Lowcost hosting. Failed startup
I would like to tell you about one interesting project in our opinion that we were ready to finance. Unfortunately, the team promoting this idea fell apart halfway to the beginning.
Below is a description of the project, close to what we received from the authors.
A link to preliminary financial calculations is provided in the body of the note. All figures are given as of 2011 and are not updated.
Almost every hosting company operating in the mass market is faced with the fact that the demand for cheap hosting services is many times greater than the demand for quality, but not cheap service. The main share of costs in this business does not fall on the cost of server hardware, but on the technical support of the data center, power supply and, most importantly, on the high level of those. customer support. But the mass market is not ready to appreciate and pay for it.
If 10 years ago the creation of the site was available to the units, now 5-year-old children create their home pages within 20 minutes. The Internet has become massive and not professional.
According to NETCRAFT , an explosive growth in the number of domains on the network began in 2010.
This growth, of course, led to a change in the structure of customer demand for hosting services. Now the success of a hosting company is determined primarily by the price of the services offered. Accordingly, customer preferences have changed. Why pay more for a brand name rackmount server in a data center with a TIR4 certificate if you can get the same megabytes and megahertz for less money. And what a problem if the site with photos of your favorite cat hangs in hot weather for a couple of hours. Kitty from this will not be scratched.
Just at the very beginning of explosive growth, about 5 years ago, dumping offers for hosting services began to appear.
There is no need to advertise such companies as Hetzner, DirectNet, etc.
- It is cheaper to keep a ready replacement computer for 300 €. Than to pay 2-5 thousand for a reliable server.
- The same applies to other components (server memory ECC, Fully buffered, SCSI, SAS screws, hot-swappable, RAID controller, etc.). The same money can be bought in 1.5 more than usual megabytes
- Tech. support - at a minimum. Anyway, these clients and professionals speak different languages. A polite blonde, at best, on the phone: - “Thank you for the call. He is very important to us. I will transfer the application to our employees. ”And the guys ran to change one system unit to another. That's all the support.
- About SCS - no talk. As acknowledged by the engineer of one of these hosting providers - “I would rather put up a new computer than to figure out where it was and what was hanging”
')
We propose to implement the same project, but focused on the Russian-speaking audience. This is the main idea of ​​a startup.
Why in Europe (Germany):
What is worse:
How to make such a project:
The advantages of such a project over competitors are obvious. Having a similar quality of equipment and services, the startup will have a marketing structure oriented towards the Russian-speaking community, will be able to work with Russian payment systems and national currencies of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc. If you fulfill a number of well-known requirements (licensing), you can provide legal services. Persons in Russia and other countries that Western hosters definitely cannot afford.
We did not bring all the tables from the financial plan for the sake of saving letters, but we are ready to publish them.
The project team consisted of techies on the German side and organizers and merchants on the Russian side. We began to finance this project, but discord and mutual misunderstanding began in the team itself. At these alarming moments, funding was halted. The German part of techies continues to feel hope for the implementation of a startup. The Russian part of the team has dispersed in their less risky pursuits.
This material was published with the consent of the authors of the project.
Now for us, as investors, other projects, FlaShells and FMS , are a priority, but we are ready to take part in LowCost Hosting project to some extent.
Only an adequate team would be found, ready to take on this startup.
Below is a description of the project, close to what we received from the authors.
A link to preliminary financial calculations is provided in the body of the note. All figures are given as of 2011 and are not updated.
Almost every hosting company operating in the mass market is faced with the fact that the demand for cheap hosting services is many times greater than the demand for quality, but not cheap service. The main share of costs in this business does not fall on the cost of server hardware, but on the technical support of the data center, power supply and, most importantly, on the high level of those. customer support. But the mass market is not ready to appreciate and pay for it.
If 10 years ago the creation of the site was available to the units, now 5-year-old children create their home pages within 20 minutes. The Internet has become massive and not professional.
According to NETCRAFT , an explosive growth in the number of domains on the network began in 2010.
This growth, of course, led to a change in the structure of customer demand for hosting services. Now the success of a hosting company is determined primarily by the price of the services offered. Accordingly, customer preferences have changed. Why pay more for a brand name rackmount server in a data center with a TIR4 certificate if you can get the same megabytes and megahertz for less money. And what a problem if the site with photos of your favorite cat hangs in hot weather for a couple of hours. Kitty from this will not be scratched.
Just at the very beginning of explosive growth, about 5 years ago, dumping offers for hosting services began to appear.
There is no need to advertise such companies as Hetzner, DirectNet, etc.
The concept of lowcost hosting is simple:
We must give the client what he understands, saving on what he does not appreciate:- It is cheaper to keep a ready replacement computer for 300 €. Than to pay 2-5 thousand for a reliable server.
- The same applies to other components (server memory ECC, Fully buffered, SCSI, SAS screws, hot-swappable, RAID controller, etc.). The same money can be bought in 1.5 more than usual megabytes
- Tech. support - at a minimum. Anyway, these clients and professionals speak different languages. A polite blonde, at best, on the phone: - “Thank you for the call. He is very important to us. I will transfer the application to our employees. ”And the guys ran to change one system unit to another. That's all the support.
- About SCS - no talk. As acknowledged by the engineer of one of these hosting providers - “I would rather put up a new computer than to figure out where it was and what was hanging”
')
We propose to implement the same project, but focused on the Russian-speaking audience. This is the main idea of ​​a startup.
Why in Europe (Germany):
- The cost of renting premises in large developed cities is significantly lower than in large cities of Russia.
- The quality of the premises is higher.
- There is no corruption component, no cops, sanitary epidemiological stations, and department K. There are rules and laws. If you fulfill them, you are not interested in any supervisory body. In addition to tax In Europe, this is not joking.
- The quality of communications: electricity, canals, roads - is orders of magnitude higher than in Russia
- Equipment, on average, is cheaper not significantly, but its choice is greater. Especially with regard to used equipment.
- The commercial value of the phrase "Made in Germany" I propose to compare independently with the phrase "Made in Russia"
What is worse:
- S / n The cost of staff.
- Tax regime. There are, of course, who are trying to deceive the state in terms of taxes. But I would not advise.
How to make such a project:
- Rental of industrial premises - from 100 sq.m. at the start of the project
- Buy ordinary computers, or buy second-hand from leasing companies, etc.
- Upgrading system units with an increase in memory, hard drive volumes, etc.
- Room equipment shelving. partitioning into cold / hot zones, organization of forced-air ventilation and simple air conditioning. No precision air conditioning systems, air preparation, etc.
- Access restriction - a barn door lock. The calm atmosphere in Germany and the well thought-out insurance make it possible to use this method of protection.
- Fire alarm and foam fire extinguishing system. Inert gas, only in tires of the car of the engineer on duty.
The advantages of such a project over competitors are obvious. Having a similar quality of equipment and services, the startup will have a marketing structure oriented towards the Russian-speaking community, will be able to work with Russian payment systems and national currencies of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc. If you fulfill a number of well-known requirements (licensing), you can provide legal services. Persons in Russia and other countries that Western hosters definitely cannot afford.
Costing
| Name | units rev. | Note |
| Room characteristics | ||
| Room area | sq.m. | 100 |
| Number of servers per sq.m. | piece / sq.m. | 12 |
| Max. qty servers (coefficients used. - 0.8) | PC. | 960 |
| the Internet | ||
| installation | Euro | 2500 |
| Cost 30 MB / sec | euro / month | 300 |
| Cost 50 MB / sec | euro / month | 500 |
| Cost of 100 MB / sec | euro / month | 700 |
| Cost of 200 MB / sec | euro / month | 1200 |
| Cost of 300 MB / sec | euro / month | 1500 |
| Cost of 500 MB / sec | euro / month | 2000 |
| Lane 1 server | mb | one |
| Current payments | ||
| Power kW to server "Dedicated_N" | kW / pc | 0.15 |
| Power supply kW to server "Dedicated_P" | kW / pc | 0.20 |
| Cost of electricity | euro / kW | 0.17 |
| Rent sq.m. month | Euro | 3.5 |
| Equipment | ||
| Normal server "Dedicated_N" | Euro | 300 |
| Server Premium "Dedicated_P" | Euro | 555 |
| IP power Switsh | Euro | 1500 |
| IP KVM | Euro | 1500 |
| Cisco | Euro | 1200 |
| Other | Euro | 500 |
| Term equipment depreciation | years old | four |
| Sale of services | ||
| Rental servers Normal ("Dedicated_N") | euro / month | 29 |
| Rent Premium servers ("Dedicated_P") | euro / month | 49 |
| Installation | euro / piece | |
| Rental rate "Dedicated_N" | piece / month | 6 |
| Rental rate "Dedicated_P" | piece / month | 3 |
Variable costs:
CashFlow:
We did not bring all the tables from the financial plan for the sake of saving letters, but we are ready to publish them.
The project team consisted of techies on the German side and organizers and merchants on the Russian side. We began to finance this project, but discord and mutual misunderstanding began in the team itself. At these alarming moments, funding was halted. The German part of techies continues to feel hope for the implementation of a startup. The Russian part of the team has dispersed in their less risky pursuits.
This material was published with the consent of the authors of the project.
Now for us, as investors, other projects, FlaShells and FMS , are a priority, but we are ready to take part in LowCost Hosting project to some extent.
Only an adequate team would be found, ready to take on this startup.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/146532/
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