Interview: ValcatoHosting

February 21, 2004 - In a day where it seems hundreds of webhosting ‘companies’ are founded daily, it’s mind boggling to see some succeed, while the vast majority fail, and close up shop in a year or less. How can this be? After all, most of these companies’ servers are all in the same major datacenters, they use mostly the same billing software, and their websites usually all boast the same misleading images of servers. Yet, some will make thousands off it, many will loose hundreds.
I recently interviewed Jerome Everall, the President of one of the webhosting companies that is actually doing well. Jerome was very interesting to speak with, and I really learned quite a bit. Portions of the interview have been edited.


Danny Garon: Your company, Valcatohosting.com, has proved to be immensely successful with over 200 customers. Webhosting is a very competitive industry, what made you decide to get into it? Did any person influence you? What were your original goals?

Jerome Everall: Well I've been able to use computers since the age of 3, and I've always wanted to start my own business, even back then! People used to ask me "what kind of job do you want when you grow up?" and the answer had always been "I'm not going to get a job, I'm going to work for myself!" I've always enjoyed providing a quality service to people, giving people a good deal just feels good! The decision to start ValcatoHosting.com actually came from a friend of mine called Adam Clarke. I was 17 at the time and was hunting around for a cheap web host and came across his. He had an online chat facility on the site and after talking to him for a while he asked me to guess how old he was. I guessed about 23, but he said that he was 17! I thought to myself, "I can do that!"...so I did!

Danny: What issues face your company on a daily basis?

Jerome: The main priority is answering customer support tickets. We don't get many for the number of sites we host, but I always aim to answer any tickets that we do receive as soon as possible. There are also sales requests from people wanting to learn more about the service, as well as day-to-day housekeeping info from our NOC.

Danny: Is there any one thing you would change about your company? Why?

Jerome: Personally I think that after lots of hard work we've got the mixture just about right, though we're always open to comments from our users, everything the business does is very much shaped by our customers.

Danny: What do you think has contributed to your success?

Jerome: Having a great team of staff behind me! All of our staff began as customers and wanted to help out, I don't know where I'd be without them! We're just a hardworking team and we're all 100% determined to provide a great service and make ValcatoHosting.com a success!

Danny: Do you have any regrets on anything the company has done in its history?

Jerome:: Last summer was definitely a bad patch, I’m not hesitant to admit it. We had problems with staffing and uptime issues, but we've certainly came a long way since then and are very firmly back on track!

Danny: What are your plans for the future? Where do you see Valcato in 10 years?

Jerome: Ooh, that would be telling! I would definitely like to see the Valcato logo on the side of a big skyscraper in 10 years time though...wouldn't anyone?

Danny: Could you briefly describe he history of your company?

Jerome: Well we originally started back as a free host called ASP2.net. I got some ad-free hosting space and set up a script to offer people free 500kb accounts. The response was amazing, I was soon out of space! I then purchased a reseller account and provided free hosting with paid add-ons that was also very successful, and back in March 2002 we purchased our first dedicated server!

The name "Valcato" actually came to me during a car journey! People were getting confused with us being called Asp2.Net - ASP actually stood for "Active Service Provider", but it was often confused with the Microsoft ASP technology. The word Valcato doesn't actually mean anything at all, but it just popped into my head one day, it wasn't in the dictionary, it wasn't a trademark, the .com of it was available, so off we went! And just for the record, it's pronounced Val-Cat-Oh !

Danny: What advice would you give to somebody who has just started a webhosting company or wants to?

Jerome: Go for it! At the end of the day, no matter where you buy it from, webhosting is webhosting. You have to offer that bit extra, a great service, solid technical support, and good value for money! Don't be afraid to start off small - everybody does, but the people that really shine will naturally expand. The customers are out there and looking for a good deal, give them what they want!

What’s the secret to Jerome’s success? You draw your own conclusions. It’s quite apparent though he’s got the right attitude, and it’s taken him a long way.

An Exclusive Interview for W3Reports
By: Danny Garon
http://geekvalley.com

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