Web Hosting Business Is Tricky

Teri Wells of DevShed just dished out the truth.

The truth that web hosting is no easy business. You just can’t quit your job and go to a web hosting business full time.

Fact is, web hosting is 24/7 job. They say, when you are your own boss, you can go on vacation any time and you can a have day off as often as you desire. The problem is, if you're your own boss, that is, web hosting business boss, you can't have any day off as clients, hosting provider concern, day-to-day stuff are all-over you 24/7.

In fact, the number of skills you need to operate your own company is staggering. You are your own salesman, marketer, bookkeeper, finance and billing, trainer, IT person (particularly important when you’re a web host), website designer, purchaser, quality control person, customer support, and on and on.

That we all do. Yours truly and some partners at Web-Men.Net do all that. And if we happen to lack some needed skills, we either sub-contract stuff or indulge ourselves on further reading. So, say goodbye to weekend trips and vacations and say hello to ebooks and more. Work is to be done still.

Just going thru daily business chores like managing clients, upkeeping accounts make us stagnate on some aspects of the business. In fact, our site has been pretty much the same since time immemorial. Not a single major design change happened. Just emphasizing how loadful the web hosting job can be.

And, if you are hosting people outside RP (as we do), it means additional (wake)up-time because of time zone differential. One needs to answer emails and voice calls as well at odd times.

But more importantly, the main reason why Web Hosting business is not at all bulletproof is the economics. There are plenty of web hosts around, how can you possibly excel or at least compete is a big problem to solve. With monthly web hosting fees all going down south, closing out sales/earning is tricky.