Last month we talked to Nahian, CEO of Nexus Bytes and today, our next interview style Q/A session is with EstNOC CEO Ego Ennok. So, without further delay, here we go with the interview!
What can you tell us about yourself, how you got to where you are today, and your role at your company?
More than a decade ago, I was just web hosting enthusiast. acted as re-seller for one of the biggest Estonian web hosting company and also i re-sold servers of one Dutch and one Romanian company for a while. after some years, i felt like there is something missing in whole thing and i decided to start building up slowly my own thing where i am in charge, decision maker,so to speak. Multi service location been the missing thing. It was always my dream to open the web hosting business where customers can find web hosting options from many different European,Asian and American locations. It took roughly 4 long years to build up something that EstNOC OY is today. We currently have points of presences in 23 European and Asian locations. We are collocated in certified datacenters and we own AS206804 EstNOC-Global with quite decent network partners. We own the network devices and servers hardware in all our POP’s. Today my role in the company is Head of Sales and also CEO.
What advice would you give to business owners today, or those aspiring to become one?
Patience, patience and again patience. Always must keep in mind that, without step backs and downfalls there wont be success. Measure twice, cut once. so to speak.
Would you recommend the hosting industry as a source of opportunity for entrepreneurs?
Of course I recommend. It requires the combination of patience, luck and dedication. Additionally, strong nerve to seize the opportunities is a MUST too. Like in gambling.
What is the most significant characteristic that makes your company unique in today’s evolving market landscape?
I think it is multi service location thing that makes EstNOC unique. We are still growing. There will be 2 new rare additional service locations added soon (after the Rona pandemic ends). There is another thing which is kind of unique as well, we offer VPS and dedicated servers (bare metal) in all of EstNOC POP’s. Typically there are international companies that offer only VPS or dedicated servers, but not much both of those.
What do you enjoy most about your role? What do you find most difficult?
What I enjoy the most about my role? I guess it is the travelling as I always personally visit every location where we are opening our POP. Most of the times it is when our technicians are paying a visit to DC for installing the gear. Ah, there is one more thing, I like to meet new people in the business. I paid the visits to so many datacenters and everywhere I see new faces and every singe one of them have their own unique view about the hosting business. Which I can say, is eyeopening in most cases. The more you listen, the more you gain knowledge. What do i find most difficult? Well, most difficult i think is, finding correct datacenter service provider and ideal location/country/city. Usually I do a lot of info gathering before I bring up ideas with my colleagues.
Both personally and professionally, what guiding principles ground you?
I already mentioned it earlier. Those are: patience, strong nerve, dedication and good timing for seize the opportunities.
What do you find most difficult?
Biggest challenges I faced personally and professionally, after I decided to start building my own company, how and where can I find all the information about the internet service providers, data centers, servers hardware providers, IP brokers, geo database contacts to name key issues. Partially I got help from google but I had to contact many many many service providers and datacenters where their specialists shared their intels and that’s the way how I got my knowledge.
Tell me about some of the new and exciting things you are working on at your company?
One of the key things we are working on is CDN. We will see how it goes 
Why should customers trust you and your business?
Why customers should trust me and our business? Good question. I believe, customers are most of the times doing google search first, before ordering any service. google search for “estnoc” is giving lots of results from many years back. That means, everybody can see that we are in this business for many years already and thus can be trusted as a reliable provider. And why customers should trust our company, it is easy. According to bisnode raport and Creditinfo EstNOC OY received “Strongest in Estonia 2019” certificate. And our company whole infrastructure have been bought from company own assets. No leasings or loans. As we also have built up 23 POP’s all over the Europe and Asia, everybody understand that its very costly thing and most definitely it can not be so called “summer host company”. Heavy investments are been made and we intend to run the company with utmost responsibility.
Anything you would like to add?
I would like to thank all EstNOC partners, customers, Lowendtalk family and readers for their time and contribution in web hosting community! Without you guys, web hosting biz would be just another venture without fun.
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Thanks for taking part in the interview series, Ego.