My businss idea...
- Thread starter rexehuk
- Start date
I got no secrets to hide, was www.caliber-hosting.com (US sales) and www.caliber-hosting.net.
Waybackfinder or w/e it is shouild show you some of the websites. It was a crude company but let me have a bit more money than the average 13 year old
Waybackfinder or w/e it is shouild show you some of the websites. It was a crude company but let me have a bit more money than the average 13 year old
Soldato
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How does a 13 year old open all this up. Bank accounts etc would be required. Can't imagin many parents would be willing.
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Consigliere
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Removed.
Dad let me open another debit card on his account. He ran his own company so I assume he trusted me somewhat as I had worked there on occasions and knew I was good with pcs etc. Not to mention I showed him the website etc when it was all setup, let me use this card until he saw I was actually running something then signed one into my name.
But yes... 13 year olds cant be trusted with cards, I lost the card by accident by getting drunk when 14/15 on a night out and lost the replacement card, for which his bank grilled him
Consigliere
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http://www.calibermediagroup.com/solutions/caliberhosting.php
^ Must have problems from those guys. Is that why you terminated?
http://www.hostreview.com/cgi-bin/search_hosts/show_company_info.cgi?id=5926
Yours?
^ Must have problems from those guys. Is that why you terminated?
http://www.hostreview.com/cgi-bin/search_hosts/show_company_info.cgi?id=5926
Yours?
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You'll laugh why I was terminated. The same happened with Zuney, I forgot to renew the domain... and didn't know at the time you can get thme back if they have just expired and no ones sniped them.
Also if you're wondering about how I financed the servers etc to start with, I knew someone off Rainbow Six who was willing to front the money for the servers in exchange for a cut, he was around 20/21 which was strange when we met for coffee.
Still friends with him today..
If you can't see I'm being nice and truthful with you lot then I apologize.
Consigliere
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I'm just not entirely convinced...and you managed to avoid what i had written in my post completely. 
Its great to see young people try and make something of themselves. Its a shame that other people (as can be seen by the comments above), don't share this attitude, but look for ways to ridicule others' ideas, for no apparent reason.
Anyway, OP, your best bet is to try posting your original post on some business/start-up forums. Also, don't let finance limit you - if you know how to sell yourself and your idea, you will get finance, if you need it.
You could try phoning around different nightclub venues or even small warehouse type places. Obviously, you will offer to hire their venue for a night or weekend, for an agreed fee. You will then bring in your own people (DJ, Security, Bar staff, etc) and set the place up the way you like it. I believe that most of your profits will come from the sale of alcohol, so bear this in mind.
Your first step therefore, is to phone around and find out the costs involved in hiring the venue.
Anyway, OP, your best bet is to try posting your original post on some business/start-up forums. Also, don't let finance limit you - if you know how to sell yourself and your idea, you will get finance, if you need it.
You could try phoning around different nightclub venues or even small warehouse type places. Obviously, you will offer to hire their venue for a night or weekend, for an agreed fee. You will then bring in your own people (DJ, Security, Bar staff, etc) and set the place up the way you like it. I believe that most of your profits will come from the sale of alcohol, so bear this in mind.
Your first step therefore, is to phone around and find out the costs involved in hiring the venue.
To all the naysayers, it's not actually impossible that a teenager could be running succesful web projects. I seem to remember jellyellie (a 14yo home-schooled forumite) ran/runs a highly regarded bluejacking site, although she hasn't posted here for a few years.
I think you dug yourself the first scoop when you called yourself an "entrepreneur" at 12 and started a hosting company at 13.
Your hosting company uses a template monster design which reminded me when I was 13 and looking at building websites - turnkey hosting sites were just kicking off then, and it looks exactly what you did.
But hell I won't say nothing - for all I know you could have been highly successful and had thousands of clients... just seems very far fetched!
Consigliere
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I am not doubting it is possible...i'm just not entirely convinced. It all seems very convenient, thats all.
My gut tells me it was a company he made but that is all, a company. Nothing too about it and perhaps got a few users. Fair play for starting it off though and looking to try new things. For my mate's events to suceed, he had to do a LOT of advertising and networking so ensure you have a lot of friends willing to spread the word and make it 'cool' to go to.
I'm just not entirely convinced...and you managed to avoid what i had written in my post completely.
Siderwinder, to satisfy your question, the bottom link is my one yes, that is one of our plans... if you check waybackmachine you'll see that.
Finally a helpful reply.
For the actual business startup I think I have to contacts myself, I generally just wanted to know any tip / tricks / problems that other people have come up against.
One thing I did overlook was the Security and Bar Staff! Do all venues do this? I'm not sure if the first club I target will let me do my own security, I always see the same blokes doing it with metal detectors.
As for Bar Staff, how does training them to make all the drinks on say a cocktail menu go for example?
I am not doubting it is possible...i'm just not entirely convinced. It all seems very convenient, thats all.
For my mate's events to suceed, he had to do a LOT of advertising and networking so ensure you have a lot of friends willing to spread the word and make it 'cool' to go to.
Yeah the big names wern't really doing free web hosting those days... if you tried to pull it off now you'd be crushed in a matter of months.
As for the advertising, it was more like natural growth and word of mouth, and , listing ourself on various websites showing top hosts etc.
In heinsight, I wish that I was more mature and business minded at that age, was more like HAVE AN ACCOUNT, THANK YOU FOR MONEY, NO REFUNDS.
And the company wasn't making 10k a year (and I wasn't registered for tax or vat - the joys of being young and ignorent) We prob turned over around 2/3k a year which when your of that age is a fair bit of cash.
Soldato
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"caliber-hosting.com" didn't do well, it was just a minor kiddie host with a random Template Monster-esque website.
But yeah, good going for doing it when you were 13 - but then so do many, many kids.
Aye I admit it was quite common for some kids to do, but still enjoyed doing it and tbh if sets you apart a tiny bit when you're older (however sad it sounds).
My friend and I wanted a custom web template as we are very picky, but being young and broke it was the most cost viable solution. It was only really setup for an alternate source of income, with little or no effort on our part. Bought WHM Autopilot scripts etc to automate the entire ordering service, which left us just with support and sales enquiries
What exactly are you intending to do? From the sounds of things you want to run nights but then your last post confuses me as you talk about bar staff and security. Club owners will employ security and bar staff and if you get a contract with the club then you will control the door (as in entry fees) and can arrange your own music/dj (as long as it fits the profile of the club, some clubs will have a strict policy on what they want playing - as well as the type of crowd it attracts). Running your own sub-night will typically involve a minimum bar spend agreement with the owners, you stump up for this and take whatever money you can at the door to help offset the bar spend and make profit.
I've worked in this field whilst at uni (UCL too, when did you graduate?) so am familiar with the way it works and now work with the more mayfair type clubs of which i'm planning on expanding my visions further later this year. If you want any advice in terms of central london region feel free to ask. There's definitely money to be made, but it is very hard work getting the crowds in and you will need a big budget.
I've worked in this field whilst at uni (UCL too, when did you graduate?) so am familiar with the way it works and now work with the more mayfair type clubs of which i'm planning on expanding my visions further later this year. If you want any advice in terms of central london region feel free to ask. There's definitely money to be made, but it is very hard work getting the crowds in and you will need a big budget.
I think there was some confusion here, anothe poster said I would have to hire security etc and bar staff, but i think you're right that this would not be the case if im meerly arranging an event there. I'm usually up central, so thank you for the offer.
I am speaking to event organiser / DJ at SE1 and he has told me it took them a long time to gain large enough marketing base to rent SE1 etc.
As for UCL, I am heading into my final year. Failed to get an internship this year so i'm looking for some good projects to boost my CV for next year applications. What did you study at UCL out of interest?