Our interview series has featured some of the true titans of the hosting industry. In this installment, we sit down with Khalid Cook, director of HostSailor. HostSailor has been a regular here on LEB and LET, regularly giving our users great offers on cheap quality hosting. They’ve been in business since 2014 and along the way, Khalid has learned a lot. In this interview he discusses the highs and lows of life in hosting, what he’s learned, and HostSailor’s future.
Tell me about your background and your company’s history?
I have been in the hosting industry ever since I was 15 years old, sold shell accounts at the peak time of mIRC and helped a lot of people keep their nicknames and accounts online around the clock, over time I’ve developed my skills and experience that have helped me work with a few hosting companies from scratch. In 2014 HostSailor was born and from there we have been targeting lowend and budget customers who have found our services not only affordable but also offered stability, multi location, free support and several other benefits that come at no extra cost, HostSailor continues to offer Dedicated servers, virtual servers, shared hosting, ssl certificates and domain names.
What would you tell someone looking to start a hosting company today? What advice would you offer?
Building a new hosting company takes a lot of patience, experience and persistence. Starting your hosting company with as little resources as possible would be a better approach for your startup, for example if you are interested in shared hosting or have had experience with cPanel then starting the business with a single cPanel server to test the waters would minimize your losses and help you have a clearer image on your next steps.
Where do you think the future takes the hosting industry?
The hosting industry will continue and stay for as long as the market is in need of hosting services, I believe that with new ingenious ideas and a mix of new technology and classic hosting the industry will continue to flourish.
Tell me about your top two failures in business? What did you learn from them?
- Onboarding the wrong team members: Extra care has to be taken when onboarding new team players, without the right team you are not able to sail your business to reach the goals you have set.
- No/poor Credit cards payment verification: Using a merchant service to receive credit card payments on behalf of your customers is an important aspect of earning your revenue online however if you do not run aggressive verifications for the payments you receive online you may end up losing a lot of your revenues, pay chargeback fees and end up losing your hard earnings.
Tell me about your top two successes in business?
- Investing heavily into buying our own hardware have proven overtime after ROI to help the business earn high profit margins that in return helped the business grow and expand further.
- Ongoing staff meetings, proper task management software, and having creative team members contribute into the decisions of the company has proven to be more successful than dictating everything on your own as a business owner.
What do you enjoy most about your role? What do you find most difficult?
Reaching specific goals either short term or long term brings me joy, nothing is easy in doing business and everyday brings new challenges and obstacles that I have to find ways to tackle.
Both personally and professionally, what guiding principles ground you?
Optimism, dedication, persistence, creativity, leadership, honesty are one of the principles I hold tight to.
Give us some details on new and exciting things you are working on?
We are trying to establish new locations, provide a new line of premium services, and expand the business to specific regions around the world.
Why should customers trust you and your business?
With 20 years of experience in the hosting industry I know how to value customers, HostSailor has been in business for over 7 years and over the years we have built trust and maintained our reputation online.
Final thoughts and anything you would like to add?
We’ve been investing heavily into the internal structure of the company, offering new services, focusing on customers and their needs, improving our overall customer service, and the upcoming years we’re looking forward to a healthy growth and expansion in the market. I and my team are thanking LowEndTalk for their continues support over the years and the great job they have done for the lowend community, we would also like to thank all our customers either existing, former or potential for choosing us and putting their trust in HostSailor.
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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