Trying to be one of the big boys

Spudu, one of my pet-projects was recently featured in “Het Parool” the local Amsterdam newspaper. Pretty Awesome!

For many entrepeneurs this is nothing special, as it’s just a local newspaper. But to me it holds a certain promise: it’s the first time I have been featured in a newspaper for one of my efforts and I didn’t even have to submit a press release! Somehow the editor of this article found Spudu and deemed it worthy enough to publicize.  It’s a Dutch article, I’ll add a translation to english later this week.

Even more flattering: Spudu is mentioned together with Startpagina, marktplaats and hyves. Three of the biggest Dutch internet successess.  I guess it’s just a step closer to being one of the big boys !

Today is the day I got to say goodbye to youngbits, a company which I have run since 2004. Let’s take a dive into the rich history of what has been a fantastic learning experience.

I remember the day I stepped into the Amsterdam Chamber of commerce together with Daniel Lippens, both 14 years old and at the time pretty audacious. Together we wanted to launch a company. What kind of company didn’t matter, as long as we could be one of the big boys, be part of the grownup world. So we did. We registered ourselves and found a name that represented us and our ideas: youngbits.

youngbits, as we decided, was going to be a webhosting company. That the market was already pretty much saturated wasn’t a cause for much debate. It was an easy start into the world of entrepeneuring and we had some ideas on how to do things better. We started by outsourcing our servers to the States, which at the time seemed like a great idea. Why didn’t all the hosting companies already reduce on costs by going overseas? What happened just confirms that things never turn out to be quite as simple as they sound..

Webhosting, a tricky business indeed
We found what we thought to be a reliable provider, and started hosting on a dedicated computer in America. Things went well in the first three months and business was slowly gaining momentum. Then the shit hit the fan, the server went down for two days. From that point on things went downhill. Constantly we were barraged with downtime and bad connectivity untill we finally decided to move our stuff back to the Netherlands.

XS4ALL
We took our refuge in the KPN building in the XS4ALL datacenter. Something pretty spectacular, because this time around we had to actually physically meddle ourselves in server technology.  Amid the raging sound of hundreds of blowfans we mounted them in their racks, ominously announcing the second phase for youngbits…

Because we now had to physically take care of the servers things got a lot more complicated. When things would go wrong we had to drop what we were doing, and go to the KPN building. And boy, did things go wrong! An account of one of those sleepless nights:

I was sitting in class on a Tuesday, high school, learning ancient Greek when my phone rang.  I instantly knew what was wrong, and after reading Daniel’s alerting sms my fears were confirmed. The servers were down! Without hesitation I grabbed my coat and left in a hurry to the KPN building. Somewhat dazed and confused I met with Daniel in front of the gate, and together we went in for the kill.

Stressed out by multiple customers complaining about our downtime we set to work. Today, we can laugh about the days that followed, but then we certainly could not. It shouldn’t surpise you, reader, that I recall these days as the most difficult in the history of youngbits. The fact that we got ripped from our daily lives still gives me the chills but more horrifying is that we went without sleep for the following 72 hours to come!
Horrible, long, cold and stressful days those were. Working in shifts, with no outlook on an outcome.

It was on a Friday when we solved the problem. Finally we could go home tired, relieved that we accomplished what we came to do. But determined that this was the last time this would ever happen.

A fresh start
A year passed, and Daniel Lippens got himself a job at SlamFM as a DJ (November 2007).  youngbits was now fully owned by me, and I decided that I would never want lay awake at night again wondering if the servers would go down or not.
I made a fresh start, and started renting a dedicated managed server at ATN-Networks, where youngbits is still hosted to date. An excellent host that took all the technicalities of hosting out of my hands so I could focus on other aspects of the company, such as marketing, and other fun stuff with which I could experiment.

I created a true brand out of youngbits and learned a lot by perfecting the processess behind youngbits. I started learning about financing and installed an advanced invoice system. I fully automized youngbits, and created a healthy and strong firm which would be able to last for many years to come.

Finally, goodbye
Things started to itch, I was in the hosting business for 4 years and learned everything that I was able to learn. youngbits was a closed chapter for me, and I wanted to move on. I found a reliable and trustworthy person that wanted to continue with youngbits, and make it into the company that I always dreamed it to be.
Today was that day. Together with Guido Terhorst (youngbits new happy owner) I went to the chamber of commerce to finalize our deal.

Grading youngbits
As a first attempt at a succesful business I grade youngbits at 7.  This grade consists of two factors:

- profitability
- gained human capital

I have graded youngbits a 5 in profitability because sales never really took off, we made profit nonetheless but we didn’t manage to penetrate the market. In gained human capital I grade youngbits a whopping 9, no school can match what I learned by dealing with customers and the many, many problems I encountered.

Nothing else would’ve prepared me better for business then youngbits, and I would never trade in anything for the experience I have gained over the past years. youngbits, thank you, and … goodbye !