WeBuyHostingCompanies.com Appears to be Brokering Sales

Not entirely sure about this one.

I saw a press release from a company called WeBuyHostingCompanies.com, a newly launched organization designed to help small Web hosting providers unhappy with the extent of their success in the business to sell their companies.

The press release points out:

According to ResultsAbout, a quality online content provider that is a division of About, Inc., there are more than 170 million Web hosts on the Internet. SearchEngineWatch.com, a Web source for search engine marketing, estimates that there are six billion Web sites on the Worldwide Web. If those sites were divided equally among every host, each hosting company would be home to only 35 sites. Obviously, that equality doesn't extend to all, explaining why so many small hosting companies can't make a go of things.

The site is the project of an individual who is not named, either in the announcement or on the site (but who is referred to as “he” at one point). The service’s operator, apparently the operator of a hosting provider himself has “contacts aplenty,” which amount to a list of willing buyers waiting to make offers on small, ailing hosting companies.

Apparently, the site has cash reserves of its own that enable it to turn around a sale in the space of a week.

All in all, not an earth shattering idea. But it’s by no means a bad idea.

Funny. This was the paragraph where I was going to start pointing out things that had me doubting the legitimacy of the service (the strange single-page Web site, the general lack of contact info). But between the last paragraph and this one, I spoke on the phone with Ralph Smith at Fat Jack Hosting, the company responsible for WeBuyHostingCompanies.com. Now I’m a little more up to speed.

Fat Jack is looking to incorporate some of the smaller hosting companies that never took off into its own business. Not exactly the broker I was envisioning.

The site launched unofficially last week, and officially today. Smith says the offers are already coming in, and the company has completed one acquisition so far. The largest host offered so far was one with 100 customers.

I suppose if you’re interested in getting out of the hosting business, this might be worth looking at. I’m going to follow up with Ralph in a week or two and see how this project is going.