TL; DR: Host Mayo was founded five years ago in Pakistan, and has already built up a devoted customer base drawn to its web services and value proposition. That’s because the web host’s product strategy, pricing ethos, and commitment to versatile features ensure the scalability that ecommerce businesses need to grow. Host Mayo serves clients from entry-level businesses to those with enterprise requirements, and its solutions are designed to meet their modern needs. The company also offers a variety of value-added features, including robust support for a wide range of operating systems.
Many web hosting providers cast a wide net around the world hoping to attract as many customers as possible who want to reach their own markets — or tap into a global one. That strategy often helps companies draw enough customers to continue developing a competitive brand.
Only after successful hosts cement a global customer base do they develop region-specific offerings and support to help businesses grow in unique markets. That top-down approach doesn’t always mesh with the shifting needs of local ecommerce businesses — or entrepreneurs trying to break through in their markets.
But regional hosting providers that start from the ground up understand the dynamics of local market change, and can respond quickly, said Waqass Khalid, Owner of Host Mayo, a hosting services provider based in Pakistan.
Host Mayo appeals to regional customers who may not have the in-depth technical expertise to solve their own web hosting issues but can recognize the merits of a provider with a focused range of services and a pricing model that delivers value.
Waqass said he also understands that spending more money to grow the Host Mayo brand may result in awareness, but it won’t necessarily attract customers. Instead, he focuses on making the Host Mayo brand a favorable mix of price and performance. And Waqass said he believes that will lead customers to switch away from the cheap-but-risky hosting alternatives in the region and beyond.
“Host Mayo is focused on delivering services that are at least on a par with other major providers in the industry — but at an exceptional price point,” said Waqass.
Since its founding in 2015, the Lahore-based company has built its business on the belief that buyers of web hosting products need more personalized service and support than market rivals can provide.
A Pricing Model that Doesn’t Compromise Value
At the heart of Host Mayo’s value proposition is its commitment to providing clients in its region — and those who want to reach it — with the same level of service offered by global providers, but at a lower cost.
“We offer industry-standard services at prices far below what the big players would charge,” Waqass said. “That objective underlies our company motto, ‘Hosting for smart people’. It also reflects our vision of ensuring that customers understand that we offer exceptional services at a fraction of the cost. Our clients are smart to understand that and not be won over by high-profile brands with low service quality.”
The company’s portfolio offers the standard options customers expect, including basic, business, and WordPress web hosting. And each package comes with an array of free features: cPanel migration as required, multiple PHP version support, Multi-Gigabit Ports, and MariaDB Database.
On the server front, Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and Dedicated Server options are available at no extra cost. And the company has added a Looking Glass feature that allows clients to quickly test the performance and speed of its servers and see what they need.
“Host Mayo has grown a lot since its launch five years ago,” said Waqass. “We started off reselling hosting services and we worked only locally in Pakistan. However, we soon realized the need for more affordable web hosting was increasingly a global one.”
At the time, most people in the region only knew the big-name hosting providers, and those around the world who wanted to work in the Pakistani market had few options.
“We thought there was an opportunity to reach out, and so pitched our services on a few forums. We got a positive response, and have been steadily expanding our services since then,” said Waqass.
Scaling Capabilities Match Customer Growth Requirements
Host Mayo’s expansion reflects how customer requirements have evolved in recent years. According to Waqass, scalability has been the most compelling hosting need.
“We have grown our service product range to cover all hosting products. So, we now offer everything from simple web hosting to enterprise-level VPS and dedicated servers with first-class support and uptime. Our packages are designed for personal, small business, and corporate clientele who require quality and personalized support,” Waqass said.
The company also launched a satellite website, Mayo Host that is focused on more affordable entry-level packages.
“Host Mayo’s 24-core Intel Xeon servers are based in U.S. datacenters, and we have more datacenters planned,” said Waqass. “Our technical support allows us to serve a diverse client base around the world.”
In his time at the Host Mayo helm, Waqass has seen the web’s international commercial potential and the surge of technological innovation change the hosting services market. And those forces have shaped the way the company conducts business.
“During the last few years we have seen a lot of small providers pop up. That is largely due to the ease of starting a hosting company using reseller options from a larger hosting provider,” said Waqass.
Host Mayo offers reseller hosting packages, but also competes in the value segment of the market with its Mayo Host offshoot.
Stabilizing Market Costs to Retain Customers
As hosting industry innovations made it easier for businesses to build and maintain an online presence, demand for hosting service has surged. But that dynamic also created a race to the lowest price among major providers, which led to hosting services providing fewer features, less support, and a larger burden on the user.
“cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) also played a big part in driving demand,” said Waqass. “They really helped developers, bloggers, and web designers due to their robust setup and ease of use when it came to operating a web server. The challenge for us was to keep prices on par with other hosting providers, as some competitors started to offer services at what became dirt-cheap prices.”
Waqass said Host Mayo has seen pricing models stabilize in recent months as the cPanel and WHM introduced a per-account pricing structure.
“This has eradicated the low-end hosting providers who were effectively just overselling their server capacities,” he said.
But the change also had ramifications for Host Mayo, which ultimately decided not to pass any of those increases onto its customers.
“We had to ensure that the new price model did not affect our existing clients. And we managed to do that by absorbing any cost increases,” Waqass said.
The reasoning behind that strategy, in part, lies in Host Mayo’s customer retention policy. In such a price-sensitive market segment, any cost hikes risk creating higher customer churn, so they are best avoided. A customer retained due to price continuity will prove far more valuable to a host over the long term.
Host Mayo Delivers Quality Products and Responsive Support
Host Mayo’s company motto, “Hosting for smart people,” continues to inform the company’s mission moving forward, Waqass said. Although it may seem simple, it denotes a concept of differentiation.
“There is also the question of the technological nuts and bolts that underlie web services. Many average customers know nothing of these, but they can be a factor in how hosts package their services. That means balancing the cost with the services requires some level of technological knowledge to compare them. So, I’d say that Host Mayo is the choice for smart customers — meaning people who recognize the underlying benefits.”
And Host Mayo’s future plans will keep its product development team busy into 2020, as it implements new enhancements and features, often in response to customer feedback.
“This year we plan to co-locate datacenters to optimize speed for our Asian traffic, and will add KVM-based virtualization to our existing Openvz portfolio in response to requests from our customers.”
The company also says that it plans to launch localized versions of its services in different countries as its brand becomes more established.
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