Pipe dreams about having my own hosting company

Currently I am NEET and I never worked a day in my life, however lately I have been having this pipe dream of having my own hosting company with my own rooms and my own hardware and so on. I'm a school dropout without any qualifications or diploma, but I now some stuff about sysadmin and programming, so it seems like a good fit in order for me to have something going and generate some income of my own. I would be grateful if some Lainons could give me general advice and answer my questions. 1. How likely is such a little project to survive and not be just a way to catapult me into major debt? What are things I would make sure, so it works and doesn't become a problem? 2. What software/hardware should I be knowledgeable about so I can resolve problems, when some appear and do maintenance and stuff? Like I said, I know some sysadmin stuff, but I'm probably still far from the skillset required to actually run such a thing. 3. Is having my own hardware feasible for the beginning or should I go for a major datacenter instead? Personally, I like the idea of having hardware, that I can touch and do things with manually better, but I don't know if that doesn't bring other major disadvantages 4. What are some things you miss in other hosters? There is plenty of services, who offer hosting for XMR, but is there anything that can be improved upon in your opinion regarding that? Maybe preconfigured OpenBSD images, that don't have to be configured manually by the customer? That was something I thought of. Would anyone use that? Of course free speech as extensive as my local law allows for. Permission to run Tor/I2P services/exit notes maybe too? No-JS admin panel? You see, that's what I mean with pipe dream, but those are just some ideas I had. Thanks in advance for answering.

lainon, qualifications asides as a business owner in an unrelated industry, there are some things regarding finance and experience you should know in owning any business that I think would apply to you. firstly, are you prepared for the time investment it will take to create something from the ground up with no pre-existing clientele or contracts? you may want to seriously consider doing some research on advertising and how it is done for your particular field. secondly, most businesses fail on their first attempt, and even second in some cases depending on the subject-area. do you have disposable income for the necessary investments in case your first attempt fails? 5k down on a first attempt is reasonable, don't bankrupt yourself going balls-deep into hosting even if you know what you're doing. it's all about the unaccounted unexpected possibilities and murphy's law scenarios. i may not be able to answer your software or hardware based questions, but the fact that you are able to ask questions that are specific is a good enough sign that you are looking in the right direction. one last thing, for server hosting i would imagine it would be common sense but also revise your own PERSEC and see what vulnerabilities could be potentially exploited by competitors or malicious actors. if you're hosting these servers out of a room or multiple rooms in your own residence this is especially relevant. good luck, nice to see someone posting here in 2025 (ᗒᗨᗕ)

>"I know some sysadmin stuff, but I'm probably still far from the skillset required to actually run such a thing." This worries me a bit Lainon. It sounds like you are not confident in your ability to run the labor part of the business. You do not have to be the best, but you need to, at the very least, be good enough to compete in your market. Let's say you happen to actually be very talented in your field, keep working on some personal projects that you think you might need brushing up on until you are confident in your ability :). Here are some questions to consider: What do you plan on doing different or better than what the competition is already doing (even if it's just by the tiniest bit)? Do you have any starting capital to market yourself since you are starting off fresh with zero clients? Unfortunately it takes money to make money. I love your entrepreneurial spirit, and I want nothing but success for you, so I'm sorry if I sound naggy in my post. tl;dr Really take into mind what >>12374 said.

not to discourage you too much, but consider that your competitors in the marketplace have the resources to operate at a loss on government printed money in order to undercut you. they did it to diapers.com, they'll do it to you, and 'cyber' is the market they're most ferociously trying to corner because it is a game of technofeudalism, lock people into digital fiefdoms and extract as much value out of their free labor to sell to advertisers... on a brighter note, with access to digital infrastructure there is an ability to shift the balance of power, based soley on the fact that it is the domain of 'the virtual' and as such the horizons of what is possible are only limited by the imagination it sounds like you're more in a position to host a service, try that while honing your skills and figuring out what you really want to develop. we could always use more opennic dns nodes, peertube or invidious instances, git hosting, exit nodes like you mentioned, all kinds of stuff. while filling those holes you may discover some crucial, necessary, broken thing somewhere and offer a better solution

Hi Lainon, I had very similar ideas to you. I drafted up ideas of making businesses, the first was a VPN business but living in a Five Eyes country I knew I'd probably be stepping into regulations hell. The second idea was also a hosting company, I did significant planning for it but decided not to because I didn't think I could commit the time to it. You need to become a bit more hard-nosed and self-confident. Also ask yourself some serious questions about money and how much you are willing to piss away in this. 'Generate income' sounds nice until you've got to balance that with your expenses, with a realistic assessment of whether you can or not. I've held on to my ideas just in case I decide to do something independently.

Regarding software/hardware there are a lot of solutions. I recommend checking out what hypervisor is. There are plenty of software for running one and you can do it on your own computer if your PC allows it. >Is having my own hardware feasible for the beginning or should I go for a major datacenter instead? Yes it is, you can start very small and scale it to datacenter as you buy more hardware. >What are some things you miss in other hosters? I think they are not missing anything because their primary job is hosting and all the percs you mentioned are additional options. You can add everything you mentioned and it is doable/can be automated imho but it will take time before you release your project.

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