How to start a profitable online backup business

	Hugh market potential
	Low investment, fast startup
	Earn recurring income that grows like a snow-ball

Business model

Set up your hardware and infrastructure

The first thing you need to do is set up your hardware and infrastructure. If you are starting from zero, you need to acquire a server, host it at a suitable location, and connect it with a leased-line. Ahsay™ Offsite Backup Server is an application that does not overburden its adopters with an excessively high level of resource requirements. As a rule of thumb, an active backup session takes roughly 1MB of memory. Thus, a 1024MB heap size can support roughly 500 active backup sessions and associated system jobs. The required storage space depends on the expected amount of backup data from your users, and it is possible to make use of an external storage server.

Most of the backup processing, i.e., data compression and data encryption, is performed on the client machine, without demanding intensive CPU utilization on the Ahsay™ Offsite Backup Server machine. It is worth noting that a general workstation with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and sufficient disk space can support up to 500 active users under most circumstances. Taking into account customer growth that you may anticipate, we would recommend the use of server grade machine, which is designed to provide additional processing capacity necessary for future expansion.

Install, configure and brand your Ahsay™ software

You need to acquire our Ahsay™ Backup Software Service Provider Edition. Once you have purchased or leased the software, you can install, configure and brand our software. Our documentations, prepared with the goal of maximizing user satisfaction, include easy-to-follow, step-by-step procedures for setting up the core components of the software. In case you don't have the technical expertise to complete the required setup tasks, our Express Startup Service can help you take care of them on the fly. Once the hardware and the underlying operating system are in place, our professionals will perform all the software installation and configuration remotely on your behalf.

Decide what to offer

Your target segments can be home users, SOHO businesses, small & medium businesses, as well as larger corporations.

Set up billing system

After you decide what to offer, the next logical step is to consider what possible charging methods to implement. You can charge your customers by: total storage space of backup data consumed, bandwidth utilized, maximum storage space allocated, no. of exchange mailbox used, database modules employed, size of data replicated and stored by AhsayRPS, or any combination of them. With our APIs, you can easily extract user usage data stored within the Ahsay™ Offsite Backup Server, and use them to construct your own billing system.

Alternatively, our FREE Billing Module(BM), bundled with the software, allows you to bill your customers in accordance with any pre-defined conditions. Written in Microsoft Excel, BM is a particularly useful tool for those who do not know how to use the APIs.

Market your online backup service

Having been in our business for a substantial period of time with a proven track record of success, we are pleased to share our marketing experience with you. Here are a few tips on the selection of channels for giving you a head start.

Marketing channels	Target segments				Tips
	Home users	SOHO users	Small & medium businesses	Large corporations
Search marketing					Competition is keen. Select your keywords carefully to differentiate from competitors. Geographical campaigns help a lot. Optimize your website to get higher organic ranking in search engines.
Download sites					Submit the software whenever there is an upgrade to get higher ranking. Download site submission software is worth to buy as it will save you a lot of time which equals money.
Direct marketing					List rental is expensive. Dig out the contact information of your target audience from web directory. It's easy and costless. The quality of the cover letter plays an important role on conversion rate. Keep testing and fine-tuning the cover letter and other materials that go with the DM.
Online marketing					Placing web banner in IT related websites proved to be more effective to business clients than home users. Sometimes, plain text ad. is much more effective than animated or flash banner. Keep changing creative. It helps provide fresh feeling to the audience.
Exhibition					Exhibit in large IT trade shows helps getting new business clients. Booth design is critical. It does not have to be expensive. But it has to be professionally designed and eye catching.
Seminar / workshop					Offer seminar / workshop for specific target group proved to be successful.
Advertising					A good slogan is a must. Be creative. Try doing advertorial occasionally.
Telemarketing					Female telemarketers get better conversion rate. Keep fine-tuning your scripts to improve conversion.

Maintain high customer satisfaction

If you wish to excel in the market(s) your serve, you must emphasize the crucially important role of customer service. Do your utmost to respond to your customers' needs and requests promptly; and be ready to provide the best possible answers to their questions. Our professional support team is always available to help you better serve your customers by resolving whatever technical issues that may be raised by them. We welcome your suggestions on any feature enhancements of our products and services. Our development team will be more than happy to work with you in a spirit of mutual benefits to determine if your ideas can be put into action to achieve quality improvement outcomes.