I meet a lot of Web-based startups and ISVs every month. Many of them ask questions about the world of hosting including: what really happens behind the scenes in monitoring, managing and billing large polls of customers? Another common question is “That is such a competitive industry how do you grow and keep churn low”. There is no better way for you as a hoster to help answer these questions and foster a strong tie between these two communities than to bring them to one of the WHIR events. The next two are in Denver (August 26th) and Phoenix (September 23rd).
Living in Boston affords me the opportunity to attend events geared to local Internet companies, startups, Web professionals and software developers on an almost nightly basis. As I meet these passionate and motivated individuals I often think about how the hosting industry is a key component to their success. Whether it be because we power their SaaS business (and subsequently we are a major component of their budget) or because we have the volume of businesses and technical professionals as customers which they can tap into.
The next stop for the tour is in Denver. I know for sure that there is an active startup community in Denver/Boulder – just check out TechStars Boulder. If you are based in Denver or Boulder I encourage you to reach out and bring a startup!
There were three companies that stood out to me at the recently held Boston event. I want to take a moment to highlight them and encourage the hosting community to check them out.
First up – EditMe. www.editme.com I met Matthew and Matt many months ago and I was super impressed by their product and potential. Several large hosters have older implementationa of Wiki software available to their customers and EditMe would be a great replacement or referral for them. Plus, a good Wiki platform can help drive churn lower. Matthew Mamet from EditMe said the following – which is an important concept for any hoster to consider: “When a small business owner subscribes to a hosting package, do they really know if they want PHP5 or Java installed? Do they care? Or rather, do they need a small business solution – a simple public facing website, a wiki for internal communication, and a simple CRM for Sales and Marketing use? A large client-services team or company might want a solution that enables them to create dozens of client portal extranets on the fly and then shut them off when each projects finishes.”
The second company I would like to highlight is TIE Kinetix and their Content Syndication Platform http://contentsyndication.tiekinetix.com. I’ve met Shawn Lisbon a few times and we’ve talked about the great opportunity TIE provides hosting providers and third parties. Their syndication platform allows businesses to not only push real-time promotions and rich web content direct to partner and affiliate websites, but it also allows businesses to track how content is performing throughout your external channels. If you’re interested in growing your partner and affiliate community faster, easier and more consistently – talk to Shawn and the guys at TIE Kinetix.
The third company I would like to highlight is a hot new company called Attracta, http://www.attracta.com/ I was introduced to the company by Attract’s VP of Business Development Troy McCasland when he was here in Boston for the last WHIR networking event. I have known Troy for a dozen years going back to when I was at ValueWeb and Troy was building Miva. To put it simply – this is an awesome tool that hosters can offer to their customers to help improve their search engine rankings. It’s not like the tools of the past or the “black-hat- on the edge of good advice” that many SEOs offer. Attracta’s core technology is creating, and submitting XML Sitemaps directly to all the major search engines: Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask. Their simple yet elegant solution provides webmasters a dashboard using an SEO scorecard to show how to improve organic search traffic. It has reporting that reminds your customers how much success you and Attracta have brought them. Their search visibility technology integrates into your web control panels using API’s with SEO Plug-ins for cPanel and other popular web automation platforms. Troy tells me that in less than a year they have amassed over 90,000 customers, submitting over 1 billion pages to Google and partnering with dozens of hosts, including three of the largest hosts Hostway, Hostgator and BlueHost.
In summary – don’t forget to attend the next WHIR event! Bring a startup or two! Help them understand the world of hosted infrastructure and the distribution opportunities behind the scenes at a Web host. Most of all remember we are all here for our customers and anything you can do to make them successful will help you retain them! Check out the WHIR Events Page: http://www.thewhir.com/whir-events
About William Toll
William Toll, VP, Marketing at Yottaa, Inc., has held Marketing and Product Management positions in the Web hosting and Internet infrastructure industry since the late 1990s. Currently William is driving the marketing strategy and implementation for Yottaa, Inc. Yottaa, The Web Performance Company, provides innovative cloud services enabling its customers to assess, benchmark, monitor and optimize their websites and Web applications for a better user experience and improved ROI. Most recently William was at the leading managed hosting and cloud services provider, NaviSite. At NaviSite, William was responsible for developing and marketing the company's hosted product lines, including managed cloud services, managed hosting, managed business applications and shared and dedicated hosting for SMBs. In past positions at companies such as Affinity Internet, Inc., Intermedia.NET, and NTT/VERIO, William was the driving force in launching and enhancing successful SMB focused services including: Shared Hosting services, Microsoft Exchange and hosting add-on services like Online Marketing and Web Design. William received a BA in Marketing from New England College. William Toll can be found on Twitter: @utollwi
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