SlashChick's Journal: Hey! It's that "me" entry I've been promising! :)

Hmm. Slashdot has no "me" icon. Guess I'll have to settle for "User Journal". How boring.

So, in the great saga of my life, I started a business. A lot of you probably know a bit about this, but I'll refresh your memory.

In May 2002, I left Sun Microsystems, where I was working as a web developer on Sun.com. I left of my own accord... I just didn't agree with a lot of what Sun was doing (and apparently I wasn't the only one.) I'd always wanted to start a web hosting company for real. I mean, I'd had a colocated box or two since '98, and I hosted a bunch of sites for friends, but I wanted to do this for real.

My grandmother had died in February, and my dad had received a small inheritance from her. My parents didn't need the money, so I wrote out a business plan using the name Simpli, Inc. (which is now my business's legal name.) I had registered simpli.biz a while back, so I used that and built a website.

I brought in a few clients, but the website stunk and I knew I could do better. Meanwhile, my web design business was taking off, so I didn't really have time to work on Simpli. I started a sketch of a new website, but let it fall by the wayside for several months.

A few months ago, I really woke up to the fact that a) I had 13 servers and I wasn't doing much with them; and b) the web design business, while fun, wasn't giving me the income I needed. I decided to kick Simpli into high gear... and I finished the new website in a flurry of late nights. (Hey, if you haven't checked out our website, now's the time to do so. It doesn't look like any other hosting company's website.)

Then I started advertising. I still haven't kicked the advertising into high gear, but it's already starting to pay off. Our customers are referring new customers, and the fact that we offer $25 cash for a virtual hosting customer referral and $50 cash for a dedicated/colocation referral helps tremendously. (We'll have a signup form up for those of you who want some cash in a few days, BTW. Go yell at this guy if you want our affiliate program to work! ;)

We signed three new dedicated customers today, which is great. Two of them ordered custom boxes. I don't know how we will pay for them, but hey, that's life. It will be good income in a few months. And they will refer other customers, I'm sure... we've already gotten two new customers from one of the guys.

Don't let anyone deceive you... web hosting is a hard industry to make money in. There are a lot of providers that promise everything for $1/month. I started this business in part to prove that my company could outshine thousands of others in a crowded market. I feel that I've already been a moderate success there, and we're still growing by leaps and bounds.

So what has been going on with me lately? I've been doing sales calls, followup emails, chatting on the 'simplisales' alias on AIM, and just generally running a business. It is the most exciting experience of my life... knowing I've created a market opportunity where many have failed; knowing I've created profit where many swore there was none to be had. I live and breathe this company, and I'm as proud of it as I'm sure most parents are of their children.

I'll try to update this journal more frequently, but if I don't have time, you can probably guess what I'll be doing... out selling my company like mad! :)

MFN

[Servo]

My company is located in that MFN datacenter. We run the managed backup service they resell as "SiteBackup". We have a large backup solution in each of their top tier facilies, and then access over their fiber ring to branch facilities and remote customers. If you see an ADIC Scalar library sitting in a cage with only a couple servers but overflowing with fiber, that's probably us.

SJC3 or SJC2?

[SlashChick]

We're in SJC3. SJC2 is the older one that's downtown... that's where most of MFN's San Jose customers are. :)

Re:SJC3 or SJC2?

[Servo]

Which one was the Abovenet facility before MFN took over? We'd be in that one. One of our competitors actually held the contract with Abovenet before MFN was involved. When our competitor closed shop, we took over their equipment and signed a new contract with MFN. (FYI, despite my past rantings about my employer, it really is good to be employed by a survivor and innovator of the SSP market)

Great service ... but ... MySQL 4 vs. MySQL 3.23.x

[Surak]

I looked at your site, and your prices seem reasonable and competitive with others in the industry.

The one thing I *still* don't like, and can't seem to find a webhost that offers this, is the fact that you only offer MySQL 3.23.x, rather than MySQL 4.

Speaking as a web database application developer who would REALLY rather work with MySQL 4, since MySQL 3 has some rather nasty limitations in regards to nested queries and such, I have to say it would be nice to find a web hosting company that supported MyS

Re:Great service ... but ... MySQL 4 vs. MySQL 3.2

[l1_wulf]

Hrm, I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I saw PostgreSQL listed as supported there. Check again...

Re:Great service ... but ... MySQL 4 vs. MySQL 3.2

[SlashChick]

Hey Surak,

Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier. l1_wulf is correct; we do support PostgreSQL. We haven't had any requests for MySQL 4, but if you're interested, we can either add it to our current server or migrate our current stuff over from 3.23 (not sure how much work a migration involves, but it probably needs to be done sooner or later anyway.)

Regardless, a migration will happen once we decide what needs to replace RH7.3 on the database server. With 7.3 being EOL'ed at the end of the year, I have to

Nice Raq

[Outland Traveller]

Kudos on the very attractive web site design, as well as on choosing the attractive Cobalts. I had forgotten that those little guys were still on the market.

You gotta free plug. ;)

[Surak]

I plugged your company in my weekly gossip column [slashdot.org]. :-P