1) Business Plan
* This includes Marketing Plan as well as What core service you are offering, whether it is shared hosting, dedicated servers or colocation (or all 3)

2) Business Insurance

3) Billing / Web Host Automation Software

4) Capital (I'd say having at least 5-10k of capital at the bare minimum, to use for things like softare, marketing, gear etc.
If you are going for VC funding, or Angel funding then that falls into this category as well.

5) Expertise in the field of hosting. (Should have Server Admin folks, (Technical) and Sales

6) Offer support (whether it be 24/7 or ticket support, it should be there and be reliable and quick)

7) Professional Phone Greeting / Answering Service

8) Mailbox (front office presence)

9) Make sure you are in a Top Tier Datacenter ... Your clients depend on the reliability of the datacenter, including redundancies built in.

10) The best control panel software for your clients (Cpanel, Plesk, Ensim) Whatever you choose, make sure there are tutorials available for your customers.

These are just a few of the things that every webhosting company should have before you begin to think about running a hosting company.

If you have any more to add to the list feel free.

Thanks for the list, Ted. Unfortunately, many new hosts don't have all of these, especially the 5-10K of investment capital, and try to launch their business on a shoestring.

Thanks for the list and as steve said many new hosts don't have the capital needed to stay afloat for the first couple years.

Absolutely. Well, I think all of the components are necessary, but if you only have $500 for investment into the business, you maybe only be able to focus on shared hosting at first.

Still all the components, and quite a few more not listed are viable.

you know what they say... "Treat it like a business, and it will become one"...

"Treat it like a hobby, and it will become one"....

This is exactly what we need in order to come up with our own business. Especially me, I really need these things for my own. Thanks a million!

Thanks for sharing the post, It will help out millions of people on the web that are looking to start a web host, or any type of site dealing with money and services.

Features are all fixed yet to one to be able to stand up in web hosting should be able to cope the real investment in order to stay on the line.

Great list, but i dont think #7 or #8 are always necessary when you are just starting up

What do you mean by "features are fixed?" Certainly, the shortage of investment capital makes everything else that much more difficult. The hard decision is where to allocate the capital you do have.