Well I shared a server with a friend, he needed someone to help him manage the support tech area. So I decided to help him out and eventually I got a reseller package on the server, since I was part of the staff. You could say I worked hard and he gave me a bonus

Anyways I basically hosted friends and a few friends of friends, which started me off slowly. Then I got to a point where I couldn't manage the server, because of college time. So I decided to sell it off and after that I haven't really hosted. I do have a shared hosting plan, but it's used for my own site.

I think that first of all better to start with a friend or a partner as well. Second: go with reliable cmpanies, providing inhouse support like hosgator.com or *************.
Third: work hard on your service promotion.
Make much money.

A friend of mine had a Dedicated Server for an application he was working on. All that extra space we just turned into hosting. Since then, he has sold the project he was working on so we had to drop the DS and go with a reseller.

Most of our clients are local to me even though we do try to advertise on the net. As most of us know, it is so competative out there but it is really surprising for people that are not so net savvy what they pay for hosting / domain registration.

Personally, I make more selling custom scripts than the hosting.

To be honest, i never wanted to enter web hosting stream and i would haven't if there had not been financial crisis in my then business. I had a server for my projects and one of the projects went miserably wrong with financial strain pushng me to find ways to garner cash and web hosting was easiest venture since i already had a server with me. Initially, it was slow and required alot of effort but once word spread, clientage increased.