Page.ly

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Summary

Page.ly's business goal sounds simple – to make WordPress websites easy to use, and to give them some extra pizzazz by way of nightly backups, software upgrades and added on security functionality. But simple sounding goals often need some heavy lifting on the back end.

Joshua Strebel, co-founder of the company, knew that customers would come if Page.ly could make WordPress set-up simple and give users pre-configured websites that let them start blogging and adding content immediately. What he didn't know was that they would come in droves out of the gate. Page.ly immediately grew much faster than Strebel anticipated – at a rate of 20 to 40 percent per quarter. His existing hosting partner, who hosted not only Page.ly's business site but its customer sites, too, tried to keep up by adding RAM to Page.ly's servers. But, since they were dedicated boxes and Page.ly couldn't easily upgrade the processors, the servers began crashing every few days.

Page.ly needed a hosting partner that offered managed services, as well as one that could scale as the business grew. And because of the inherent security risks associated with WordPress, Strebel wanted a hosting partner with added security features to ensure that his customer sites weren't successfully attacked the way many GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and MediaTemple customers had been in 2009.

Challenge

Strebel tells his fairytale growth story very clearly. "We were growing fast, every entrepreneurs dream. But we lacked was a hosting partner. We had a hosting provider, but not a partner. They weren't responsive to our needs. If a server was down they didn't really care. They felt it was their job to make sure it was plugged in, but whether it was working well or online at all wasn't really a concern. In order for us to grow successfully, this needed to change."

Strebel and his business partner pride themselves on the fact that Page.ly is a scrappy startup. The company has never taken outside funding, runs entirely on its revenues, and hired its first employees a mere 90 days ago. The company didn't have the funds to hire IT staff to "babysit" Page.ly's servers on top of paying its existing hosting provider to keep them plugged in.

Although he was looking for a hosting partner that could up the service ante, Strebel also recognized that he could roll security into his own value proposition for his customers if he could find a secure hosting partner. "We'd seen that hackers were using server exploits to attack websites. We couldn't let that happen to our business or our brand."

Solution

Strebel put out his feelers and found FireHost. The managed cloud hosting company is known for its security ethos, and Strebel felt that the security was a great add-on for both his own site and his customers' sites, but it wasn't his main reason for seeking a new hosting partner. "We see tremendous value in the way FireHost secures our site and those of our customers. But the truth is that we have never been hacked. I sleep a lot better at night not having to worry about the security of the sites. And my business has grown that much more rapidly because of the managed services side of FireHost's business."

Strebel gives a lot of the credit for his warp-speed growth directly to the partnership he's forged with FireHost. "I could have hired three or four people in house, but it would have been expensive and would have taken budget away from other growth programs. Instead, FireHost takes care of so much on the services side that it is like having 20 experts that know my business inside and out, know me by first name and are available day and night to help me."

The level of support that Page.ly receives comes in the form of FireHost's very hands on approach to server administration. Whether Strebel needs help installing an application, tuning a SQL server or making sure specific connections are happening, FireHost is on the job.

As time has passed, Strebel maintains that the level of service and commitment from FireHost never waned. He also found that the doctrine of thinking is big picture and cites that FireHost employees think to fix problems, not to just answer questions.

"FireHost is a true partner, not a hosting provider. Having their team behind me has made it possible for this Cinderella story to grow and to excel. I don't think we could have done it without FireHost."

Visit Page.ly's secure website:
www.page.ly