Please help me grow Eskimo!

     There are huge economies of scale, more customers will mean a lower cost per customer.  The fixed costs of operating Eskimo are significantly larger than the incremental costs.

     Presently, there are hosting providers out there that are considerably cheaper, but they achieve this cheapness by putting 10,000 domains on one box that is running versions of Linux two major point releases behind.  They tend to run all websites under the same user ID because it’s less complex and provides better performance on their overloaded and out of date platforms. I won’t mention any names but their ads tend to either feature cows or bikini clad young women in sports cars.

     I’d like to be able to provide our services at those costs but with much better performance and security that we presently provide. Actually I’d like to improve both even more.

     There are things we can do on a larger scale that just aren’t doable on this scale, and the things that are doable on this scale can be more optimized.

     For example, I’ve got the web server now to where it serves most pages in under 200ms, this is important from a Google ranking perspective and helps make your pages more visible on the web.  But getting it down even further would be possible with higher end hardware.  For example, the motherboards I’m using now have a maximum memory capacity of 32GB.  The more memory available, the more things can be cached and the less hard drives need to be depended upon, this speeds things up.  I’d like to go to a higher end motherboard that can hold 256GB or even 512GB of memory, but too costly on my current budget.  I’ve avoided solid state drives in the past because once all the banks are full they tend to become slower than rotary disk drives and have data errors, however, there are some server grade drives now that have been tested at over three petabytes read/write and remained fast and reliable but the costs tend to be $800+ on these.

     I’d like to further develop our site for mobile use and integration but that’s a time consuming prospect that really requires additional bodies.

     Most modern businesses these days seem to devise some product and then figure out a way to market it and convince people, who never previously had a need for it, that they just can’t live without it.

     I’ve always taken the opposite approach, listened to my customers and their needs, wants, and desires, and tried to come up with products that serviced those needs and wants.

     In order for this to work I need your input, what it is that you want or need.  The amount of feedback I’ve gotten hasn’t been strong recently.  People tell me they’re happy with the service, in deed few are leaving except by death, but at the same time I’m not being overrun by hoards of new customers.  So please tell me what you want and what you think Eskimo needs in order to not merely survive but to thrive and grow.  Please tell your friends about us.