Founded by Ron Cadwell and his father in the fall of 1995, Cavecreek was spawned from juicing customers with an interest in apples and bananas. While this may sound kinky, the two chiropractors were selling juicers over the Net. They found themselves running a successful Web business and soon were in need of more bandwidth. Ron started approaching larger companies in search of someone to share memory with. He was approached by the people at Wasteland.com, the adult site specializing in "the darker side of desire."
At the time, they didn’t realize they were dealing with one of the largest adult content providers in the industry. "They looked into the legal implications of sharing space with an adult site and decided it was okay," said Douglas Wicks, Ph.D., director of Sales for Cavecreek.
The operation exploded, growing from one server to forty. In 1996 Cavecreek attended its first adult show. The venture brought in lots of clients and expanded the company’s networking base. It soon became apparent that its clients were in need of a billing solution. CCBill was formed. "That's when the hosting company really took off," said Wicks. "With the addition of the billing system, the company grew tenfold. Through his contacts, Ron has really gained respect from people in the industry; that's why the company has done so well."
Despite the company’s growth, Cavecreek still maintains the principles of a family-run business. Wicks said Cave Creek "gives the customer what they're promised. That's how we keep our customers happy."
With 1000 servers in its data centers the company provides hosting solutions to a broad range of companies--adult, non-adult, even Fortune 500 types like Apple and IBM.
“They’re all looking for a solid company with lots of bandwidth and homegrown solutions.” Said Wicks. Adjusting to the needs of adult webmasters, Wicks said the company provides a higher degree of monitoring to make sure the sites are up and running. But dependability is more a matter of quality assurance than an issue with the network. “We have an OC192, two OC12s, two OC3s and multiple DSL lines coming in and going out of the data center to the east coast and west coast. All servers are connected to the pipeline via a 100 megabit network interface card.”
Partnered with a Level 3 data center, Cavecreek has a finger on a mass of bandwidth. “We are the second largest client, behind Yahoo, with the second-largest supply of bandwidth. Within the center we have our own access systems, with palm scanning security systems and all the latest technology.” The company transfers about one gigabyte per second sustained, totaling two terabits per month.
With three companies under their belt the Cavecreek people stay on top of innovative solutions for their customers. CCBill is one of the top three players in billing services, says Wicks, along with Epoch and iBill. “Webmasters who use CCBill appreciate the service because we give them complete statistical information about what’s going on with the site,” said Wicks. This allows webmasters to keep track of visitors who are turned away in the fraud screening process while trying to make purchases. It is important for Webmasters to be aware of the numbers and to know why certain surfers were shot down.
Using its knowledge of fraud protection CCBill developed the concept for its third company, V-Scrub. Named after the product they developed in 1998, V-Scrub was formed in 2001. “Scrubbing is the process of checking a person who tries to make a transaction on your site. We realized that there had to be some sort of a standard on what’s accepted, so we developed our own software. Soon we had companies informing us that we had the best software on the Web, so we decided to re-sell it.” V-Scrub uses 61 different variables and hundreds of cross-tests, such as card number, billing address, IP location, and browser. It uses a scoring system. If the customer scores too low, they are denied.”
While both V-Scrub and CCBill have secured solid positions in relatively niche markets, the hosting competition remains fierce. In order to pull off a hat trick, Cavecreek must be prepared for shifts in the industry and the economy. When asked what trends Cavecreek is anticipating, Wicks explained how the company also anticipated the previous boom.
“I think a number of dot-coms started throwing up data centers everywhere over the last couple years, but it was a case of over-expansion. Now there is a stigma with dot-coms, which is a scary thing. However we’ve only grown based on our income. We haven’t built a data center, we’ve just made good partnerships. As a result of the economic slow-down companies are getting rid of their centers, and there’s a lot more consolidation. We’ve made the right decisions. That’s why we’re a solid, solid entity.”
