Once upon a time there were these things called apprenticeships where people learned a trade inside and out before venturing out on their own...
Yeppers, I am a big fan / proponent of apprenticeships.
I remember back when Ian (owner of TacticalVPS) was new around here. He was looking for such opportunities in an existing company. I don't think anyone took him up on his offer.
A startup webhost should have people in-house who are well versed in everything technical (as well as staff who are knowledgable in every other aspect of running a business) when they launch if they want to provide a solid product and build a longterm business. Of course I'm also one of these old-fashioned people who think startups should write a real business plan and have enough startup working capital to get them through the first 6-12 months.
In-house people
bahahaha that rare luxury and qualified to boot. That doesn't happen very often in the hosting world. Exceptions are the McMega hosting companies who basically polish turds better. Most run the same silly games, oversubscribed, puny nodes, 5k customers per support person.
But yes, I'd say your approach, planning and capitalization are prudent and well proven methods to a less bumpy path.
Hosting, like many entrepreneurial ventures with low government tape barriers to entry has too many momentum startups without any of this. Even the well known larger companies in segment lack most of this years into their experiment.
Sad to say this, but I think with tech and the fads such really is, well it is an excelerated market with shorter life span. The companies can't reasonably expect to exist or the market need too far outward. I don't think we will see SolusVM + OpenVZ being the defacto thing and heck VPS as we know it needs value added addons (eventually the big companies will custom graft such on and that will be the diffentiator, as they continue to chop their prices down to discount levels). That's my justification for the lack of proper sound business luxury practice.
But honestly, I hope Tactical gets focused and back to things or unloads the customers to someone who will care for them. Sad seeing a community member going through what he is and the customers too, as a result.
