Emailed Brent asking him for an interview, and I have got it. Here is the interview I had with him (email proof). I hope many here can relate and will help you in your future advances online 🙂
1. What got you interested in the Web Hosting scene?
Years ago I ran a bunch of gaming websites. Scfreak.com, starcraftgateway, diabloanything, and elitepolls. The sites I ran got so much traffic that I required dedicated servers in order to keep them online. I made decent money off of the advertising revenue but as the .com crash happened one by one my advertisers stopped paying me. Eventually I decided to supplement my advertising income with selling hosting. I already had the servers so offering hosting made perfect sense. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the gaming sites were a waste of my time and that if I was ever going to hit the big time hosting was my future. There’s not many businesses a young kid can do with about a $1,000 in the bank, and hosting just so happens to be one of them.
2. What is the secret behind your success and ongoing success with Host Gator?
The secret if you want to call it a secret is our reputation. The better the support we offer, the more recommendations we get, and in turn the faster we grow. There’s thousands of hosting companies out there and they are all claiming to offer the same support, uptime, pricing, etc. I believe the way provide hosting is superior to most. However it’s far from revolutionary, so at the end of the day the only thing that really separates us from the rest of the competition is our reputation which comes from the quality of our support.
3. What about Time Management? Do you ever feel work takes over personal time or vice versa?
Right now would be one of those where work takes over personal time. =) It’s 1:19am on a Saturday night and I’ve had about 10 different friends invite me out while I sit here catching up on things.
I started HostGator eight years ago and for the first five years I had no personal life. I worked every single second in order to reach my goals. These days I feel pretty guilty as there’s no doubt in my mind, I play a lot harder then I work. Currently I’m able to take all the vacations I could ever dream of, I just have to bring the most important thing of all, my laptop, oh and of course the wife.
4. Where do you see yourself (and Host Gator) in 5 years?
I see my wife Jessica and I having a couple kids while living in Austin. I also see us having a ranch where we’ll be able to bunker in for when the zombie apocalypse happens. I’ll no doubt continue to diversify into commercial real estate as I’ve been doing while spending most of my time managing hostgator.
In five years’ time HostGator should be the world’s largest hosting company and on path to being the world’s largest domain registrar. (Assuming we can keep up with staffing)
5. Have you ever had points in running your company that you felt like you did not wish to continue?
I wouldn’t exactly say there have been points where I did not wish to continue. There have been a few points over the years though where security threats had me believe we wouldn’t be able to continue. The internet is a very delicate world where a 0 day root exploit could potentially put any hosting company out of business. In the last year I’ve had some very lucrative buyout offers. Sometimes I can’t help but to think about taking them up on the offer and cashing out. At the end of the day I’m always told the number I’m looking for isn’t realistic. I always respond saying that I'll be looking for double the number in a year, and that's exactly what ends up happening.
How did you manage to get through that is yes?
6. What do you believe the definition of 'success' is?
I define success as being able to achieve your goals while finding happiness in the process.
7. Lastly, do you have any final words for our readers?
Don’t ever lose hope as failing could be the best thing to ever happen to you. If my gaming websites or any of my previous web ventures been a success I would have never started Hostgator. Thankfully life played out the way it did making me the founder of an $80 million a year business.
**!Warning!** You may not reproduce this article without a link back the the original source (viewtopic.php?f=24&t=59802) or written permission from Brent Oxley.
1. What got you interested in the Web Hosting scene?
Years ago I ran a bunch of gaming websites. Scfreak.com, starcraftgateway, diabloanything, and elitepolls. The sites I ran got so much traffic that I required dedicated servers in order to keep them online. I made decent money off of the advertising revenue but as the .com crash happened one by one my advertisers stopped paying me. Eventually I decided to supplement my advertising income with selling hosting. I already had the servers so offering hosting made perfect sense. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the gaming sites were a waste of my time and that if I was ever going to hit the big time hosting was my future. There’s not many businesses a young kid can do with about a $1,000 in the bank, and hosting just so happens to be one of them.
2. What is the secret behind your success and ongoing success with Host Gator?
The secret if you want to call it a secret is our reputation. The better the support we offer, the more recommendations we get, and in turn the faster we grow. There’s thousands of hosting companies out there and they are all claiming to offer the same support, uptime, pricing, etc. I believe the way provide hosting is superior to most. However it’s far from revolutionary, so at the end of the day the only thing that really separates us from the rest of the competition is our reputation which comes from the quality of our support.
3. What about Time Management? Do you ever feel work takes over personal time or vice versa?
Right now would be one of those where work takes over personal time. =) It’s 1:19am on a Saturday night and I’ve had about 10 different friends invite me out while I sit here catching up on things.
I started HostGator eight years ago and for the first five years I had no personal life. I worked every single second in order to reach my goals. These days I feel pretty guilty as there’s no doubt in my mind, I play a lot harder then I work. Currently I’m able to take all the vacations I could ever dream of, I just have to bring the most important thing of all, my laptop, oh and of course the wife.
4. Where do you see yourself (and Host Gator) in 5 years?
I see my wife Jessica and I having a couple kids while living in Austin. I also see us having a ranch where we’ll be able to bunker in for when the zombie apocalypse happens. I’ll no doubt continue to diversify into commercial real estate as I’ve been doing while spending most of my time managing hostgator.
In five years’ time HostGator should be the world’s largest hosting company and on path to being the world’s largest domain registrar. (Assuming we can keep up with staffing)
5. Have you ever had points in running your company that you felt like you did not wish to continue?
I wouldn’t exactly say there have been points where I did not wish to continue. There have been a few points over the years though where security threats had me believe we wouldn’t be able to continue. The internet is a very delicate world where a 0 day root exploit could potentially put any hosting company out of business. In the last year I’ve had some very lucrative buyout offers. Sometimes I can’t help but to think about taking them up on the offer and cashing out. At the end of the day I’m always told the number I’m looking for isn’t realistic. I always respond saying that I'll be looking for double the number in a year, and that's exactly what ends up happening.
How did you manage to get through that is yes?
6. What do you believe the definition of 'success' is?
I define success as being able to achieve your goals while finding happiness in the process.
7. Lastly, do you have any final words for our readers?
Don’t ever lose hope as failing could be the best thing to ever happen to you. If my gaming websites or any of my previous web ventures been a success I would have never started Hostgator. Thankfully life played out the way it did making me the founder of an $80 million a year business.
**!Warning!** You may not reproduce this article without a link back the the original source (viewtopic.php?f=24&t=59802) or written permission from Brent Oxley.
