**More giveaways/sales Later today? **Insane Cyberwing.com Chat sales (over for now)* $100 LIFETIME reseller accounts

[SinMen]

Originally posted by: vetteguy
How is cyberwings making any money? Here are some figures I came up with: (I'm using the middle hosting plans as an average, and this is just speculation)

Assuming they have 13,000 customers:

If all are on the $5/yr plan, $65,000/yr sales

Let's sat 10% of them are also on the AYW Plan 6: 1300*$90 = $117,000/yr

Let's also say that 10% of them are on a reseller plan, Ultimate 1: 1300* $90 = $117,000/yr

So right there, that's basically $300,000/yr in sales. Subtract from that all the bandwidth, hardware, salaries, etc. and I have no idea what you get. But let's assume that my numbers are very low, and most of the 13,000 customers have at least 3-4 hosting plans. Their annual sales intake could well be over $1 million.

People who had 3-4 hosting plans are buying the cheap ones. Certainly not the AYW nor the reseller plan. So 1 million in revenue? I seriously doubt it. He might be a super rich guy who wants to give back to the society. But I have doubt about that too. Hope I am totally wrong here.

 

[JahWren]

Don't forget, the first three letters of convinced are CON, as in con-game.

 

[SuperShaz]

I've thought (not very seriously though) about going into the webhosting business myself. Cyberwings business plan seems kind of similar to what I was planning, so I'm going to let everyone in on whats going on here, just in case you don't know.

Cyberwings is banking on the assumption that the majority of its accounts are going to be homepages that no one ever goes to. You know, you put up your little "John's Webpage" site and no one ever goes to it, so it doesn't take up your bandwidth. It is a pretty fair assumption, because the price of the accounts should really pound that into your own head. "I'm paying $3/year. This is going to be my crap little diary site if anything". Some people might not end up even USING the accounts they buy.

So, if his assumption comes true, then that means most of his accounts aren't going to be taking up system resources on his machines, and most of them aren't going to be taking up his bandwidth. What does that allow him to do? It allows him to OVERSELL. He is overselling his bandwidth and his servers.

Now, I don't know exactly how much bandwidth he is paying for or how many servers he has for virtual hosting. In fact, I'm too lazy to even try to find out. Lets assume he has a total of 6 servers that he uses for virtual hosting and they are all pretty powerful. They probably cost him $2,000 each. Thats a total of $12,000 he spent. He has 13,000 accounts, so that is 2,166 accounts of each server. Now, a normal hosting business would probably think thats WAY too many on a server because if a even half the sites do their normal usage its going to slow the whole system down. But remember, cyberwings is banking that most people aren't going to use their sites intensively. Also, remember that you are only paying $5 / year. Cyberwings expects you NOT to complain if your website slows down because some yahoos on the same server as you decide to serve mp3s for a day.

So how do they make money? I'll even shoot low here and say that on average each customer is paying $5/year. 2,166 customers per server means over $10,000 in yearly revenue for a machine that cost $2000. Of course, the majority of their overhead is going to be bandwidth and maybe rackspace if thats what they do. With an extra $8,000 to spend on each server, I'm sure they can get some decent bandwidth. But they aren't going to go all out, of course. Remember that they want to oversell their bandwidth just as they are overselling their machine power. Sure, maybe your account has 6GB of bandwidth, but that doesn't mean you can serve your pages fast. In fact, with the servers as conjested as they are, if 1/30th of his hosted sites become popular and start hogging bandwidth then your website might be lucky if it can push out pages at the rate of a 56k modem.

Again, I'm not bashing cyberwings. Its a VERY smart plan on their part. A lot of people like yourselves don't really care about how fast your website is. You just want a website. Cyberwings is offering it to you at a low price. You should take it. I'll probably take it. However, if you are expecting top notch performance and want to run your business of this thing, think again. You don't want to be running anything important on these websites (where you might lose revenue because somebody couldn't get the checkout page to come up fast enough).

Note: All of my numbers are probably wrong and don't actually reflect the numbers of cyberwings. I gave numbers off the top of my head to illustrate my point that cyberwings CAN be profitable and survive as a business. You, as a consumer, just need to know what you are buying before you buy it.

- Shaz

 

[labgeek]

If you can get 15 people to pay $15 a month and resell the web hosting, you can make up that $100 in less than 1 month, and have profit that first month.

And lose every customer you've got should they go under...

I was planning on moving my stuff to them, but the lifetime deal is giving me serious second thoughts. I just dont see how that can be a sound business plan. Unless it was only a few, and a 1 time deal for a special promotion - a loss leader type of thing. I just don't know now... It's my reputation on the line with my customers.

 

[RideFree]

Thanks for the alert to, what I say is a good deal, even though Cyberwings.com IS living on the cash flow.

 

[StayPuff]

So if I were to get involved and hopefully get a special midnight IRC deal, should I have my domain registered first, or can I wait on that. Also, are the majority of the IRC deals new packages or upgrades to those who already purchased a package?

-SP

 

[StayPuff]

DOH! Double post

 

[RossMAN]

StayPuff,

1) You can pre-order a web hosting plan even if you don't have a domain right now. That's what I've done, first time picked up 6 P5 accounts for $19.50 and last night I picked up another 2 I5 accounts for $10. Of course now I gotta register 8 domains so I can use these accounts. LOL.

2) These are usually intended for new accounts but some can be upgraded for a small fee (I think around $5 - $15).

Last night they were offering a free 4x upgrade, tonight they may offer a 5x free upgrade ... damn $5 gets you 30GB (gigs not megs) of bandwidth per month PLUS 550MB of website space. $5 well spent even if they go out of business next month you got your money's worth.

 

[Oblivion989]

I've been with Cyberwings for a long time, have a few webpages hosted there, and now more than ever I have confidence with them. Shawn (The CEO) did some amazing stuff in that chat room, great deals. Of course, I'm happy cause I won a free Reseller 5

 

[taoofbean]

Okay, I got laughed out of the house when I said I bit after Shawn wrote that he will refund my lifetime reseller plan if the company is not around in 5 years. I bit only at that time because I was careful to make a complete dated transcript of the quote, and what his definition of "lifetime" is. This is important because had you ever been involved in bankruptcy hearings before, you would know that bankruptcy is a way of paying back debts owed. When Cyberwings claims bankruptcy they make a list of all aggreived debtors who are actually owed money, the company selling them computers, the bandwidth, the building rent, etc. And me because I have a record of Shawn specifically telling me that if the company is not around in 5 years, I qualify as a debtor. Whether or not any money is left when they liquidate assets and get to my name on the list is another matter.

What the real concern should be for all of us who bought into this is finding out now if the business is legit. Last night Shawn said a dozen things in chat that alll struck me as highly unlikely lies. Perhaps we should sleuth out the truth on who Shawn is and find out if we are all being taken from the start.

He said he owns ~6 houses in different states.
-True? He couldn't be living in them for sure, what is the point unless you make your money investing in real estate adn reselling the properties.

He said he owns 2 camaros and some other car, a lexus.
-True? Why waste money on a camaro let alone 2 when you could have purchased a better car.

He said he spoke French growing up and English was his second language. In the same thought he said that at age 13-14 he was teaching University courses on Computers.
-Horseshit. Unless some local IT school needed a kid to clean cables, I have never ever heard of an institution letting a genius child teach. Regardless, if they did it would be in the papers somewhere and we should be able to find a record. Who would be able to listen to a 13 year old try to lead a class?

He said he went to college but never got a degree and that he had a double major in French and computer science.
-I don't buy it. No native French speaker would have trouble passing the 400 level courses in the language the first year and qualifying for the degree. I also doubt someone who was a 13 year old whiz kid would have trouble getting a degree in CS in 2 years. Unless he left because he struck it rich. Regardless, he said he did not want to say which University it was.

-He is always traveling, but why? He doesn't say. The night before last, Baltimore. Last night, Silver Springs. Tomorrow somewhere else. Does he sell Amway or some other pyramid scheme and just host on the side?

One person asked to see the Data Center and take shawn for lunch here in a couple weeks. Shawn did not decline outright but definately did not take the offer. His answer was "we'll see" I think.

Apparently there was some scandal involving Rackshack and Cyberwings. Shawn understandebly says he can provide no information on the situation due to legal concerns but I would like to find out what the hell the deal is.

It is all boiling down into, seems to good to be true and probably is.

Ishmael

 

[RossMAN]

Ishmael - That all sounds waaaaaay to good to be true, there's no freakin' way I believe all of that. Worse case scenario I lose $29.50 which would be my own fault because people have forewarned us about CyberWings that they could fold at any time. If I lose $29.50 it's not the end of the world since I have SAVED thousands of dollars thanks to AT/FW and even received about $1,000 free so I'm still way ahead. Who knows if they'll still be around a year later, if they are then I definitely got my money's worth.

 

[taoofbean]

I for got to include that he said they are opening two new datacenters soon, one in DC and one in Pheonix.

Maybe we are all involved in the Quixtar or Amway of the hosting world. I would just like some background information on Shawn White. The bilingual kid genius who hosts ~14000 websites for pennies on the dollar Verio spent before it went bankrupt. The hosting thing is just a hobby, although he spent over six hours in IRC chat last night. He does this all in a day before going home to his 3 cars and six houses and one undoubtedly gorgeous girlfriend.

I don't want to turn into a troll, just see some proof of these claims. I see similar claims on late night infomercials all the time.

Ishmael

 

[Devistater]

The CEO came back onto the mIRC channel and announced that they are now a platinum member of PLESK.
http://www.plesk.com/html/partners/channel/platinum/index.htm

Apparently it costs some serious dough to become one, and the fact that he's spending some to be a platinum member for plesk implies that he is not in a bind for money. Personally I think this whole thing is gonna work out fine, and I'm being more convinced all the time. Sure I could be wrong, but as people have said earlier, if we are wrong and its all one giant scam, then we aren't out a ton of money.

Edited to fix a typo

 

[taoofbean]

right, individually we aren't out a lot, but yuo have to look at the nature of the deal as a whole. ~14000 people at $~20 a piece is a lot of money.

There was a case where some clever individuals tacked on a five cent overcharge onto all of (I believe LA) some city's utility bills for a few years. 5 cents a month per person is nothing but they ended up raking in billions of dollars a year until caught. Quest communications was just found guilty of a similar overcharge tactic in Oregon and had to refund hundreds of dollars to every customer in the state.

I just want to track down the tax information and personal information of Cyberwings and who Shawn White really is.

IShmael

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: taoofbean
right, individually we aren't out a lot, but yuo have to look at the nature of the deal as a whole. ~14000 people at $~20 a piece is a lot of money.

There was a case where some clever individuals tacked on a five cent overcharge onto all of (I believe LA) some city's utility bills for a few years. 5 cents a month per person is nothing but they ended up raking in billions of dollars a year until caught. Quest communications was just found guilty of a similar overcharge tactic in Oregon and had to refund hundreds of dollars to every customer in the state.

I just want to track down the tax information and personal information of Cyberwings and who Shawn White really is.

IShmael

I have a simliar story, for some reason our house was getting charged the "commercial" rate instead of the "residential" rate for natural gas when we lived in NY for 6 years. The small amount (I forget what it was, maybe $.025 per therm) of surcharge per therm doesn't sound like much. But boy, over 6 years in NY state that adds up, you use a lot of gas for heating up there. We got I think several thousand dollers refunded just before we moved.

 

[Layzee]

Could there also be the possibility that Cyberwings uses this opportunity to build its customer base and then in a year or so sell off the company for a HUGE profit and thus relinquishing any obligations he currently makes to clients? If Cyberwings is breaking even or barely making enough profit, selling a customer base of 13,000+ will definitely put money in his pockets.

Also, assuming you bought one of the lifetime reseller accounts, or got one of the QUADRUPLED accounts, there is nothing keeping Cyberwings from taking that away from you. It's nice to get his "word", but 5 years or even 1 year from now, I wouldn't rely on saying "Well one year ago in the IRC channel you promised me...." It would nice to get something in writing, but it's not going to happen since it would "cost Cyberwings too much to do that". I already asked...


..just some ideas.

 

[Illusio]

Originally posted by: Devistater
The CEO came back onto the mIRC channel and announced that they are not a platinum member of PLESK.
http://www.plesk.com/html/partners/channel/platinum/index.htm

Apparently it costs some serious dough to become one, and the fact that he's spending some to be a platinum member for plesk implies that he is not in a bind for money. Personally I think this whole thing is gonna work out fine, and I'm being more convinced all the time. Sure I could be wrong, but as people have said earlier, if we are wrong and its all one giant scam, then we aren't out a ton of money.

I think you mean the are NOW a member...

 

[Devistater]

I think you mean the are NOW a member...

Whoops yeah you are right I fixed it thanks.

Anyway, the CEO says he's never going to sell the company. I think its more likely he's trying to go with how MS started up. Offering some of the earliest versions of DOS for peanuts and underselling everyone else, then building it up into an empire. If you can get market share, then you can start increasing your prices. Even then, he may be able to get away with keeping the early people to join on lifetime and the cheap plans, if everyone else is paying more. Although he says he's still making money at the low prices he's selling now so maybe he won't have to increase all that much.

The crucial period is at the start. Take amazon.com, they kept breaking even or showing a loss, it was only this last quarter they showed a profit, I think if they had continued for much longer without a profit, there might have been big trouble. Now if they can hold it together and keep showing profit they have it made, they have the market share.

 

[kitkit201]

i would like to start up a hosting account with cyberwiing.. but im sorta confused.. if i get a hosting account.. do i need to get my own address or can i use one of them that already exists.. like on Brinkster or something?? im sorta confused.. if anyone can help.. i would really appreciate it.

thanks!!

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: kitkit201
i would like to start up a hosting account with cyberwiing.. but im sorta confused.. if i get a hosting account.. do i need to get my own address or can i use one of them that already exists.. like on Brinkster or something?? im sorta confused.. if anyone can help.. i would really appreciate it.

thanks!!

You need your own domain. If you paid brinkster for one then you should be able to use that. Most people here get a domain from godaddy or something like that.

Cyberwings does do domains through godaddy actually if you want to use them for everything. I forget the webpage to use, but you can register a domain with them, but they just pay godaddy for it.

I personally just went to godaddy, registered several names. Then when I did the hosting form, I put what names I wanted. Then when I got the email back from cyberwings with the DNS name servers in it, I just went to godaddy and changes that setting on my domain name. Voila. It sounds harder than it actually is.


Remember, domain REGISTRATION is differant from domain HOSTING. Cyberwings is mostly selling HOSTING. Registration means you pay someone to say that a certain web address belongs to you. HOSTING is paying someone to host your files on a server somewhere. Once you have a domain name registered you just have to "point" it to the host (thats' the DNS step that I mentioned), and then you have a working web page. Hopefully that helps. I'm sure I left some stuff out, feel free to add on or correct me.

 

[RossMAN]

kitkit201 - I agree with Devistater, especially his last paragraph. You need two things:

1) A domain name which belongs to you. Is Brinkster a domain service or the name of a domain? If you already own a domain then skip this, if you do not then you need to register a domain (either now or later) everyone seems to be going through GoDaddy.com but I think I'm going to give Namecheap.com a try.

2) In order to have your own www.kitkit201.com website, e-mail, FTP and such you need hosting which is what this whole thread is about. CyberWings provides the bandwidth (traffic), website space (for your text files, pictures, sounds, graphics, etc.), e-mail (have your own whatever@whatever.com e-mail address as many as you want) and FTP.

If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask.

 

[firestorm225]

Ok, I have a few questions because I don't know how their sale things work.

Ok, yesterday morning I bought an I5 plan, because there was a deal that stated "Double Bandwith/Double Storage" and "Buy one get one free". Ok, let's say they have the 5x deal on the chat today. Will I qualify for it? Will they multiply by 2 an 5? Will that happen on both accounts?

 

[RossMAN]

firestorm225 - You may qualify but that's up to CyberWings to decide. I would wait until the next chat session tonight, ask Shawn, then copy/paste his response (assuming he says YES you can) into an e-mail and send it to CyberWings. There may be a small fee of $5 - $15 but for 5x the bandwidth and website space it would be worth it.

 

[littlezipp]

He just said that they are giving away $$$ tonight!!!

 

[pillage2001]

There are gonna be better deals tonight. Stay tuned. I'll keep you guys posted. RossMan might be posting the same too as I'll be busy in their IRC channel.