Where to start a dedicated / VPS hosting small buisness

Question

I hope I'm posting in the right place, this site seemed the most relevant to my question. Anyway, one of my friends and I want to invest in a hosting company, we don't really know where to start, we have the funds and are planning on buying 5 servers (if someone wants specs, ask), we are going to build a separate building to store the servers which will be stored on a rack that has the high powered fans. We are asking basically where to start and what we will need, I understand that we will need a 24/7 technician on stand by to diagnose any issues or replace a part, but what else is there? Should we use a cloud for backups? How much would be needed to start a small business such as this which ensures a steady advancement? Any and all information is helpful, sorry if I rambled or if anything doesn't make sense, if it doesn't I will try to clarify the best I can.

Also I'd like to note that we are both computer literate and familiar with most operation systems. (Windows, Mac, most Linux distros) if that makes a difference.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about a business plan, and it's extremely broad. — MadHatter, Nov 16 '13 at 12:01
@ceejayoz Oh, come on. A dog shed is technically a building and just the right size if you take a medium one ;) — TomTom, Nov 16 '13 at 20:44
@TomTom Now I want to build a micro-datacenter in my backyard, damnit. — ceejayoz, Nov 16 '13 at 21:59

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 16 '13 at 11:20

The best place to start is to get a job working for a hosting provider.

No matter what part of the business you start in, you will have to move around and learn every aspect of the business from system administration to finance to customer support to marketing to legal. You will have to know all of these parts well if your own business is to have any chance of succeeding. It will likely take years to even achieve competence in every area, let alone excellence.

The knowledge and experience required to run a hosting provider cannot be conveyed in an answer on StackExchange.

Okay. I see where you're coming from. I'd like other input on the subject aside from yours, thanks for the information! — johnathenwhiter94, Nov 16 '13 at 11:23

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 16 '13 at 12:12

The best place is to realize you wont make money with it. Point. Hosting is economy of scale. You have no scale, so you have no economy.

There is a lot to be said towards having your own server room - but exect to PAY for it, not make money with it. THe fixed costs will eat you and you cna not provide and reasonable bandwidht, uptime, redundancy in power and internet supplies that a larger data center can.

And then you fix on the most unimportant fact - technology. Web hosting is run the mill standard product and you problem is getting customers - the advertising side. SImply like that. UNless you have access to enough customers it is a dead end.

Where to start a dedicated / VPS hosting small buisness

2 Answers2