# New LowEndBox kickstarter project.



## MannDude (Jul 21, 2013)

Seen this yet? http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/lowendbox-kickstarter-competition-2-1500-worth-of-prizes/

I like the idea, sure. But don't like how it'll be just another run-of-the-mill hosting operating. Same specs as a slew of other providers, same boring locations, and at the end of the day the only difference between what will come of this and available options already in the same location is how many containers is crammed on each node and how the company handles support.

I was thinking of organizing something similar to this, though with community donated products/services. On the fence now. 

Discuss.


----------



## MartinD (Jul 21, 2013)

Something elsewhere is required. Some proper rules and regulation, too. Oh, and non LEB, too.


----------



## Jade (Jul 21, 2013)

Sounds like a great idea!


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 21, 2013)

But summer is about to end


----------



## jarland (Jul 21, 2013)

CC is just a few steps away from selling "vps company" as a product listed in WHMCS. Turnkey ready to go VPS company.


----------



## Francisco (Jul 21, 2013)

jarland said:


> CC is just a few steps away from selling "vps company" as a product listed in WHMCS. Turnkey ready to go VPS company.


HAH

I wonder if they stripped it from the guy that won the kickstarter?

Francisco


----------



## notFound (Jul 21, 2013)

Closes on my b'day. Mmm.

I liked the original one a little more to be perfectly honest, I can't really see anyone deserving around that isn't already capable of starting their own company in the LEB/LET community, that is unless there's a lurker. It definately is a better 'prize' but there's also the problem of ubiquitously used locations so that can't be a USP and it will be hard to find a USP and to gain success in the market. Really needs someone special to win to make it worth while.


----------



## wdq (Jul 21, 2013)

I find this bit of information appealing: "the winner will be picked by you the community"

Although I have to agree that if someone is looking to start a hosting company they really shouldn't need a kick start to get it going. They should have it already planned out, and they should already have the funding in place to get everything up and running for at least a year.


----------



## WebSearchingPro (Jul 21, 2013)

I agree that anyone who has a chance of "winning" this already has enough knowledge/experience to start their own company or had already been working for a current VPS host. 

However, there may be a few people with particular limitations, that could benefit greatly from this. Honestly anyone can go out and spend 200$/month starting from month one and have a company, IMO the real "gift" is the consultation and education from working with a provider as large as ColoCrossing (albeit one with a bad rep.).

I think the fact that it will be a community vote will cause some issues because most of the popular people in this community already have their hands in a company/project and will be unable to devote 100% time to this new opportunity. 

Itll be interesting to see the results, wonder if someone will be able to write up a successful business plan + compete with ~20 established hosts in CC. While turning profit at month 7.


----------



## peterw (Jul 22, 2013)

Who want's to be the 100th host in Buffalo? Hopefully noone.


----------



## Tux (Jul 22, 2013)

peterw said:


> Who want's to be the 100th host in Buffalo? Hopefully noone.


More like 3.2 thousandth host.

I'm cringing.


----------



## peterw (Jul 22, 2013)

I hate "new" offers. Most of the time I read the offer till I reach the location list (Los Angeles, Kansas, Buffalo) and cursing about another waste of time.


----------



## mikho (Jul 22, 2013)

wdq said:


> Although I have to agree that if someone is looking to start a hosting company they really shouldn't need a kick start to get it going. They should have it already planned out, and they should already have the funding in place to get everything up and running for at least a year.


Hopefully the winner will be someone who has everything ready but only lacks the funding. That would be the ideal situation.



WebSearchingPro said:


> IMO the real "gift" is the consultation and education from working with a provider as large as ColoCrossing (albeit one with a bad rep.).


If the advice is good, that part is interesting. if the response time is slow and "bad" it will create even more chaos for a newbie.



Francisco said:


> HAH
> 
> 
> I wonder if they stripped it from the guy that won the kickstarter?
> ...


Since the price was never collected it wouldn't surprise me if this is the same server.

My "opinion" on this is like many already said, first and foremost the location. The new provider will need to do something so special to stand out of the crowd of all other providers already there.

There will be a "problem" when the winner is announced and the first offer is presented. The community of LE will ask WHY they should pay for a VPS on a server that the provider got for free. No matter what price it is on the product, it will be to high.

After reading comments about the latest kickstarter it wasa miles between the winner and the runner up. (?) I don't think the situation has changed much since then. There are a number of new members on the forum but a potential new provider? Maybe or maybe not.

I would have understood and loved the kickstarter competition if a part of the price was something in the line of getting first month alone in a new CC location or similar. Something making it unique.


----------



## HostUS-Alexander (Jul 22, 2013)

Good luck to everyone that enters


----------



## peterw (Jul 22, 2013)

mikho said:


> first and foremost the location


They do have some locations that are interesting http://www.colocrossing.com/network

But they do always only offer the three dirty cheap.


----------



## MannDude (Jul 22, 2013)

mikho said:


> The community of LE will ask WHY they should pay for a VPS on a server that the provider got for free. No matter what price it is on the product, it will be to high.


They already ask this question to valid, solid and known hosting companies because the market is saturated with 'all for nothing' type of cookie-cutter hosts. A lot of customers _expect_ RAM to cost about $3.50/mo per GB allocated to the customer.

I'd enter the contest, offer KVM VPSes and not try to appeal to the low-end market at all. Since I'd be charging practical prices that actual businesses would be willing to pay, once the free-term is up I could rent or collocate a server in a different DC, sell it as a 'network and infrastructure upgrade' to my small client-base, and go from there.

The real winner in this contest will be CC, who gets free promotion, gets to collect ideas, and earns another client.


----------



## D. Strout (Jul 22, 2013)

I feel like I could meet all the requirements. I have a _lot_ of experience with this stuff, and I know I could set up a good host. But I have not been active in the LET/B community since the hacks, I don't have enough time to do it right, I wouldn't be able to offer IPv6 because, you know, ColoCrossing, and I don't have a better answer than anyone else as to how to make this unique and worth people's while/money.


----------



## kaniini (Jul 22, 2013)

MannDude said:


> I'd enter the contest, offer KVM VPSes and not try to appeal to the low-end market at all. Since I'd be charging practical prices that actual businesses would be willing to pay, once the free-term is up I could rent or collocate a server in a different DC, sell it as a 'network and infrastructure upgrade' to my small client-base, and go from there. The real winner in this contest will be CC, who gets free promotion, gets to collect ideas, and earns another client.


But that's the point.  They want another shell company they can assimilate in 6 months, they don't care about sustainability.

If they cared about sustainability, they wouldn't target lowendbox community for a "launch a VPS company" promo.


----------



## Lee (Jul 23, 2013)

To be honest it's good to see, the first one was a disaster and the winner an idiot full of excuses.  Hopefully it will be better handled this time and go to someone with a good plan for development and a solid time frame worked out.

Yes it's CC, yes it's in the same locations as so many others however it's a worthy deal and a good package to allow someone to launch properly and not having to skimp on the important things.

Say what you like about CC on this one but they are putting something worthwhile out there, don't see anyone else making this kind of offer.  So whilst you may not like CC or LET anymore it's worth supporting for the sake of the right person getting a solid start.


----------



## Ivan (Jul 23, 2013)

W1H-Lee said:


> To be honest it's good to see, the first one was a disaster and the winner an idiot full of excuses.  Hopefully it will be better handled this time and go to someone with a good plan for development and a solid time frame worked out.
> 
> Yes it's CC, yes it's in the same locations as so many others however it's a worthy deal and a good package to allow someone to launch properly and not having to skimp on the important things.
> 
> Say what you like about CC on this one but they are putting something worthwhile out there, don't see anyone else making this kind of offer.  So whilst you may not like CC or LET anymore it's worth supporting for the sake of the right person getting a solid start.


I agree with you on this. You don't see any other big companies do this sorta thing, and I'll be pretty damn jealous towards whoever who wins it. Looking forward to see who will be getting their hands on all of those stuff, hopefully it'll be someone worthy and someone who will make use of all of those things to the utmost maximum in a time frame of 6 months.


----------



## mpkossen (Jul 23, 2013)

MartinD said:


> Something elsewhere is required. Some proper rules and regulation, too. Oh, and non LEB, too.


As far as I know it doesn't have to be LEB-only. I think they'll also accept one or two LEB plans (128MB and 256MB) and the rest out of the LEB range. We also don't need more RAM racers. It's becoming increasingly harder to find new providers offering 128MB annual plans.


----------



## mpkossen (Jul 23, 2013)

jarland said:


> CC is just a few steps away from selling "vps company" as a product listed in WHMCS. Turnkey ready to go VPS company.


This is just a price to help somebody to get started. The rules only say that you _may_ continue to use their servers after the competition, it doesn't say you _have_ to, AFAIK. Also, as much as I like you, the constant CC hate is boring and it's getting old.



WebSearchingPro said:


> I agree that anyone who has a chance of "winning" this already has enough knowledge/experience to start their own company or had already been working for a current VPS host.
> 
> However, there may be a few people with particular limitations, that could benefit greatly from this. Honestly anyone can go out and spend 200$/month starting from month one and have a company, IMO the real "gift" is the consultation and education from working with a provider as large as ColoCrossing (albeit one with a bad rep.).
> 
> ...


I really look forward to the responses as well. I think this is a great way to get somebody started, especially somebody with a solid plan but without the financial means to pick this up themselves. I'm also hoping that by using community voting, we won't end up with such a bad situation as we did last year. He (the winner of last year's competition) kept postponing everything, always had an excuses and eventually started blaming CC for it.


----------



## Ivan (Jul 23, 2013)

I'd probably benefit A LOT if I win a competition where I get consultation, training and teaching  and.. maybe a dedicated server along the way.. But yeah, this competition from CC is a really great one for someone who has the knowledge, but not the finances. 

Consultation also sounds pretty awesome, from someone as big as CC, as mentioned above.


----------



## jarland (Jul 23, 2013)

mpkossen said:


> This is just a price to help somebody to get started. The rules only say that you _may_ continue to use their servers after the competition, it doesn't say you _have_ to, AFAIK. Also, as much as I like you, the constant CC hate is boring and it's getting old.


The whining about it from people who are either on their payroll or who's business depends on their wellbeing is getting far older. Walk it off.


----------



## Mr. Obvious (Jul 23, 2013)

jarland said:


> The whining about it from people who are either on their payroll or who's business depends on their wellbeing is getting far older. Walk it off.


Heaven forbid someone's business relies on someone elses business.

And I second that the constant CC bashing is getting old.  Really old. <queue beatingdeadhorse.jpg>

Transparency:  No, I'm not a CC employee, no I don't live in Buffalo.  I live in nebraska, and make sandwiches.


----------



## mikho (Jul 23, 2013)

mpkossen said:


> I'm also hoping that by using community voting, we won't end up with such a bad situation as we did last year. He (the winner of last year's competition) kept postponing everything, always had an excuses and eventually started blaming CC for it.


There is no guarantee that the winner won't do the same thing again because the community votes on it.

I would rather have providers running working companys in the jury then someone who doesn't know how to ssh into a vps ...

6 months of free stuff ... I might enter the competition for fun .. if things don't go to well, deadpool after 6 months when the bills should be paid.


----------



## Mr. Obvious (Jul 23, 2013)

mikho said:


> There is no guarantee that the winner won't do the same thing again because the community votes on it.
> 
> I would rather have providers running working companys in the jury then someone who doesn't know how to ssh into a vps ...
> 
> 6 months of free stuff ... I might enter the competition for fun .. if things don't go to well, deadpool after 6 months when the bills should be paid.


Liam added a clause to the terms of the competition saying you have 30 days from time of announcement to claim your prize.  At least that way, things should be provisioned and start counting against the 6 months - not just "I'm doing some testing on nodes I've paid for out of pocket and I'll launch after I take 27 vacations and finish my doctorate"


----------



## Francisco (Jul 23, 2013)

Mr. Obvious said:


> Liam added a clause to the terms of the competition saying you have 30 days from time of announcement to claim your prize.  At least that way, things should be provisioned and start counting against the 6 months - not just "I'm doing some testing on nodes I've paid for out of pocket and I'll launch after I take 27 vacations and finish my doctorate"


You know it sucks that the last winner didn't do it but I can't blame him. Within < 1 year the market has gone from 2GB plans being over the top to 4GB+ plans becoming the next norm. It isn't like 256GB+ boxes are run of the mill cheap or something, it's just with ChicagoVPS' DB leaking twice now it has shown people just how far you can oversell it and not melt.

All the best to the contestants, you'll need every bit of it. I don't know who the jury will be but I really hope it's not going to favor the popular vote. There's simply way too many people that have no idea what they're doing trying to run companies.

Not to toot my own horn (giggity) but last time there was 2 seasoned hosts in the market and Joel, a business owner that deals in 6 figure contacts fairly often. 

Francisco


----------



## jarland (Jul 23, 2013)

Mr. Obvious said:


> Heaven forbid someone's business relies on someone elses business.
> 
> And I second that the constant CC bashing is getting old.  Really old. <queue beatingdeadhorse.jpg>
> 
> Transparency:  No, I'm not a CC employee, no I don't live in Buffalo.  I live in nebraska, and make sandwiches.


So to clarify, I made one post about that yesterday and two of you feel the need to complain about it today. Remind me who is beating a dead horse. 2 > 1


----------



## SkylarM (Jul 23, 2013)

Mr. Obvious said:


> Transparency:  No, I'm not a CC employee, no I don't live in Buffalo.  I live in nebraska, and make sandwiches.


What kind of sandwiches?


----------



## Mr. Obvious (Jul 23, 2013)

SkylarM said:


> What kind of sandwiches?


The kind that go on bread   Haha, my dayjob for the time being, is at Subway.


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 23, 2013)

Mr. Obvious said:


> The kind that go on bread   Haha, my dayjob for the time being, is at Subway.


Take this as a compliment,

You guys make the best Veggie pattie and sweet onion sauce.


----------



## Lee (Jul 23, 2013)

Mr. Obvious said:


> The kind that go on bread   Haha, my dayjob for the time being, is at Subway.


I could chew on your meatballs all day...


----------



## Mr. Obvious (Jul 23, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> Take this as a compliment,
> 
> You guys make the best Veggie pattie and sweet onion sauce.


This is now a thread about sandwiches.

On that note - how do you eat that crappy veggie patty lol


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 23, 2013)

W1H-Lee said:


> I could chew on your meatballs all day...


Oh lee. You had to say that.



Mr. Obvious said:


> This is now a thread about sandwiches.
> 
> On that note - how do you eat that crappy veggie patty lol


Cause you guys don't have halal meat and that patty tastes pretty good. YUMM!


----------



## Lee (Jul 23, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> Cause you guys don't have halal meat


Fekkin Asians...


----------



## kaniini (Jul 23, 2013)

mpkossen said:


> It's becoming increasingly harder to find new providers offering 128MB annual plans.


Why would I want to offer 128MB at a price point where it's not worth it to me, when I can offer 512MB at a price point that makes sense instead?

Every VPS is going to have the same net-abuse risk and support load.  Why go through all of that on a VPS which costs less than $2/month?


----------



## Lee (Jul 23, 2013)

kaniini said:


> Why would I want to offer 128MB at a price point where it's not worth it to me, when I can offer 512MB at a price point that makes sense instead?
> 
> Every VPS is going to have the same net-abuse risk and support load.  Why go through all of that on a VPS which costs less than $2/month?


128MB VPS's still have a lot of uses.  I have one from Buyvm and another from Minivps for DNS, ok they are hardly big money plans at $15/$20 a year but neither get tickets from me about them, very low maintenance for both sides.  So not all have the same abuse/support loads.

If it suits you not to offer that kind of plan then fair enough but there is a market for them none the less.


----------



## wlanboy (Jul 23, 2013)

kaniini said:


> Why would I want to offer 128MB at a price point where it's not worth it to me, when I can offer 512MB at a price point that makes sense instead?


Good point, but a  lot of people don't need more. And after they are realizing that a small Raspberry Pi with 800Mhz can run their whole website with a load of 0.1 they don't want to spend 5$ a month for something they do not use.

Look to my 96MB vps: One Ruby driven site (+ 2 static sites) with an offloaded MongoDB: 20 concurrent visitors...


total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 98304 79424 18880 0 0 31852
-/+ buffers/cache: 47572 50732
Swap: 98304 17284 81020

Why should I buy a 512 MB vps for that?

The 4 GB offers did not kill the brains of all vps users.


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 23, 2013)

W1H-Lee said:


> Fekkin Asians...


"Muslims".


----------



## HostUS-Alexander (Jul 24, 2013)

SeriesN said:


> "Muslims".


"Bacon Haters"


----------



## Lee (Jul 24, 2013)

HostUS-Alexander said:


> "Bacon Haters"


That was a bit racist.

I agree but still.


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 24, 2013)

HostUS-Alexander said:


> "Bacon Haters"


Turkey to teh rescue.


----------



## HostUS-Alexander (Jul 24, 2013)

W1H-Lee said:


> That was a bit racist.
> 
> I agree but still.





SeriesN said:


> Turkey to teh rescue.


Bacon makes the world go round


----------



## SeriesN (Jul 24, 2013)

HostUS-Alexander said:


> Bacon makes the world go round


La hawla Coca cola.


----------



## NodeBytes (Aug 3, 2013)

So do you have to use colocrossing servers?


----------



## MannDude (Aug 3, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> So do you have to use colocrossing servers?


As they're the one sponsoring the event, yes, I believe so.

Though that doesn't mean you couldn't also offer a location they don't offer out of your own pocket, if you wanted, I suppose.


----------



## NodeBytes (Aug 3, 2013)

They imply it but don't expressly state so in the rules.


----------



## MannDude (Aug 3, 2013)

bcarlsonmedia said:


> They imply it but don't expressly state so in the rules.





> These servers can be located with LEB’s parent company, ColoCrossing, in either Buffalo, NY or Dallas, TX or Los Angeles. You can also select two locations, one for master and slave. As well as the two servers, this prize includes: a 6 month SolusVM & WHMCS licence, professionally designed website and free consulting from industry leaders. Click “Read More” To find out more information about the competition.


Seems to imply that it can only be with Colocrossing, in only Buffalo, Dallas or LA.


----------

