In today’s commercial world, no doubt, electronic communication particularly email has been widely established as the cheapest and fastest way of global communications, so it is universally used.

To say the fact, serious corporate individuals and organizations given the need to enable collaboration among globally dispersed employees, partners and customers, have come to terms that having personalized email account on own domain is a big plus point, and a vital end to create a right impression about their business. Consequently, by the day, there is geometric increase in the demand for a personalized email address which necessitates the creation of Email Hosting Companies.

For budding entrepreneurs, this is another opportunity to start generating extra income daily.

What is email hosting?
Email Hosting can simply be described as the hosting of customers’ or users’ email archives on a remote server. It also means that a company offers to perform email functions for customers. These functions can be as basic as sending and receiving emails, and as complicated as database processing and global searching.

Getting started with your own email company
In line with the focus of this article series, we shall reveal to you how you can get started in this business on a small scale. This is with the view to allow an average budding entrepreneur to start the service soon with a low start up capital.

Below are some the things you need to start small;

Server space:
For a start, you can hire a server space of about 2000MB. This you can acquire by buying a hosting reseller account of such size. This may cost you an average of N10,000 to N15,000.

Control panel:
The panel makes managing email accounts simpler for your customers; additionally, it gives the interface for concrete clients where they can manage FTP, just in case your customer decides to use part of the server space to host their blog. Usually, control panel comes with the server space you buy. But if it does not come with it, you can get control panel for $10 per month. However, we advise you choose a plan that includes Control Panel as one of the features.

Billing:
A Billing system is required to take fees from customers on a regular basis.

A website:
You will need some WebPages to promote your Email Hosting Business, or else your clients may not take you serious. You don’t really need a big website; you can easily develop a website with Content Management System using Joomla.

Internet connection:
You will also need an Internet connection. As a starter, you can start by using a cyber café around you. But if you can afford an internet connection we suggest getting IZAP.

Skills required
The major skill you need to run this business successfully is how to market any product on the internet. You can get more tips and tricks on how to sell any product online in the book; Beginners Guide To e-Commerce. Apart from the skill on how to sell on the Internet, another important skill you need is how to use a computer and the Internet.

Generating extra from Email Hosting Business?
Email hosting business is serviced based. As a smart entrepreneur what you need to do is to create the platform, set-up the business and start providing the service to final users. In other words, generating income from email hosting business involves the continuous commercial effort of buying a relatively large server space, dividing it to packages or small sizes, pricing it, setting up a website, promoting it, getting your profit then buying bore space for resale again.

Profitability
You may need up to N20,000 to start on a small level. However, if you are dedicated to making the business a success, you can turn this initial investment into N200,000 in less than six months. Let’s say you buy a server space of 2000MB at N15,000, and you slice it into 100. By market standard, you can sell each account for N1,000 per year, in this case, your total profit will run to about N60, 000 after deducting the cost of promotion.

Lastly,
To get started, you need to be well equipped on how to run the business successfully. To get more informed, you can do more research on the business from the Internet or call 08051614052 to get a comprehensive report on ‘How to Run an Email Hosting Business Successfully’ from Nigeria with Low Startup Capital. Till next time, Start Selling Something!

Contributed By Olu Oludimu, 08051614052