Jumpline.com was founded in 1997.  Seven years of success as a web hosting provider with over 50,000 customers speaks volumes in and of itself.  What makes Jumpline.com stand out?  They began utilizing Sphera’s Virtual Dedicated Server technology (VDS) as the basis for their web hosting platform in 2002.  In comparison, less than 10% of hosting companies are currently utilizing and selling VDS Technology.

Jumpline.com believes that…“A web hosting company is only as good as its infrastructure…Plans specifications and cost come second to finding out about the infrastructure.”   This belief is backed up by proven superior performance.  Research and analysis firm Netcraft rated Jumpline.com “the most reliable host” for the month of April, and Jumpline still remains high on the list.  In addition, according to Cnet , Jumpline.com’s uptime has been 100% for over 72 weeks.

Now let’s meet one of the Co-Founder’s of Jumpline.com …Marc Hardgrove!

WHT:   What is your position with Jumpline.com, and what are your responsibilities?
Marc:   I Co-Founded Jumpline.com in 1997 along with Bob Kaufman and Rick Barber.  My position is Director of Marketing. I oversee all of Jumpline.com’s marketing and customer acquisitions.
 
WHT:   Jumpline.com has been in business since 1997 and has acquired over 50 000 customers. What is Jumpline’s average customer growth per month?
Marc:   Our growth tends to hover around an annual rate of 10%. Our model has never been to become the largest or fastest growing web host out there. We are looking for a niche customer base: One that is willing to pay more for superior service. Many web hosts entered this industry with a "sprint" mentality. You know: get in and get out as fast as possible. Jumpline.com has always taken the "marathon" approach. We are trying to build a business that will be around for our children to experience when they get older.
 
WHT:   What do you attribute your continuing growth to?
Marc:   Our growth has come from our customer’s referrals and through online marketing.
 
WHT:   What do you feel is the best thing about Jumpline.com?
Marc:   No question, our staff. We employee around 25 people at Jumpline.com.  I would put our staff against anyone in the business.
 
WHT:   If there were something you’d like to improve about your business, what would it be?
Marc:   Customer retention is something all web hosts are trying to improve. Churn can never be low enough. We have found that there is a life cycle to web hosting accounts. Not all sites are going to be around forever. However when we lose a customer to a competitor, nothing upsets me more. 
 
WHT:   Jumpline.com was featured as the ‘Most Reliable Host’ by Netcraft in April.  What does it take to reach to the top, leaving other major web hosting providers like 1and1 behind?!
Marc:   All web hosts are not created equal. Our data center is housed in a $63 million facility. It is Qwest Cyber Center. One of only 6 or 7 I think. The data center is located in the same town as our headquarters: Columbus, Ohio. We manage everything from the Qwest hands off. Our entire network is fully redundant. This cost us basically double to build out the infrastructure. However the result is zero failure. Well worth the extra money. We are all bummed out this month because we are moving our equipment to a bigger cage. This will cause our network to be down for a few minutes: just enough to throw off our Netcraft rating for the month.
 
WHT:   How do you view your competitors? Is it really competitive out there? How do you proceed to make your business stand out from the rest?
Marc:   Web hosting has become fiercely competitive in recent years. Dedicated servers going for $49 and shared hosting for less than $5 a month. Our niche is quality service, therefore we tend to be a bit more expensive than our competitors. We want to be known as the "Rack Space" of the shared market. Rack Space, the dedicated server company, can still charge $600.00 or more for dedicated servers because they are known for reliability and great customer service. We strive for that same image in the shared market.
 
WHT:   How does Jumpline.com advertise its services? Do you consider offline advertising methods too?
Marc:   Jumpline.com spends 90% of its advertising dollars on online advertising. We have tried print mail campaigns in the past with limited success.  We have built our business from day one with online advertising. We have customers in all 50 states and over 80 countries.
 
WHT:   Has Jumpline considered offering an affiliate program as another marketing device?
Marc:   We have been a Commission Junction Member since 1999. CJ is one of the largest affiliate portals in the world.  We have over 5000 active affiliates. CJ is very selective about the merchants it will accept. This works out great for all of the CJ hosting merchants because it weeds out all of the small hosting start ups and resellers. We think we are the leader in the hosting affiliate space. We pay up to $1000.00 for a hosting referral.
 
WHT:   How important would you say it is for hosting businesses to advertise their services?
Marc:   It is virtually impossible to grow at any significant rate without advertising.
 
WHT:   How would you motivate people to use VDS (Virtual Dedicated Servers) rather than conventional virtual hosting?
Marc:   We abandoned shared hosting about 2 years ago and converted 100% of our customer base to Virtual Dedicated Servers (VDS). The response has been overwhelmingly positive. We use Sphera as a hosting platform. VDS gives the customer control over their hosting environment. They can install custom applications, host multiple domains, get their own mail and data base server and benefit by an added layer of security. Many of our competitors have followed our lead and converted to VDS. I think this trend will continue. VDS is far superior to regular shared hosting.
 
WHT:   What kind of relationship does Jumpline.com have with its customers?
Marc:   We think we have a good relationship with our customers. Our churn rate is very low. We offer what we call customer loyalty plans/pricing. This allows existing customers to get a better rate when buying additional products. We also value our customers privacy: We were the first hosting company to offer whois privacy for domain registration. This allows our customers information not to be flowing all over the internet registry.
 
 
WHT:   What advice would you give to someone that is just starting out as a Reseller?
Marc:   I would recommend doing your research and picking a solid upstream provider. Too many resellers opt to go with the cheapest reseller plan out there. Also I would recommend visiting the facility of your upstream provider. If the company is hesitant in letting you tour their facility: It’s a bad sign. 
 
WHT:   Do you have any advice for Reseller’s that have been in the business for awhile?
Marc:   The best advice I can give to an existing reseller is step back and analyze the relationship you have with your upstream provider.  At the end of the day a reseller is only as good as their upstream provider. If there is a network problem, as a reseller your hands are tied. Every reseller knows the feeling. It is awful when your customers call you complaining about problems, and you know there is nothing you do but pray that someone from your upstream provider is working on the problem at hand. 
 
WHT:   Can we expect to see any changes or new product offerings by Jumpline.com in the near future?
Marc:   Well our core focus will always be web hosting. We are always trying to find tools or applications that compliment web hosting: Our current focus is better spam solutions, better reporting tools, a new support tracking system and a new Customer Relationship Manager (CRM).
 
WHT:   Where do you see Jumpline.com in 10 years?
Marc:   We hope to still be in business hosting websites. I think consolidation will continue as it becomes harder and harder for the small guys to ever get big. We hope to participate in this consolidation process. We think there will be opportunities to purchase small hosting companies and resellers.

We’d like to thank Marc for taking the time to be interviewed by WHT/HostingTech. If you’d like more information about Jumpline, please visit their website at www.Jumpline.com .

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.