This interview was contributed by our friend @Daily over at LowEndTalk.

Today I sat down with Roilan over at TragicServers to ask some questions. TragicServers first appeared on LowEndBox in 2014, with their last appearance all the way back in January of 2015. TragicServers provides a variety of services, including popular game server hosting, Mumble hosting, and of course their OpenVZ line in Dallas and Los Angeles. They recently also announced their new KVM line located in Los Angeles.

Q – Hi Roilan. I want to start off with a basic question. What were the beginnings of TragicServers? A question you get a lot, “Why TragicServers?”. Where did the name come from? Is there a story?

A – First of all, thanks for asking to interview me. It’s a pleasure and extremely excited to do this. I started back in May of 2012 strictly with Team Fortress 2 servers. A few months before starting all I wanted to do was play on my own TF2 server with friends for free. Free meaning that I didn’t want to pay out of pocket and the cost had to be covered somehow. Shortly after discovering LEB, I settled for a $7 VPS from one of the providers here. Even though I was able to cover cost, it had terrible performance and people weren’t happy.

Within a few weeks after the initial “launch”, ideas started flowing. I noticed a big problem in the competitive TF2 community. Nobody understood how to configure their server for competitive play. Not only that but no providers cared. It bothered me because they matter. I had an idea of focusing on them and strictly them by providing them ready to go servers. That meant no needing to upload configs, maps, etc. It was just ready for you to play. I remember telling this idea to someone and they called it stupid. Well, within a few months, it grew and blew up pretty fast. Needless to say, they were wrong :)

I wish I had a cool or epic story why but it’s pretty simple. My gaming alias is “tragic” and my focus was on providing servers. So, I just put the two together. Some people question it but the only thing “tragic” about us is our name, haha.

Q – Let’s talk about growth. Expanding TragicServers into what it is today. What are some things you’ve learned, not just as a business man but also as a person?

A – This is a great question. I would say the #1 thing I’ve learned is to focus and do what I love. You can’t start any type of business with the mindset of “screw that customer”. You’ll lose fast. To many people are focused on money instead providing value.

Your word matters. If I make a promise to a customer, or anyone for that matter, I need to stick to it. There have been a couple of times where I have made a mistake, in terms of pricing or allocating resources to a customer. They already paid and received their service. I have to stick to my word on those mistakes because the customer matters more than the mistake I made.

Patience. I am incredibly patient with any type of move I make. We have been around since 2012 and in the LE* world since 2014-2015 or so. It wasn’t until a few months ago that people really started to notice us here. Most people would have panicked and quit.

Q – You have a large focus on game servers. Does this stem from your own hobbies or was it purely a business decision?

A – I love games. Always have and always will. It was never a business decision to open a game server company, it just happened because of my love for games.

However, it was a business decision to keep going forward and provide people with awesome service. Believe it or not, we’re not in the game and VPS business. We’re in the customer service business. If people are happy, we’re happy. It shows we’re going a good job with post like this: https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/88700/tragicservers-a-good-example-of-how-to-stand-out-from-other-providers

Q – Last question about your game services. Being a smaller company in terms of staff, you have the opportunity to be more personal to those you advertise to. In fact, most of our communication about this interview was done over Steam. What are some of the ways you take advantage of that opportunity?

A – Funny that you ask this question since it brought back some awesome memories. When we first started, I was really big and into providing personalized and on-demand customer service. For all our game servers, we required you included your Steam profile and I added every single person. I wanted to get to know every single customer that trusted us to place an order. Not only that, but I played games and built relationships with them.

I still have a lot of my first customers on Steam today. Sadly, we have grown much larger than Steam allows you to have on friends. I wish I could add everyone though. If anyone wants to add me and play some games together, link below.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/tragic886

Q – Tell us about your new KVM line. Any potential exclusive discount?

A – Definitely. A month or so ago, we sent our customers a survey with various questions on what we could do better. I’d say the #1 request was KVM. They wanted KVM and they wanted it now. We also saw a large number of request in our OVZ offers for KVM. We’re in the customer service business after all, so we’re providing KVM for them and extremely focused on it. If anyone wants to try us out, I’ve added some exclusive plans below:

256MB RAM
1 CPU Core
10GB HD space
500GB Bandwidth
1 Gbps Port
1 IPv4
3 IPv6
TUN/TAP
https://www.tragicservers.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=158

1024MB RAM
2 CPU Core
20GB HD space
1000GB Bandwidth
1 Gbps Port
1 IPv4
3 IPv6
TUN/TAP
https://www.tragicservers.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=159

2048MB RAM
2 CPU Core
30GB HD space
2000GB Bandwidth
1 Gbps Port
1 IPv4
3 IPv6
TUN/TAP
https://www.tragicservers.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=160

Q – If a younger you, or someone new to this whole industry wanted some advice on how to get started, what would you tell them?

A – Learn from the people who came before you. I observe and read an incredible amount. We live in age where people are posting freely what they do, did and how they failed. Learn from that. If you go through LE*, you’ll see the mistakes others have made and what not to do. You’ll also see the success. I learned a ton from that. Learn from the awesome providers around you. Just because they might be in the same market as you doesn’t mean you have to be rude, mean, etc to each other. Competition is great and you have to love it.

Personally, it’s always a pleasure reading what Francisco has to say. I also pickup some services from him and NickA. Some might say, “but aren’t they your competitors”? Nope. If you observe and read what each one says or does, it’s different. No two or three providers are the same or the people behind them. I would say it would be disservice to yourself by not learning from them and many others.

Q – What does the future look like for TragicServers? Any potential locations, or new services in mind?

A – We still love and will continue supporting the TF2 community, our servers and services like Serveme, PugChamp, NewbieMixes and much more. Along with all the other wonderful services that connect players together for free. It’s what I wanted before TragicServers and glad I can provide it for others.

For VPS, we’re definitely looking at Chicago for our next OVZ or KVM location. I have a feeling we’re going to launch with KVM first. Aside from that, we’re going to be focusing on features and our brand. WHMCS and SolusVM is very limiting for us. There is a lot more I want to do with our site and control panel(s). A lot of other providers are waiting for someone to code the next solution for both platforms. We’re not, we’re going to build it for our customers in-house and from scratch. We don’t really have a timeline for this but we’re working on it. We might open source some things from this, so that’s going to be awesome.

Q – Any closing statements?

A – Just wanted to say thanks again for the interview. It’s been awesome being able to share my thoughts and express how much we care about you. If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach me personally via Steam, Skype or Email*. I would say support ticket but I want to speak to you personally :)

*To prevent spam, contact information has been redacted.  Please use the contact on the TragicServers website to get in touch with Roilan. 

Thank you to @Daily and Roilan for taking part in this interview contribution.  If you would like to contribute content to LowEndBox, please contact @SysAdmin on LowEndTalk.com

• Author
• Recent Posts

SysAdmin

Latest posts by SysAdmin (see all)

• MikroVPS Kft – Hungarian Xen VPS with 10Gbit/s Uplinks - November 10, 2016
• Swissnode – Switzerland VPS Offer - November 3, 2016
• IO Zoom – DDoS Protected VPS in Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami - November 2, 2016