Running a Web Hosting Business – HostAsean.com Five Years On

I’ve been offering and managing web hosting for clients alongside my usual design and website design services since the mid-2000s. I started off my web hosting business with a small UK based WHM & cPanel reseller account where I started to set up web hosting for my website design clients. It was often easier to just set it up than trying to explain things for everyone to manage themselves. After a decade of doing this we fast forward to 2015. I raised my web hosting game and established HostAsean.com – Cambodia’s first dedicated website hosting provider. Here are some things I’ve encountered so far while running a web hosting business in Cambodia.

 

How are things going five years since launch?

We started out with a small Cambodia VPS, and after a few upgrades we now have a dedicated server in Phnom Penh to run the bulk of our client’s web hosting accounts. In addition to this we also operate a large VPS in Singapore, for redundancy, a few clients outside Cambodia, and those with special needs.

Ironing out teething problems

Every new business encounters unexpected problems and hiccups along the way, you can never plan for everything. In the first few years we’ve tackled a number of issues with servers, software, and networks – some within our control and some not. Every time we encounter a preventable issue the goal is to stop it happening again. This method helps ensure we are safe from a wide number of known issues.

 

Refining product options

As HostAsean.com has grown, we’ve refined the hosting products on offer. Expanding the selection of web hosting plans to include multi-domain and reseller accounts, large storage for email archives, and managed hosting services. Nearly half the customer domains are fully managed, with the rest opting to self-manage and handle day to day things with their own in-house IT team.

 

Web hosting industry changes

There have also been changes in the industry, including the widespread adoption of SSL for nearly every website. After seeing Google’s quest for a secure web we started to offer free automatic SSL certificates with every hosting account. For 99% of users the free SSL certificate is more than sufficient, and just as good security as a standard domain validated (DV) certificate. We recently stopped offering direct sales of SSL certificates except in special cases such as wildcard or organisation/extended validation certificates.

 

Future web hosting plans

The future of web hosting in Cambodia looks promising. We’ve seen steady growth since starting up in 2015, and that’s with a minimal marketing and advertising spend. We’re sustainable, profitable, and hope to continue this for many years to come. There is a constant stream of new companies and organisations coming to establish operations in Cambodia every day, so there are plenty of potential clients out there.

 

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If you’d like to learn more about HostAsean.com and my web hosting services, please either get in touch with me or visit the HostAsean.com website at https://www.hostasean.com.