zConnect

Devoted blog readers will remember that back in October, I posted an entry about my meeting with our Resellers in Iceland. Though the boss hasn't let me travel since then, I have been in touch with some of our other Resellers and wanted to share some of their stories with you. This latest instalment in the "Meet the Resellers" series features Eric Longman of zConnect. Eric was kind enough to answer some questions I sent him via email.

James McNally (JM): Eric, tell us how long zConnect has been doing business and about all the services you offer to your customers.

Eric Longman (EL): zConnect has been around for about 12 years now; we bought the company in 1999. The company was built on dialup Internet access and Windows-based hosting, and had about 50 (small) customers when we bought it. Within a year, we had grown the customer base to something like 250 customers, and have been shifting the focus more toward small businesses. Today we’ve got more than 300 customers, and are focused entirely on small and mid-sized businesses (up to about 100 employees). We provide web and email hosting services, spam/virus filtering, web design and maintenance, and server co-location services.

JM: Where are you located and what makes it such a great place to do business?

EL: We’re located in Marietta, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. Atlanta is fantastic because there’s such a strong business community here, strengthened by several large universities in town (Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Emory, Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, Spelman College, and others). There’s a strong entrepreneurial spirit in Atlanta, and a large market for our services.

JM: I understand you've been with OpenSRS since 2000. Can you describe what the domains business was like way back then. Any funny or interesting stories?

EL: We registered our first domain name through OpenSRS on February 17, 2000, and it was definitely like setting up shop in the wild west! The business models for selling domains were all over the map – some people signed up with OpenSRS so they could bundle domain registration with hosting plans (which was essentially where we were), while other companies built businesses specifically around selling domain names. We were so steeped in the notion that domains cost $35/year that it was unbelievable to be able to buy them for less than a third of that price. Everyone just seemed giddy about the possibilities.

At that time, the mail lists represented a fantastic community, with dozens of messages flowing back and forth daily. They positively crackled with discussion ranging from pricing and services to technical challenges and the competitive landscape. I think everybody felt like they were best friends with Scott Allan, Ross Rader, Tom McDonald and Chuck Daminato. Heck, I think there were resellers who cried when Chuck announced he was leaving Tucows!

One funny thing: We were probably the first Reseller to get the client code up and running on Windows servers, and actually published a HOWTO before Tucows even managed to get one online. In fact, for years, the semi-official HOWTO for setting up the client code on Windows was actually a link to a page on our website. We even created our own repository with the necessary Perl modules and made it available to the community. Improvements to the client code over the years obviated the need for our stuff, but it was kind of neat to be the “go to guys” for OpenSRS on Windows.

JM: How has your partnership with OpenSRS helped your company succeed?

EL: One of our biggest clients today started their relationship with us as a domain registration customer! Over the past eight years, it’s grown from a few domain names to multiple managed, co-located servers, web development work, and a really strong business relationship. We’ve got lots of clients today who started out with us because of OpenSRS services. Even when things haven’t gone well, it has actually helped make us better, because we grew monitoring and reporting tools that have helped us do a better job with all of our services.

JM: What can we do to make the relationship stronger?

EL: Just don’t forget that the relationship was based on an important understanding: that we always own the customer. The unusual and special thing about OpenSRS was that everything you offered was always based on the premise that we control the relationship with the customer, and that OpenSRS would simply fade into the background where our customers are concerned. By doing business with us the way we do business with our customers, we’ve been able to grow together.

The other important thing is to never lose sight of the fact that when things don’t go well, it reflects on my business. My customers don’t give a darn that I’ve outsourced service delivery for some aspects of my company, and they hold me directly responsible when it doesn’t go well. We put a lot of trust in OpenSRS to do a stellar job running services for us!

JM: Any other suggestions or feedback for us?

EL: We appreciate the relationship we’ve built with OpenSRS over the past eight years, and look forward to many, many more! Thanks for everything.