[Karbonize]

As you probably already know, I'm starting a web hosting business. This is mainly going to be locally as I've heard of businesses looking for a good, quality local host for them to use. Here's a list of expenses I believe I'll need to startup and run for the first 24 months. Please let me know if I'm missing something or you think I could do without.

Office Space: $700-1000 a month???
Electric/Internet/Phone: $250-300 a month
Computers: $1000/ea one time expense
Servers: ~$2500-3000/ea one time expense (thinking of a build our own server and using colo)
Office Furniture: $2000 one time expense
Routers/Switches: $1000 total one time expense

I'm thinking that's the basic startup expenses I'll be needing. Also, this is in Raleigh, NC so if you're gonna offer price est., etc, base it on Raleigh, NC prices. Does this list look ok in terms of estimated prices, etc?

I'm trying for a $100,000 startup loan. My family has offered to loan me $50,000 to help me get started.

[crackah]

50k should be fine.

You dont need office space. Run it out of your home.

You already have home furniture.

Saves you some $$$

[Karbonize]

I won't get work done at my house due to my crazily annoying family bugging me all the time.

[MASapparel]

I hear that!

Im in the process of moving out of my home into an office space.

[cjsampson77]

Don't forget about disaster recovery. If you do not do the colo you will need to have battery backups, fire suppression, possibly a generator, replacement hardware, and backup equipment (tape, dvd, secondary NAS).

Also I am not sure about Raleigh, but here in Des Moines $300 a month is a bit low for internet connectivity. That will maybe get you one T1. If you are serious you should think about having at least 2 from 2 different providers for redundancy reasons.

Just remember that hosting customers are not forgiving about down time. If their site goes down they lose business, and if they lose business you will lose business.

Reputations are easier to lose than to build.

[OnTheWayUp]

What about licensing? Are you getting your business licensed, such as an LLC? It usually runs about $180, but I know there are other licenses that you need to have in order to run a business.

Anyone else wanna chip in on this?

[Woodcs82]

You must be getting some Computer for $1,000, thats a lot for a PC these days!

[okComplete]

I used to be in the hosting business (ran out of my house, not an office) and your forgetting about a few things, your going to need a logo, website (design and coding), unless you plan to do it yourself, but remember that first impressions mean everything do a good design goes along ways.

And also, something your forgetting thats very important is Support/Billing software, your going to want to use a good one such as WHMCS or ClientExec. You don't want to use free support/billing software as that is your whole business.

Another thing I noticed is that you said you are using co-lo.. You should know that to co-location a server in a decent data center is going to run you close to 2k/month if you want to get a dedicated 100mb line (trust me, you will definitively need this if you are serious about this thing.) If you are planing on running the servers our of your office, you will(should) need to spend more then 300 on internet connectivity, and not to mention generators incase the power goes out, etc.

Hope this helps you

[mattSantill]

No matter where you live, there will be a complete loss of power (blackout) or a temporary dimming of lights (brownout). Sooo... I think you should add in the costs of UPSs and possible generators.
I would use a standby UPS for some of the less critical equipment and probably an online UPS for the servers.
Research the length of typical power outages in your area. The medium sized server relies on a 574 VA UPS to remain functional for 20 minutes, 1100 VA UPS to remain functionial for 90 minutes. They vary in price ranges.... APC - Country Selection Page
If you were thinking about becoming an ISP then a generator a long with the UPS would be necessary.. but I think you'll be fine with just the UPSs for now.

You might want to contract with two different service carriers to ensure the redundancy of your data lines.

I would consider offsite storage for a monthly fee as well... I dont know any companies off hand but there are many out there. Also consider clustering your servers so that if one goes down the other will function properly, this fail and recovery process would be transparent to your clients.

[ADVERTISE HERE!]

Licenses, insurance, professional fees (accountants/attorneys), possible business entity creation, MARKETING, ...

[sassysashes]

I saved a ton of money by doing stuff out of my house. You can cut costs if you try!