1) Focus on a niche. There are thousands of similar php standard setups and it will be hard for you to get out with yours, while there are far less reliable python/django/pylons, ruby/rails shared hosting platforms. If you know (or have someone who knows and will work for you) how to set up for this technologies, you can rock in this market.
2) Hire an uber-geek who can give instant support, fix stuff, install and configure needed frameworks, dbs, libraries, deal with problems, etc. If you are small, don't act big - be accessible, respond to every email, have an emergency-only phone number, give support, engage with your clients. If you have lots of devs as clients they'll probably help you (willingly or by accident) tune up your setup, you'll know the common needs, and so on.
I'm on a local shared hosting who meets both of the points above and I bring all my clients to them when it's possible.
An affiliate program would be nice, it can be simple - give discount points to devs that bring new customers. I don't even pay a dime for my shared thanks to the clients I've brought.
I'd also suggest to focus on niche. One particular niche that I can probably think of right now is "pay as you go" or "prepaid" hosting which is only provided by nearlyfreespeech.net as of yet.
I think you can experiment with billing and can come up with an innovative sales pitch. Also honesty matters a lot in this industry. It's the reason why people who host on nearlyfreespeech.net, prgmr.com and linode.com swear by their service.
Couldnt agree with you more here, I have been around the industry for a while now I have seen all the crap that goes on. The constant lies and deceptions, which is why I am making the effort off the bat to be honest. I have a section on my website which clearly says "What is not supported" this gives them information straight away with them assuming it has it and ordering the wrong package.
And avoid a mistake many beginners in business make: charge enough! Charging enough means you can do a generous affiliate program and still make money.
Seriously. With the amount often billed by consultants, clients aren't going to balk at double, triple, or even 10x the hosting costs of something like GoDaddy. (assuming reliability is there)
Also, I'd play with offering "unlimited" plans vs "cheap to upgrade" plans. Maybe the market you are targeting (if its a technical market, like django hosting mentioned above) associated "unlimited" plans with bad service or other trade-offs. A/B test until you're blue in the face.
its limited packages, aimed purely at the tiny business website. I have three packages, 10MB, 30MB and 70MB. This serves a number of purposes.
1. Limits the amount of risk from overselling
2. Increases the profitability of the server
3. Prevents abuse (people uploading mp3's, videos etc)
4. Easier Maintenance
I am flexible however, so if a customer needs a little more room I wont charge the earth for it.
Comments
Don't know what is your planned offer, but:
1) Focus on a niche. There are thousands of similar php standard setups and it will be hard for you to get out with yours, while there are far less reliable python/django/pylons, ruby/rails shared hosting platforms. If you know (or have someone who knows and will work for you) how to set up for this technologies, you can rock in this market.
2) Hire an uber-geek who can give instant support, fix stuff, install and configure needed frameworks, dbs, libraries, deal with problems, etc. If you are small, don't act big - be accessible, respond to every email, have an emergency-only phone number, give support, engage with your clients. If you have lots of devs as clients they'll probably help you (willingly or by accident) tune up your setup, you'll know the common needs, and so on.
I'm on a local shared hosting who meets both of the points above and I bring all my clients to them when it's possible.
An affiliate program would be nice, it can be simple - give discount points to devs that bring new customers. I don't even pay a dime for my shared thanks to the clients I've brought.
I'd also suggest to focus on niche. One particular niche that I can probably think of right now is "pay as you go" or "prepaid" hosting which is only provided by nearlyfreespeech.net as of yet.
I think you can experiment with billing and can come up with an innovative sales pitch. Also honesty matters a lot in this industry. It's the reason why people who host on nearlyfreespeech.net, prgmr.com and linode.com swear by their service.
Couldnt agree with you more here, I have been around the industry for a while now I have seen all the crap that goes on. The constant lies and deceptions, which is why I am making the effort off the bat to be honest. I have a section on my website which clearly says "What is not supported" this gives them information straight away with them assuming it has it and ordering the wrong package.
And avoid a mistake many beginners in business make: charge enough! Charging enough means you can do a generous affiliate program and still make money.
Seriously. With the amount often billed by consultants, clients aren't going to balk at double, triple, or even 10x the hosting costs of something like GoDaddy. (assuming reliability is there)
Also, I'd play with offering "unlimited" plans vs "cheap to upgrade" plans. Maybe the market you are targeting (if its a technical market, like django hosting mentioned above) associated "unlimited" plans with bad service or other trade-offs. A/B test until you're blue in the face.
its limited packages, aimed purely at the tiny business website. I have three packages, 10MB, 30MB and 70MB. This serves a number of purposes.
1. Limits the amount of risk from overselling 2. Increases the profitability of the server 3. Prevents abuse (people uploading mp3's, videos etc) 4. Easier Maintenance
I am flexible however, so if a customer needs a little more room I wont charge the earth for it.
70mb? You're more likely to oversell resources other than disk...