The ways Brent failed that basically forced him to sell to EIG are the ways that many, many intelligent people failed equally and reasonably around the same time frame. Literally the only way he could’ve avoided it was to accurately predict both the death of FrontPage and the rise of WordPress, events that no one could have predicted so confidently, far enough in advance to impact vital decisions about your business model before scaling to massive levels.
With that failure behind him, Brent is uniquely positioned for another success. Will be interesting to watch. During the height of his success both his employees and customers loved him and his no BS approach.
I came in after the sale when the culture hadn’t been destroyed, and EIG were entirely hands off. Up until the end of my time there, EIG let us operate on our own.
Of course we had migrated almost everything to Provo from Softlayer but that was honestly by choice, and one of the big selling points of the acquisition, not something EIG forced. A lot of people don’t want to hear that.
Did you have the pleasure of working with Brent? A lot of industry veterans did, I just missed him. Still got to hear the stories though lol
I remember going through some of his old tickets where he was just an absolute dick to customers, but in a hilarious and usually deserving way (you know, Karens). Kinda reminded me of me.
Not saying he’s a bad (or good) guy. Never worked with him.
My point is the world doesn’t need another run of the mill cPanel host with a short domain which is exactly what this is…
He got lucky with HG due to timing and a few smart marketing plays. Yes they had good customer service back in the day but there was nothing else special about them. I think he will run into the same struggles as every other host - a very saturated market. The only difference is he can afford to blow through a lot of money in advertising until something sticks.