Web Hosting Interview - SiteGround October 2004

LILYANA: I have been working for the Site Ground idea since it was first conceived. We were a small team of enthusiasts, who researched the market, created the product and gathered the highly-qualified team that is now the backbone of the company.  Recently I am the Head of the Marketing Department.

LILYANA: Site Ground was founded almost two years ago. The inspiration came from the potential we identified in this business. The secret behind the success of Site Ground is its creative and committed team.  We love what we do and our customers can feel it. Treating each customer with special care has always proved to pay back. And our experience shows it once more: we have satisfied customers, who bring in more customers.

LILYANA: Our product strategy is to offer one basic hosting plan. This plan has been created after a careful research of the consumers' needs. The features we have included in our Basic $4 Plan satisfy the needs of approximately 90% of web hosting customers. For people with more specific needs we have provided an easy upgrading feature.

LILYANA: Our number one source of new customers are our existing customers. We grow successfully mainly thanks to the positive word of mouth. We know perfectly well that the image of a company is not build only by the Marketing department but by all the departments. Of course, we also have an advertising strategy that includes all kinds of the traditional promotion: paid exposure in web hosting directories, search engines optimization, PPC engines, etc.

LILYANA: Two things are in the core of our competitive advantage:
-- great customers support -- our support team is constantly striving to achieve the perfect balance between  speed and  quality.
-- low price -- we are in a constant search for cost cutting strategies, which we pass to our customers as a low end-user price.  

LILYANA: We chose to be a low cost provider, because we believe that in our business expensive means inefficient. Yet, the biggest challenge for us is the negative image some of the low-cost hosts create for the whole segment by providing low-quality service.

LILYANA: We believe that the web hosting is much more a global, than local endeavour. The web hosting business allows for a great freedom in terms of physical location. A lot of web hosting companies have servers located in one country, managerial staff in other and support team can even be located on other continent. Outsourcing the hosting support to India and Eastern Europe is widely spread. It is a great way to cut down costs and offer a cheaper, yet quality service to the end user from all over the world.

LILYANA: The best experience for me is to open my Site Ground email in the morning and to read something like this:

Thank you very much for your help. It proofs my choice of SiteGround is correct. am very satisfied with your  service.

Another thing I love is the great working environment, created by all of the Site Ground people!

LILYANA: I am absolutely convinced that the expensive hosting providers have no future. What I see for the future 5 years is a constant growth in the features provided and a global decrease in the price for the end-user.