I am the owner/operator of a 2 year old I.T. company looking to start hosting I would like to manage everything myself??? any recommendations...Is it a pipe dream,any idea as to the startup cost.

I would not recommend starting a hosting company or business by jumping right into it. Start off small, with maybe a Reseller account with an established hosting company or get a dedicated server. There are many great Reseller Programs out there that provide brandable hosting and you will have more control over your hosting business than you may think. Then once you have enough clients you can think about spending the big bucks to become a full-blown hosting company. This will save you a lot of money for starting off. I hope I could help. Good luck and let me know if you need any help!

I agree with the previous response. You should take it slow and get a reseller account at first. Look in some of the major hosting directories and you will find many of them. To narrow it down a bit, try to define your target audience. ie. low, mid or high end range. What type of clientele do you want to attract?

Once you have decided that, then figure out what type of hosting automation would best fit your needs. if you want o host both UNIX and Windows customers, you may want to look at HSphere, Ensim or a hosting company that has two specialized control panels for each operating system.

After this you would have narrowed your search down. Price should not be a big factor in your decision. The bottom line is quality. the better your provider is, the more satisfied your customers will be.

Finally, don't forget that you have to advertise or at least do search engine manipulation to get traffic to your site or you can sit there for years and not get any sales.

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, please post them.

Steve

I am new to this too. I just signed up with OLM and I am going through the typical "lean on the support team for everything" and am almost up and running.

The one thing that convinced me that these guys are going to be ok is when I called them out of the blue at 3AM on Sunday morning, and found the support team awake and ready to answer my questions -- BEFORE I was their customer. So far the support has been excellent and I am finding my way around the control panel. If anyone has had any bad experiences with OLM I would appreciate a heads up via email.

I am very familiar with both UNIX and Windows but as a user only. There are quite a few differences between user knowledge and admin knowledge in this area and I am learning pretty quickly how much I don't know.

;)

I found this board through a search engine and I am hoping to make some connections here that will help me get up to speed quicker as well as make a few friends along the way.

Good luck with your venture and I offer my help to you and to the board for ecommerce questions dealing with MIVA software, or anything else I can do.

Steve is right. If you have a question, please post!

Deborah