Interview with top host Web Hosting Buzz
Published: Nov 18, 2009
We called the friendly people at Web Hosting Buzz to hear what they had to say about green hosting, the future and much more.
Can you tell us a bit about your company?
WebHostingBuzz was started in 2002 by Safvan Malik, the current CEO. Our grass roots were a simple reseller account of another company started by Safvan in his spare time whilst at University. Fast forward 8 years and we're now a multi-national company with 25,000 clients, hundreds of servers, 65 staff and provide hosting infrastructure to some of the most common destinations on the internet today. However, since inception, some things remain: We're 100% privately held. We have no share holders other than ourselves to answer to. This means we spend the money where it matters - on WebHostingBuzz. We're debt free. No loans, no mortgages and cash flow positive. We've had plenty of acquisition offers and the answer has been a flat 'NO" each time. Current clients are very happy with our service. We invite you to check for yourself at our testimonials area and in our forum.
What would you say is your company's main strength?
We're human. In fact, our entire team are all humans, surprisingly enough. As humans, something we enjoy doing we do well; this is natural. All of our team love what they do; they love the hosting industry, they love WebHostingBuzz and we have a real positive atmosphere in everything we do. The good spirits and the positivity are infectious and never before in previous companies or even in groups of friends have I seen such a bond that our team has formed. You know, we even have a couple of office cats and our employees choose to come into the office on their day off.
We enjoy a great degree of human interaction with our clients; we were the first hosting company to create a Facebook group, we meet clients and take them for dinner (and have been known to indulge them with slightly too much alcohol) and we joke with clients in our forums. Oh, and we run a very tight ship and provide damn good hosting services too.
What makes you different from other web hosting companies?
Do other web hosting companies have office cats? In seriousness, not a lot separates the top hosting companies. We all invest serious amounts of cash in our infrastructure, support teams and operations and I'm good friends with executives in a number of other hosting companies and all provide good hosting. With that said, I do think we're more human as a company than many of these. Plus, were Webhostdirectory at HostingCon last year? If not, come in 2008 - you'll find what makes us different.
Who is your target market?
Anyone and everyone. WebHostingBuzz is our budget brand, aimed at individuals and small businesses. We have a number of other brands that deal with different market sectors and we also have a high level enterprise brand that provides fully managed systems (from the hardware to the team that runs it) for high-end projects. If you need hosting, no matter how small or how large your requirements are, we can help. And chances are we'll have done it many times before with unmatched expertise.
Where will you be in 5 years?
We're growing, steadily and surely, year on year. We're involved in a number of large scale projects that will help us build our brand. It's a competitive market (but if people can attribute that WebHostingBuzz were involved in the deployment of X and Y, and they're pretty serious, then it's going to help us no end. I see the WebHostingBuzz brand concentrating on the mass consumer market but us as a business using our expertise in high end projects to work with larger Fortune 500 and public sector companies in providing their infrastructure.
Is your web hosting "green"?
Unfortunately, carbon neutrality has become a bandwagon that many people have jumped on. A select few, WebHostingBuzz included, decided to get involved in helping the environment because we believe in this. We were one of the first companies to announce a tree planting campaign and I bet we're one of the few companies who make an effort to recycle as much as possible within our offices. Many competitors have followed suit with poorly thought out, poorly managed attempts at becoming carbon neutral, purely as a sales pitch.
Make sure to read our review of Web Hosting Buzz.
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