amuck-landowner

What location to start with First?

CenTex Hosting

Member
Verified Provider
I figured I would get a new one going here since most of the old post are like from 2016.

So as the Title says. If you were starting out with a new Web Host company. What would be your first location to start up in and Why?

We Started up in Dallas, TX. Because I live in Austin, TX Plus its a great Hub to be in.
 

Jonathan

Woohoo
Verified Provider
If you're going for the US as your primary target, I'd stay geographically central which pretty much lands you in Dallas. Many consider Chicago to be pretty central and it's not a bad spot either, giving you slightly better response times to Canada. For the US Dallas and Chicago are both good, so figure out which other market you want to have better benefits for - Mexico/SA or Canada. There's certainly more fraud originating from south of the border in my experience.
 

webhostuk

New Member
Mostly it depends on target business location if its UK start with servers in UK if its US would start with US location.
 
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Lee

Retired Staff
Verified Provider
Retired Staff
If you think it through properly your current location does not need to be the right location. For example, a friend lives in Scotland but started a hosting service in the US, targeting specifically US clients. He has a day job with odd hours and due to this, it meant he was able to service that specific client segment far better than locally. That was about 5 years ago and he has a about 150 clients and continues to do well.

Still, the biggest mistake start-ups make is thinking I just need a few hundred of the billions of potential clients in the world, how hard can that be right? Long ago when I first started in hosting, around 2003 and armed with a server from rackshack.net I thought exactly that and whilst I got some clients, I never got the insignificant few hundred clients I thought would be easy to find.

When you are a host with a lot of advertising or good reviews that lead to the subliminal idea that you must be good then it's less difficult to attract clients. I quickly learned that local was more trusting to local less tech-savvy clients who would be more willing to give you a go. That in turn then led to more local trust and then wider acceptance as word of mouth and reviews started to build.

Starting with a well-thought out strategy is key and then stick to it unless it went horribly wrong. Not getting customers does not mean it has gone horribly wrong. You can be the best tech and the worst business person which means you will struggle, but a poor tech and good business person can bring in those clients even if the resulting service is poor as a result of your lack of tech skills. Such is life.

People won't (in the main) fall into your lap just because you have a good website, start with local services and target local people, but also have a service in an area that will appeal to those further away, just don't focus on them as much.
 
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WestPlainsHosting

New Member
We started in Amsterdam. Its a major hub so there is cheap bandwidth, healthy competition, and good latency across most of the EU. France and Germany are also good starting places for the EU.
 

MannDude

Just a dude
vpsBoard Founder
Moderator
If you're looking to target Americans, then I'd go centrally located (Texas, Kansas City, Chicago). If you're looking for a predomiately English speaking market then perhaps US East Coast (NYC, NJ) are your prime bets seeing as they're well connected to the UK as well.

If you're wanting to cater to America and South America, perhaps Atlanta or anywhere in Florida is best for you.

If you're wanting to cater to "CAN I RUN QEMU ON 256MB RAM PLZ MAKE DEAL FOR 64 IPV4 AUTOMAILER!!!" then go for California and the west coast. (Kidding)
 

rmcdougal01

New Member
Location, location, location well is not as valuable in the cyber realm as it is in the real estate world, true latency is going to be a problem depending on who are you targeting vs where are the data centers are located at, however, nowadays there are many options to tackle down the problem a little for example you can partner with CloudFlareudflare or any other CDN which is going to help you offer this possibility to your customers.

Also, the type of content you are going to be serving, I imagine you are going to start with simple websites like forums, blogs, etc I do not believe latency should be a problem there.
 
Location to host your website mostly depend upon customer you are like to target

If you like to target customer on India you will like to host your website on Indian location
 
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