Why I
Built pageBuzz.com®
Before I tell you why I built
pageBuzz® in 2003 you must understand that I was providing
hosting services since 1997 under several brands including
thecyberweb.com. So I know what the typical hosting model is and
have spent significant time in the market now occupied by hosts
like godaddy, bluehost, justhost, hostgator and the rest.
What I realized
is that trying to explain to anyone that they needed to use
an FTP program to upload pages was like trying to teach
someone to fly the space shuttle.
There is just no way that 90%
of the people that needed a website would ever understand the
technology necessary to run them. That meant that my market as a
website host would always be limited to the 10% of the people
that did understand technology.
So after hosting hundreds and
hundreds of customers I started creating software that they could
use to manage functions of their websites.
My customers wanted web based
interfaces that they could use to manage sales, add products and
make changes to pages. But some of those things were just not
possible with the technology that existed back in 1997.
So I worked with what I had
and spent a lot of time customizing programs for individual
customers.
Now, don't get me wrong, at $100
an hour I was raking in the cash almost like it was raining money.
I cloud work 18 hour days and get paid for every hour, so the
money was good. Plus, I had all the money coming in from the
hosting business so the programming money was like a windfall of
extra cash.
But I recognized that the
market was getting bigger and the customers wanted more and more
control of their websites.
Unfortunately those customers
had no clue how to do anything, upload images, build pages or
even use their own computers.
I realized, that I would not
be able to keep my customers forever at $100 a hour unless their
websites made that money back to pay me those fees and most did
not. Not because I did anything wrong, but because they had lousy
business models and were burning cash to find a pot of gold that
did not exist.
If I wanted to stay in this
business long term, I needed to come up with a better plan, a
better product.
As a software developer I
figured, why not build something more affordable that millions of
people could use rather than just a few high end clients. Why not
create a system for the average business and make it affordable?
It seems like it would be
easier to get customers at $10 each rather than those who could
spend $2000 each. If I create one program and let thousands of
people use it, I can still make the same amount of money or more.
So I created
Bumblebeeworks.com
It was amazing. Anyone could
build a basic website for $7.95 per month. We even had a shopping
cart and a used car dealer system included in addition to the
basic tools to edit simple web pages. We even added outside
classified websites like buzztrader.com and craftersbuzz.com to
help our customers market their products.
But over time, people grew
more web and computer savvy and now understood more and could do
more. They wanted more than what the simple Bumblebeeworks system
could offer. Even with changes and upgrades, the system was
designed to be basic and did not have much room for development
or expansion.
What seemed like a good idea
at the time later proved too simple. We had set pages that you
could choose, about us, contact etc. However, as we got more
customers they wanted different pages, more and new features that
just did not work.
Don't get me wrong,
bumblebeeworks.com was revolutionary, ahead of its time and very
useful. But it was not going to allow me to give users what they
wanted without some major changes. Due to the huge customer base
we had that were happy with it, I did not want to change it too
much.
I Started Building
pageBuzz.com
So I began building a new
platform with the ideas, more flexibility and room for growth.
The ability to add more programs and features and give the users
more advanced tools. Over the next year I created the pageBuzz.com
platform and opened it as a free service to shake the bugs out.
With thousands of free users
we were able to find the flaws and figure out what needed to be
changed quickly. We gradually phased out the free users and
turned it into a paid hosting system for our customers.
We now offered our original
product at Bumblebeeworks.com and the new system at pageBuzz.com.
All of my time was spent
developing new programs, editors and tools for pageBuzz.com as we
slowly tried too move old customers over to the newer system.
Since pageBuzz was much different many users resisted the change
so we continued to operate bumblebeeworks.com for a couple more
years until we convinced everyone they needed the features we
offered on pageBuzz.com
Toady all of our resources are
devoted to pageBuzz.com and developing new programs, designs and
tools for users as needed.
We are probably the most
actively developed content management system available today
because of the changes I made back in 2005 creating a platform
that was a better structure for continued growth.
This has allowed us to
create so many proprietary tools just as our ARTB
Failover system that uses multiple servers to host every
website for high ability service just like enterprise
level companies such as ebay and amazon.
We have integrated
spam blocking and bot blocking into websites to keep
server loads down and reserve resources for real people
visiting websites.
We have elevated page
design with all new drag and drop tools for editing
images and building pages.
The pageBuzz system
is not like any other product available and was never intended to
be like anyone else.
We get the "Professional
Webmasters" that hate what we have because they don't have
FTP access and cant run PHP scripts and we planned that going
into the project. We wanted security and reliability and you can't
have that when anyone can write their own programs.
Why would we try to compete
with the thousands of other companies that offer that service?
Why would I get into a price war with every other hosting company?
After all, my strength is as a
programmer and that separates what we can do compared to every
other host.
Anyone can offer
open hosting, but nobody can do what we have done.
Companies like 1and1.com,
Godaddy.cm and even Quickbooks have tried their best, but they
just don't have anything close to what we have. They can't offer
the security, the flexibility and the affordability that we can
and never at our price.
Now it has taken 10 years of
software development to get to what we have today. At $100 an
hour that I gave up, that is a load of clams invested in
technology. Not to mention all the outside programmers and
webmasters I have paid over the years to develop new software.
My plan was never
to replace the open FTP hosts that those professional
webmasters wanted, but to create a completely different
market for non webmasters that also wanted websites.
When I look at Godaddy's
Website Tonight I think about where I was in 2004 with
Bumblebeeworks.com. Simple to use, but too simple and in time it
just did not give users what they wanted.
These large companies might
have money behind them, but they don't have the insight into what
people really need. That comes over time spending thousands of
hours talking to customers and working with them to build tools
that they understand.
I Did The Right
Thing
When you start a business you
always wonder if you plan is for the next 10 years are you doing
the right thing? Since it can sometimes years to write and
develop great software will there be a market for it when it is
done?
Seeing the big companies like
Godaddy spend millions of TV ads telling people they can build
websites themselves I know I am in the right market.
The great part is, we are
years ahead of our competition and offer a much better product.
The market has
completely changed so the majority of websites are now being
built using online sitebuilders like pageBuzz.com rather than
using outside webmasters.
So now I get
webmasters calling us "FAKE", not a real hosting
company and useless for websites.
But the fact is, none of them
could ever build what I have built and if they could, it would
take many years and cost them millions of dollars.
As a user, you get to use
those millions of dollars in tools and run your website for only
$20 a month rather than paying a website to try to build
something from scratch.
You don't have to pay a
webmaster to hire a programmer for $100 an hour to write programs
because we have already done it and we have thousands of people
using them and testing them daily.
I have been in the software
development business since the beginning of the internent and it
is expensive, time consuming and resource intensive. That is not
a road you want to go down if you can avoid it.
I don't see
any webmasters telling microsoft that they are "Fake"
and that any webmaster can build a better system than windows
xp, vista, 7 or 8.
Yet, they have lots to
say about pageBuzz which is in fact its own cloud
based operating system for website development, not
unlike windows.
We have taken all the hits,
all the abuse, fighting bots and crawlers and abusive comments
from webmasters but here 10 years after we opened but we are
still here, still growing and still evolving as a company and a
product.
We now run our own datacenter
in Tampa Fl, have our own technology and a huge customer base.
What more could I ask for when I am doing what I love to do.
The Main Reason Why
I built pageBuzz.com
The main reason I built
pageBuzz.com was because I love doing what I do, creating
software. Creating products that nobody else can.
For me I feel like an artist.
I can create something that is unique, one of a kind and fills a
need.
Maybe an ecommerce program
will never hang on the wall of The Museum of Modern Art, but I
think it should. The code so graceful, so sleek and well defined.
It really is a work of art and when I look at a millions of lines
of code I feel a great accomplishment.
I have built something that
nobody else has done or likely will ever do. It is unique and
special and certainly appreciated by our customers.
Writing my own
software has allowed me to make money and grow as a
developer.
By creating a platform
for thousands of users I get to build what I want and do
it right.
If I was writing
software for paid clients I only get to do what they want,
when they want it.
As an artist, that is
very limiting for my creativity.
I would not trade pageBuzz.com
for anything because I love building it, working with great
people and learning new things every day. I welcome the
challenges new customers bring and integrating new technology.
My customers love the tools I
create and the service we offer. It seems like everyone wins and
I really like when that happens.
Nobody Could Ever
Afford it on Their Own
The fact is, none of my
customers could ever afford to build what we have on their own.
They don't have deep pockets like big corporations and they could
never afford even a fraction of developing a back end like
pageBuzz® for their own website.
So by having everyone share in
the cost though low hosting fees everyone gets what they need. I
make my money for programming and none of the customers ever have
to pay for any of it directly.
That means if I did not come
up with this business model, none of these programs would exist
because I would have never been paid to develop them for my
individual clients.
It really is a great
business model and it has worked well for us and our customers
for over 10 years.
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