy1983

I am really only thinking small here to help other small businesses.

I am not expecting (or wanting) thousands of customers and don't want it to become a huge empire or set me up for life.

To be honest I am just looking at distributing server costs over a small group, I gain as my server costs get covered and they gain as they get a better deal than they could on there own.

simplydevine05

As a small business owner I would have no interest in what you are offering. I know zilch about web hosting and building and so I pay someone else to do the bulk of that for me. You will find most small businesses also do not have the knowledge to build a website or deal with any problems that can arise. That's why the cheap site set ups are so popular.

Percy1983

simplydevine05 wrote: »

As a small business owner I would have no interest in what you are offering. I know zilch about web hosting and building and so I pay someone else to do the bulk of that for me. You will find most small businesses also do not have the knowledge to build a website or deal with any problems that can arise. That's why the cheap site set ups are so popular.

Interesting, I would be offering a wordpress install, to which it very easy to build a site from there.

The other side is I am building websites for small businesses and have some very happy customers to which I will continue to do that.

I guess I look at things like 1&1 where you pay £5+ a month and build your own, to which £1 a month + wordpress self build is a good option, I would say anyway.

c-m

People with a business don't want cheap hosting, they want reliable hosting.

Pretty much all hosting these days comes with 1 click installs of popular applications too.

Most businesses actually just buy hosting from the company that develops their website. Who in turn will have a re-seller account with someone like Heart Interent.

Hosting is a crowded market place. It's just not worth it.