Over the past few months I’ve come across a slight trickle of people that have started up their own “web hosting company.” I’m all for trying out new things to help people, bring in money, or to just have a project. But I’ve noticed that most of these people have been under the age of twenty.
I’d be a hypocrite if I said that people under twenty should not start up their own “business” considering when I started Holdfire Network I was 19 years old, and pretty soon I’m going to be 21. The age is just a mere statistic from the smaller web hosts that have popped up. But if you’re going to school full-time and working as well, how do you expect to manage your clientèle? Who is going to be there to answer their ticket at 3am? Or 4pm? Or 10pm?
However the age group from most of the web hosts weren’t even something I took into consideration. Almost all of them were missing main elements that make up a web host company. The following are based off of 7 web hosts that I have come across through people’s websites, and various message boards. They are not linked within this entry, however if someone requests them in a comment, I’ll be more than willing to reply with them.
A proper billing system:
6 of the 7 hosts I visited had no billing system implemented into their website. This is the wrong way to run a company. 6 hosts required a user to submit in a form through their website, and then to click on their “buy now” button (or alternatively were sent an invoice through paypal.) Though there was one host that listed no “rule” of how to go about ordering their plan and only has a “buy now” button attached to their plans available. How is this a proper way to track your customers, and to provide a proper billing solution to them? As a customer, don’t you want to be able to log into a system to track you invoices, to see how much you’ve paid, when you’ve paid, as well as being able to access a profiling system where you can change your information?
A proper support/ticket system:
100% of these hosts had absolutely no support system at all. This is perplexing because support is something that will be required, no matter what you think. Their support page has links to e-mail addresses, an AIM screen name and some had YIM, ICQ, MSN and Google Talk. So you decide that you want to have support for your customers, but one of them didn’t even bother creating a separate account dedicated to the web host. The contact information they listed for the YIM, AIM, ICQ and MSN were all personal accounts. Do you really want to get support from 2Sexy4u_2 (*changed); Actually, the question is will you be able to get proper support from someone with the screen name 2Sexy4u_2? Having no support system will lead to chaos, confusion as well as showing your potential clients that you don’t care about having a centralized system.
Presentation of your content:
One major flaw most hosts (whether they’re LLC, Inc, or run through your bedroom) is their design and presentation of their content. One of the worst ways to take when running a web host is by using flash. Flash websites are a thing of the past, and should be used sparingly. I’ve noticed that a few major hosts use flash as their header, navigation and some even for the entire site. However of the 7 DIY hosts none of them are using flash. But none of them even having designs that would lead you to believe you’re viewing a hosting company website. Granted, my own site is very minimalistic and to the point; I do have a single imagine to depict the general idea of the company.
The sites here range from using a template from an Open Source website to using an i-frame to display their content. If you’re going to use a template (and not the kind of template you’d find from Templatemonster, think opensourcetemplates.org or even a WordPress-esque one) you should tweak it to look more original, unique, and relate it to a hosting company. Flowers of any kind, Clouds, and dots are not images are not going to help the viewer associate your website to that of a hosting company. Even something as simple as a server rack, or a Cisco router can help with the site.
Another problem I’ve noticed is how the content is shown to the user. Some have absolutely no detailed information on the server configurations that the accounts are hosted on, or even a detailed listing of what your hosting account would come with. One of them had detailed information about their company, and their services. 3 had detailed and proper Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy pages, while one of them had a very poor and meager attempt at a TOS that clearly shows the lack of research on the topic. Two of them was under a subdomain on their personal site, while the other five had their own dedicated website address.
One of them also featured Google Ads on the bottom of every page. Exactly what is the need for a hosting company to have contextual ads display on their site? This is something that should NEVER be added to a hosting company website. Not only are you displaying ads that will lure away potential viewers, but this is clearly a monetization ploy. It’s even tempting for other hosts to purchase the ad space on your site to display their company (and trust me, I’ve been considering doing this.)
Overall I think it’s great the the people decided to create their own web host. But this is something that requires dedication, money, and your time. It’s not something you can easily just start out of nowhere and expect to start making money on it. You need to spend money to make money. You can easily find free alternatives to paid services (eg: support, and billing centers) on various websites like hotscripts.com or even just by googling it. Especially if you can spend money on a message board script (IPBoard, et al) and yet you have NO billing center, and NO support center. Get your priorities straight.
One thing I’ve noticed with two of them is that they have a public listing of all of their “clients.” I suppose this can all be personal preference, but I do not see this as professional. Yes, it’s nice to exclaim how many clients you have, but there is no need to have a completely directory of all of the websites you’re housing. If you have a testimonials section, you can ask permission to include a link with the testimonial, otherwise I see it as a no-go for listing ALL of their websites.
Before you even considering running a company, just ask yourself if you have the knowledge, money, time, and patience to run one. If you do, then you need to research and “study” the topic before you even consider starting it.
I know most of you readers have your website hosted, but let’s say you don’t. What do you look for in a host? List everything and anything, because I’m all ears to see what you all look for, and what you don’t like for. List your do’s and don’ts. I’m looking for as much feedback as you guys are willing to dish out.
Actually, it’s a helluva lot easier now. People can use a service like Mosso.com and all they have to do is sell to people…..they handle recurrent billing, upkeep…..even support.
We (visicswire) have a mosso.com account. But we use it just because we can keep throwing some of our smaller clients on there.
I’m almost certain that that contravenes data protection laws, particularly if it’s there without people’s explicit consent. 😛
Anyway, I completely agree with what you’re saying. And I for one look for how long a company has been running, their testimonials (webhosttalk etc.) and – of course – costs. It took me almost four months before I settled on DreamHost when I moved last September!
V xx
@ Walker, it’s definitely easier when you let the 1st party handle everything for you; It will always be. But the hosts I mentioned were those that were on reseller accounts from other services (Surpass, North Shore, Site5, etc) where they don’t provide the support to their clients’ clients. This are individuals that deal with everything on their own, and have no reliable means of it (billing center, support, etc.) Otherwise if they were with Mosso, they’d have all of this available.. Ya’know?
Vixx, I wouldn’t doubt it if they’re there without explicit consent, though I doubt that this host’s clients would mind, because they seem to be attached to the web-teat of this person. I just think it’s ironic they would publicly release this information despite having a privacy policy enforced at their site. Contradict much?
Yeah, def. Especially since, if they’re using some of those services (like site5) they shouldn’t technically be reselling their acct. anyway….
@ Vixx: it took you four months to go with dreamhost? I think you “settled”. Yeah, they’re inexpensive, but their uptime has been atrocious.
For huge projects, we get custom setups with Rackspace (expensive as all hell but reliable).
For mid-sized, VPS and Grid Server accounts from MT work well.
For small stuff, we lump it on mosso. (mosso doesn’t have shell access…but that’s reasonable for small projects.)
I’ve been delighted with them, actually. I didn’t go with them for the price – that’s such a small part of what I was looking for. And yes, there’s been a few problems, but decidedly less than previous hosts I’ve had, and they’re fast to fix problems, respond to tickets and appear to be very honest with their clients. Only the other day I had a problem when I accidentally deleted a DB and their free restore feature was immediate and outstanding – can’t ask for more than that.
Anyway, that’s enough of hijacking Jordan’s post!
V xx
Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly fine that you’re hijacking it, because I’m really interested in hearing (or rather.. reading!) about why people are with their current host, it’s downfalls, virtues, anything.
So really, keep on it if ya’ll want. I’m all ears.. er..eyes.
Walker, if there’s one thing I love about Mosso and (MT) is the fact that they’re backend is beautifully designed. It’s so aesthetically pleasing, and well put together that I would honestly go with them based on that alone. You know you’ve got a nice brand when people will go to it for the design of the backend! 😛
> Walker, if there’s one thing I love about Mosso and (MT) is the fact that
> they’re backend is beautifully designed. It’s so aesthetically pleasing, and
> well put together that I would honestly go with them based on that alone.
Hell yes. Big part of it.
It’s like they actually spent time designing the interaction model for their administrative control panels.
Yeah, definitely. I think that’s where Dreamhost failed with their redesign of their control panel. I think they were headed in the right direction, but they focused too much on the Web 2.0 factor, than making it functional, easy, pleasing, and not so dependent on javascript.
I think if they were to take away with their sidebar and create an index directory (much like the (gs) control panel) they might be able to get something finished.. If anything, keep a smaller sidebar that you can easily maximize/minimize with js that’ll show your current disk and bandwidth usage and whatnot.
I look for a sense of proffesionalism, but also down to earth people. With my previous hosts, they were always too busy to deal with me and just treated me like another client. Which I was, but you weren’t made to feel important. Hey! Without customers they wouldn’t have a business, so why treat us like shit?
I said proffesionalism before, simply because I am giving this company money, and at the end of the day, I want to know if I can trust them and that they are not going to get my money and sudenly close down, running off with my money.
The list of clients I feel is a good idea, sometimes on hosting websites I wonder if how many clients do they have and if their clients are happy with their host, but it should be optional to have your website listed and not a whole list of every client. Maybe a selected showcase of 5 examples.
I’ve seen a lot of unprofessional hosts like the ones you’ve mentioned. They’re most obvious when their design looks as though they had stolen images off of free template websites and did a poor job of patching all of the components that they had gathered together. So, I suppose one of the most important deciding factors when I look for a host is how nice their layout is. Mostly I like simple ones like what you have at Holdfire.
On a side note, I have a question that I’ve been wondering about for a while: do you handle support at Holdfire yourself or through your own host? Or some other way?
Well, my first host was horrendous, but that was partially because I had no idea what to look for – and I mostly base what I look for in a host now by what my first host didn’t provide me. They didn’t have a support center or a billing system, my support tickets often went unanswered for over a week and when I did push for an answer I was patronized and ended up emailing one of the people directly to no avail. I mean, sure, if you’re working on the problem that’s fine, but you need to let the client know you’re aware of the problem in the first place or else they will just think you’ve blown them off.
I’m hosted by Holdfire now (as you know ;)) and I’ve been quite pleased so far. The more I look at sites like Holdfire and see their client control panels and just what those panels offer for the client continue to astound me – there was *no* such panel at my old host and I still feel stoked that there is one at Holdfire, like it’s a treat or something, cause I’ve never had it before.
Don’t you think a lot of these people are just resellers? Most hosts let you resell your space and people are just lazy enough to do it. I don’t resell my space but I do host multiple sites through one account. It’s a great feature because I get unlimited everything on 3 sites for like $7/month. But I could resell my space and make people think I am my own host. Granted, a smart person could figure it out if they wanted to, but sometimes cheapness is all that matters.
Nick, I know for a fact that all of them except for two are on resellers from other companies. It’s not so much that they are resellering their space (which generally is the point of a reseller) but it’s the fact that they’re out there as a “web hosting company,” without the major elements necessary to provide proper service to your clients.
But the problem I mentioned is that if you’re going to be a hosting company and offer services to people that come across you, you NEED to have a billing and support system. It’s necessary. They’re not just some kids that are saying “hai, if u want some space, i got it.” They have a presentable (well, some of them) website in which they tell the public they’re a company offering you to purchase some disk space and bandwidth.. ye’know?
Eja, I handle all of the support myself since I manage the servers that my accounts are on. Occasionally if I manage to bugger up a configuration for the server that I don’t want to fix myself, I’ll go through my own support, otherwise everything I tend to on my own.
You’re right Jordan that all of that doesn’t seem quite professional.
Honestly, when I was looking to move I had two things in mind: price and quality. I have subdomains/hostees and I didn’t want to get hosted on a reseller with little space. I also knew to be wary of big companies like Dreamhost. The quality I was looking for was mostly based on how easy it would have been for me to set up. I was quite surprised to see that you were so knowledgeable on the matter (thank you thank you) since a lot of the places I had been looking for were teen resellers.
As for price, I took into consideration how much I was paying monthly per GB and what else I would get: # of subdomains, # of add-on domains, etc. I didn’t care too much for bandwidth since that was never an issue with me.
Yes, there were other hosts (bluehost, etc) that had a better $/month/GB than Holdfire, but I weighed in all of the factors above. It was also the design of your site that caught my eye. It was simple, yet still held that sense of professionalism.
Anyway, I also knew then to avoid anything with too much space. I had read on the topic of… what’s that phrase where the host sells more space than s/he can provide based on the assumption that no one will use all of their space? Well, whatever that phrase is, I knew to avoid it since I was previously hosted on an “unmetered/unlimited” account. Bad move on my part yes, but as a newb, I was sucked in by price only.
Anyway, you’ve been a great host and quite helpful even though I feel I bug you too often. =P Holdfire definitely has a strong sense of professionalism, something that should be present in any company, even if it is just you running it.
Goodness, 21? I feel so.. older? I’m just 19! (I have a late birthday) You’re so close in age to me… it’s kind of odd… almost. (Mainly because I always felt that a host was supposed much older than me)
I owned digitalriot webhosting before I sold it to netrillium, its fun, my friend owns e-starr she’s been doing it for about 4 almost 5 years now, and my other friend owns skye-host. I’m getting back into the works with it with my new one but I’m starting very very small its mainly for my consulting clients which I’ve already sold out of space for. I have 1 spot left open for my smallest plan. I’m happy because I haven’t even opened it and I’ve sold out of space its nice.
Thank you for your tips on adwords and pointing out my mistake in the title. $50 dollars is a good start $5 dollars got me a lot more than I expected it to so I up’d it to $25 dollars. Maybe I’ll spend a weekly amount who knows but I certainly enjoy the attention its gotten me so far!
I am one of these so called “webhosts”, but I have notcied that younger and younger people are buying hosting. I mean that almost all of my clients are under the age of 18 (so am I btw). I try to answer emails ASAP and try to get my site to look good, but i know that it still kind of looks like a fansite in a way.
The tips will help me. Thanks for posting this.
Hmm. I have mixed feelings about this. For the most part I’d say that I’d not want to buy space off of someone so young because if there was a problem I’d not want to wait ’til they got back from school or having fun with their friends for it to be fixed. On the other hand though normal resellers through webmasters isn’t something I have a problem with, especially if they’re not trying to pass it off as a business like hostgator (my host) or something… A while back I had my own reseller, stated that it was a reseller, and just had a page for people to look at my ‘plans’ and let me know what they wanted… my prices were lower and all and they knew what they were getting. I’ve seen others do it more like that and that’s fine, to me, where they’re up front about it. Gee I hope that makes sense 😛
Miranda, that did make sense. I think there’s a subtle difference between being an individual and offering some space for sale, and being a hosting company. It’s slightly difference in the sense that people know it’s just something extra you’re offering, as opposed to being a ‘company’ (though not necessarily in the legal and official terms: eg, business tax id, etc.)
Hmm, I am wondering if I was one of the ones :P. But I do agree with you. It annoys the pants off of me when I see people trying to run a “web hosting company” and being either underage, poor design, no sort of support, with no information, or any combination of those. It’s definitely one thing to be like, hey I have a reseller and will sell you some space and to say your a web hosting company.
Your company is obviously a hosting company, mine is me saying, hey I have some extra space you can buy off me. I think the problem now is that too many people don’t notice the difference and try to cover it up.
I don’t think people realize also that even reselling space off of your personal reseller takes time. I’d helped at E-starr for a number of months before I did it myself so I think I had a closer idea to the time it took, so I felt comfortable reselling my space because I could help those who bought hosting from me. But from what I’ve heard from friends, etc most of these people didn’t. Which is sad, because it makes them no better then the larger hosting companies with poor support.
I have to say I don’t feel secure with applying for hosting with a small personal company, especially with someone under 20, plus they tend to be a bit more expensive as well…
I could not agree more! I tried my hand at a small hosting company and decided that I wasn’t given the customers the best support available because it was just me and I didn’t have enough time to do it. When I closed up, I recommended everyone to your hosting services because I heard great things! Keep doing what you are doing. If I didn’t have a reseller already, I would definitely consider hosting with you!
You certainly are doing something right and a lot of people need to read this and understand that it takes a lot of work and not just everyone should be doing this.
Yeah I tried starting one up a couple of months ago (as you know!) and I realised I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to set up all these PayPal links and then realised credit cards would need to be accepted and then I figured; “shit, If I actually get a client now, I’m going to have to renew my hosting to supply their hosting for a year” and I was very aware that I wouldn’t get enough clients so cover the costs simply because I was a clueless amateur.
…these tips would have been helpful a couple of months ago!
A good host to me, is someone who replies ASAP, and accurately. And customer service who want to go out of their way to help you.
It’s just easy because of PayPal really. No-one needs a credit card anymore, no-one needs to be 18 to buy or to sell. And I agree, they don’t post any information about their services, and that’s where I look and know they’re unprofessional. It has to really come across as professional for me to trust them and put my money with them.
And there is nothing worse than bad quality GIFs.
(mt) is absolutely beautiful. I just can’t afford it!
PS. Did you get the EPP for stylevirb.net?
Really good article, Jordan! I’ve browsed across several “hosting businesses” myself lately and definitely agree with you on your points.
You know I think this trend is starting to come out of the whole “hostee and affie” thing that all the teens have going on their journal-y sites. Like 5 years ago it was soooo cool to “host” people and make a little “family” of web friends that all talked about the same things and uploaded glitter graphics and what not. Now maybe a few of them are getting “smarter”, so to speak, and are actually trying to get some money out of it. 😛
I don’t think I could ever run my own hosting company, at this point, because I would hate to not be available to people if they needed support. I know with my experience with hosts I always expected fast replies and knowledeable answers. I don’t know much about server machinery and systems and would rather not pretend to know just to make a few dollars.
You know, if you ever make a page on your site with “favorited” or “opinion” posts (did I link you that “Articles” WP plugin?) you should totally add this one to it. Important stuff and/or a wakeup call for anyone thinking about starting a company. ^_^
Oh yes… *pokes about StyleVirb* 😀
Angela, I actually did include Amorentia in my list of hosts that I was talking about. I included it because I had seen the “Amorentia Hosting,” and the fact that you had it as a separate entity from your website. I didn’t realize that you just considered it a “side project” or something.. But I still think that if you’re going to offer services, be it professionally or not, you really do need to have a TOS/AUP/Privacy Policy and some sort of system to rely on. Hotscripts has a lot of freeware scripts that will allow you to have a support/invoice/client system. PHPcoin (I think that’s it) is included with cPanel. It’s a bit hard to configure at first, but it’s something to use.
Lisa, I can see why you would be apprehensive with a host that is a younger age though I have seen a few hosts that are under twenty that are actually have a successful web host that they’ve started.
I can’t agree that they’re more expensive. I’ve seen a lot of “professional” services that are ridiculously expensive: E-Starr, Netrillium to name two. The price and package ratio are pretty bad. Obviously they may/not be overselling but it’s easy to have larger hard drives in servers (I’ve seen some with 750GB of data in ONE server) but you can still have a larger ratio of space/bandwidth for the same price.
You are hitting the right points. For me, when choosing a host, the most important thing is trust. I need to trust the one whose server my website is on. And trust can only be achieved by sticking to the points you mentioned.
@Paddy, I did get that EPP code.. Thanks! I haven’t gotten around to getting it transferred over because I’m a lazy sack of poo.
@Melissa, again.. lazy sack of poo. I really do need to do something with Stylevirb. I had it on the backburner for awhile there o.O I’ll definitely consider that article plugin; I really didn’t even think of this as an article at first, It was more of a rant/vent.. but I suppose I stumbled onto something worthy here 😉
Had a little look at your hosting site, looks like your offering a rather good service : ) I’m looking to change when my current contract runs out. I probably should email you with this question but do you have a CPU usage limit for the shared hosting servers?
Gemma x
Gemma, thanks for inadvertently reminding me that I need to add a Resource Abuse Policy page to hf.
But to answer your question:
Well, one of them, at least, is trying to get things straight…
I wasn’t able to find any *FREE* quality billing and support systems (I’ve tested so many and they’ve all made me want to pull my hair out) when I set up Surnaturelle (which, I was 19 when it was set up I believe — it’s almost two years old!), and I didn’t have the money to pay for one then. But I found the WHMCS, as you’re using, and I think it’s definitely worth the small pocket-change it costs for a monthly license. It seems to be going well so far, I set up the first client through it today!
An edit of your post would be appreciated… since at least one of us is cleaning up the act. (Although I was really proud of myself for writing the clients script… it was the first step toward my own grass-roots support and client management system…)
P.S… It might be nice of you to contact the hosts in question, rather than just creating a rant about them on a blog they may or may not read… Just a suggestion. It wasn’t a pleasant surprise to stumble upon this when doing Despair comments… It might have softened the blow if a friendly email had been sent along…
To be completely honest Jess, I don’t think my opinion is something that the individuals would like to hear considering some of them do not like me at all (and give the impression that they don’t, which is what you’ve done) along with the fact that I’ve already done some inconspicuous contacting on my own to find out that they believe their current “system” is just fine.
You won’t ever find any kind of hosting script that is free AND quality. I’ve seen a lot out there and the better ones are going to be the ones that you have to pay for. When I first started out I was messing around with PHPcoin but shortly after that I started to pay for ClientExec and about a year and some change I ditched it for WHMcs which I’ve been using since then. Free usually never gets you anything but a headache.
You’ll find that WHMcs is very easy to use and adding clients to it won’t be any problem. I’d recommend that you even try tying in your past transaction into it as you can add in the amount, fees, and transaction ID’s that have gone through Paypal. I don’t know how you accept payments (eg: subscriptions) but I’d recommend that if you add paypal as a payment to chose either Paypal Subscriptions or Paypal Invoices because people will get confused on which to go with. I prefer invoices since I won’t have to worry about someone cancelling a subscription and whatnot.
I will go ahead and include an edit at the end of the post mentioning revisions and whatnot. I’m sorry that it was a blow to come here and read this, but there wasn’t anything here that should have been a blow considering it was just my opinion and views on them. Regardless, I can’t really say that you’ve done anything to really deserve a softer blow, considering your comments posted over at Lavish. I didn’t care about them but thought it was rather childish to post them especially considering this post was nothing in comparison to your comments.
I’ll consider e-mailing some of the other hosts listed, but at the moment I’m just going to leave it strictly on the entry. Thanks for your comments in regards to this though. I wasn’t expecting to see you comment, once I saw you on the queue for Despair.
[quote comment=”9308″]Angela, I actually did include Amorentia in my list of hosts that I was talking about. I included it because I had seen the “Amorentia Hosting,” and the fact that you had it as a separate entity from your website. I didn’t realize that you just considered it a “side project” or something.. But I still think that if you’re going to offer services, be it professionally or not, you really do need to have a TOS/AUP/Privacy Policy and some sort of system to rely on. Hotscripts has a lot of freeware scripts that will allow you to have a support/invoice/client system. PHPcoin (I think that’s it) is included with cPanel. It’s a bit hard to configure at first, but it’s something to use.[/quote]
I figured ^.^. The only reason I haven’t put up a TOS/AUP/Privacy Policy up is the only people I host currently are personal friends of mine. The reason it has it’s own domain is just something to put there, and it’s the domain my reseller is set up from :P. I do plan to up my services sometime eventually when I feel I have the time to dedicate to it, and when I do I’m definitely putting in a billing system, forums, ticket system, etc. I’ve played around with a bunch of the scripts and my service even comes with several really nice scripts, but if I’m going to actually increase and advertise outside of my circle of friends I am definitely going to be dropping the money to get well maintained reliable scripts. For right now it is just a way to make a little money to pay my own hosting bill and I never make intentionally at least make the claim otherwise. When people are looking for hosting I usually recommend Site5, because it’s who I use and I love ’em to bits :D!
I’m surprised that you blog about this like a recent thing. I’ve been noticing it — and ranting about it — for years. I see hundreds of these shitty little “companies” and the majority of them don’t last more than a year or so, lose client data and/or generally offer wank service… and yet other teens go back to them because “oh, [so-and-so] is my friend, she won’t let me down”. Of course, you voice your concerns publically and you get shot down for being ‘too harsh’ (as demonstrated by the thread about tehlove or whatever it’s called at thefanlistings forum).
At the end of the day, if you can’t do a job properly, don’t do it at all.
Yeah, I saw that thread about tehlove and read your comments. That’s actually one of the sites I was talking about in here. It looks like she paid some big bucks of IPboard but yet has no liable means of a support or billing system. But apparently she considers the IPboard the equivalent of support.
It’s not so much that I think it’s a recent thing, because I’ve seen some shitty hosts back in the day, but it’s just more so ones that are current and have popped (I almost said pooped) up and I stumbled upon.
I just don’t get it sometimes though. I do it because it’s a career path I want to take (eg: running my own datacenter) and not just because I want to make some bucks. The way I see it, if you’re going to do it, don’t do it half-assed and expect to pay a lot of money to get it right before making any.
People are just too quick to jump into it because they can make money off of it and then eventually have to stop and dick people over because they can’t afford it (eg: Toastyhost and god knows how many others that I can’t even think of.)
This has become increasingly easy since the inception of this reseller stuff under $50. Everyone and their mother is opening a “hosting business” lately.
Scot, it definitely is easy to start one up. It’s a double edged sword, but so long as people realize what it takes to run it, then by all means, go for it.
Otherwise if you feel that there’s going to be discrepancies in the future, stay far far away.