Dreams can come true
I've always wanted to own my own business. Work for myself, or at least be part of a partnership if I didn't own it outright.
I do web development for a living. I work full time for a software company, but I do small web development projects on the side for clients also. A few years ago, as I started a new project that very specific hosting requirements, I found myself spending several days (part-time) looking for appropriate and affordable hosting. After getting through that process, I decided to start providing web hosting for clients. The plan was to let charities host for free, and sell hosting at a very competitive rate to businesses and non-charity personal projects to pay the hosting bill. I wasn't trying to generate a profit, just bring in enough money to pay the monthly bill to host the server in order to make the charitable sites' hosting truly free.
I became somewhat successful at that, breaking even most months. After several late night phone calls from the data center when there was server trouble, I decided that it would be a better fit for me to get some hosting in bulk from some other provider and be a reseller. The same plan would work (sell enough to break even), so I moved my clients over and continued along.
Through word of mouth referral business, I built up a decent client list. After a couple of years being a reseller, the owner of the hosting company came to me with a proposal to merge our businesses and be partners. I had become his largest reseller by a wide margin. I explained my "business plan" and he was completely on board with that. As of Jan. 1, 2007 we merged and are now one company. I am a partner in the business and will share in the overall profits of the company. In addition, we are creating a non-profit subsidary to handle the charitable hosting and I will be president of that subsidiary.
I finally have taken a giant step to achieving one of the big goals in my life - to own (partially or completely) my own business. Is it enough to let me quit the corporate job? Not yet, but hopefully one day it will be.
I do web development for a living. I work full time for a software company, but I do small web development projects on the side for clients also. A few years ago, as I started a new project that very specific hosting requirements, I found myself spending several days (part-time) looking for appropriate and affordable hosting. After getting through that process, I decided to start providing web hosting for clients. The plan was to let charities host for free, and sell hosting at a very competitive rate to businesses and non-charity personal projects to pay the hosting bill. I wasn't trying to generate a profit, just bring in enough money to pay the monthly bill to host the server in order to make the charitable sites' hosting truly free.
I became somewhat successful at that, breaking even most months. After several late night phone calls from the data center when there was server trouble, I decided that it would be a better fit for me to get some hosting in bulk from some other provider and be a reseller. The same plan would work (sell enough to break even), so I moved my clients over and continued along.
Through word of mouth referral business, I built up a decent client list. After a couple of years being a reseller, the owner of the hosting company came to me with a proposal to merge our businesses and be partners. I had become his largest reseller by a wide margin. I explained my "business plan" and he was completely on board with that. As of Jan. 1, 2007 we merged and are now one company. I am a partner in the business and will share in the overall profits of the company. In addition, we are creating a non-profit subsidary to handle the charitable hosting and I will be president of that subsidiary.
I finally have taken a giant step to achieving one of the big goals in my life - to own (partially or completely) my own business. Is it enough to let me quit the corporate job? Not yet, but hopefully one day it will be.
posted by learningtowrite | 7:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home