[Starting a Webserver/space business]

[Starting a Webserver/space business] - Computers

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Starting a Webserver/space business
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Posted by: Syk

What i want:
- Build/Host websites for people/companies
- Rent Web space for Vent/teamspeak/Personal Webpages

What would be required to start that kind of business...I have the know-how to create/maintain websites and build a server won't be a problem...Just What Would be required such as Bandwidth/Licenses and such...I want to do this the legal way and become a small business owner.

Posted by: Kubel

If you want to run a ts or vent server with web sites, I would suggest a VPS, since you probably won't find a shared hosting company that will provide you with shell access to install stuff like that.

A great company that I have had the pleasure to do business with is [url]http://www.knownhost.com.[/url] They offer VPS's starting at $20/month. You can add cPanel/WHM for just a few bucks more and you will have a complete hosting solution with tons of features for your clients and plenty of room to grow- with minimal expenses. If you decide to sign up, tell them we referred you :).

As far as the legal side of things- you will probably want to start a LLC. This gives the owner(s) limited liability, meaning you personally won't get sued or be in debt if your company ever gets into trouble.

Normally, you will probably want a lawyer to form an LLC and handle all the legal mess for you. This can cost $500ish plus $150ish for the cost of forming the LLC through your state. Then you need to take care of tax stuff for state and federal taxes.

Here's a site with some information: [url]http://www.formation-llc.com/[/url]

You will have to carefully consider everything and draft some business planning before you form. Web hosting is a lot of work and requires 24x7 attention. It's not something you can easily do on the side and expect to make lots of money and succeed. It's also a really bloated market with strong competition. So you will have to be clever and find a segment of customers that are looking for something you have that no one else offers.

Finally, don't rely on anyone except a lawyer for legal advice, especially not me! ;). Good luck!

Posted by: Syk

The hole point of my wanting to start a business was to rely on myself not a VPS. I Have or can get the materials to create/maintain a server or 2 its not hard work...

Posted by: Kubel

You will need to shop around for reliable colocation in your area. The cheapest I've seen is $50/month for a 1U or mid-tower with 1TB monthly bandwidth, but this is a lights-out datacenter here in Michigan (meaning it's unstaffed and closed during non-business hours). Reliability and availability leaves much to be desired. A good datacenter will charge many times that.

You can usually get cPanel/WHM licenses for $49/month just about anywhere. Usually you can get discounted licenses from large datacenters. So you will need to shop around for that also. Alternatively, you can go with directadmin, plesk, webmin, etc... (I'm assuming you are going with linux hosting- otherwise microsoft will take its bite out of your wallet for 2k3). But in my experience, cPanel is the best control panel available (for linux).

Building 2 servers may be cheap and easy, but colocating 2 servers with 0 clients and licensing fees, with no business plan or company established will result in quick bankruptcy with you holding all liability. So I would go with renting a VPS or a dedicated server. Colocating is usually not cost effective unless you have multiple servers.

Good luck.

Posted by: Abedter

I got Shot down!