VirtKick, the Open Source Panel goes Commercial!

[host4go]

Hi everyone,

There is alreayd a topic about VirtKick from when it was still an OpenSource, eveyone was excited and eager to see it launched.

Unfortunately they are now backed up by investor and decided to go Commercial.

So their business model is now this:

Virtkick will be SaaS

They will charge 15% of their customers (Hosting Companies) Gross Revenue (Yep you read right)

All the billing will be handled by them, and their customer receive their cut on a weekly basis.

So for me I see a couple issues.

1) Their Commission.. 15% is hefty

2) They handle the billing & payment and I will only see my money at the end of the week.

3) They pretty much hold on to all the data that matters. (as in customer data).

What's you take on this move?

 

[MannDude]

I think the idea is okay enough if it was the idea that was presented to those who contributed funds and code.

But what they are offering now is not the same as what they promised originally...

I applaud the effort but I'm not certain we'll see it go anywhere far. Only time will tell though.

 

[host4go]

I think the idea is okay enough if it was the idea that was presented to those who contributed funds and code.

But what they are offering now is not the same as what they promised originally...

I applaud the effort but I'm not certain we'll see it go anywhere far. Only time will tell though.

i doubt any medium-large hosting company will use them. Just not cost effective by my math.. but I might be wrong.

They want to take over sensitive business information like billing and customer data. It makes no sense for a company to give up this data, specially when they have cheaper options out there.

SolusVM seems to be putting some ral effort on the design now, and that´s pretty much the only think VirtKick haves going for them.

Although, I can imagine some startup companies using them, afterall 15% of nothing is still nothing.

 

[Husky]

Simple answer is no.

2 reasons. Sod 15% of revenue and second I wouldn't want all my eggs in one basket.

 

[jarland]

Should be interesting to see where they go. I don't think we've actually heard their real plan for distribution and billing yet, because I'm not entirely sure that what they've mentioned will work. I suspect we will hear of another transition on that.


Regardless, they've got funding and they're serious about this, so this is going to go further than most of these VPS panel projects we've seen through the years.

 

[MightWeb]

It's absolutely ludacris. 15% revenue is an insane amount of money. For a startup, it might be a fine solution (especially if, which I assume, the 15% includes any transactions fees), but for any even remotely established company, that's a laughable amount. I'd love to meet whoever designed this idea.

 

[GIANT_CRAB]

What if VirtKick gets DDoS'd? 

All your clients will be screaming "HELP HELP!" and you can't do shit. 

Anyway, it is still a pretty good project, hope it goes well. 

 

[drmike]

15% of a server income.   Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

But since it is hosted and they appear to be handling the billing and payment gateway, well, perhaps alright.

Lots of small summerhosts, former fails, those without original thoughts in business should be attracted to it.  All of which are crap magnets.  Very spot on @GIANT_CRAB pointing to inevitable DDoS therapy they will receive.

... and remember this industry is littered with company owners who are LAZY.  They love shopping at Walmart for single vendor dependency.  Most of their life is three options maximum (outside of the fake choice in TV / media)...  Single lazy person vendor mode = bad biz decision but so convenient.  I can FULLY see people like this buying into this offer.

 

[Licensecart]

It's absolutely ludacris. 15% revenue is an insane amount of money. For a startup, it might be a fine solution (especially if, which I assume, the 15% includes any transactions fees), but for any even remotely established company, that's a laughable amount. I'd love to meet whoever designed this idea.

I would say if you get bigger you could ask them if they could work out a better deal for you. That's how distributors work. 

 

[William]

Like what? 5%? Still way too much.

 

[drmike]

5-15% is their range surely to be viable as a business and versus the market.  They'd be best to butt park a number - flat fee perhaps with upticks for addons.

Resistance in this model is the 'unfair' pay model.   I run $1250 a month through a server vs. a lowend company that runs $250 through a server.

I pay $187.50, the lowend co pays $37.50.

For the same thing. 

Meanwhile the lowendco has far more customers churning the panel far more.

 

[Francisco]

What if VirtKick gets DDoS'd? 

All your clients will be screaming "HELP HELP!" and you can't do shit. 

Anyway, it is still a pretty good project, hope it goes well.

They'll need some large scale filtering for sure. You should talk to @jarland about the old SAAS panel he used way back in the day and how many issues he had with it, DDOS being one of them. If he ever needed a reason to drink, that panel gave him a lifetime of them.

As I wrote on WHT, 15% is more margin than many brands make on an account. There's simply way too many brands that are operating many plans at or below cost (loss leaders to advertise), so an additional 15% isn't going to work for many people. I don't doubt they will find some operations that will be fine with it, especially if they're handling CC payments and such, but I think their original plan of being a serious Solus contender are over.

Seriously, just get in contact with HostGuard on their mailinglist or whatever. Richard has a huge update to his alpha/beta he put out last year that addresses many of the issues people had. I suspect he'll undercut Solus quite a bit as well.

Francisco

 

[Profuse-Jim]

Pass