[BBLISA] BaseSpace.net is for sale

[Alex Aminoff]

Hi folks. The time has come to pass on my local data center business, 
BaseSpace.net, to someone new. I did a talk on Basespace at BBLISA in 
2002. The slides, whose spirit still applies even if some of the 
technical info does not, are here:

http://basespace.net/bblisa-talk.htm

BaseSpace.net is a local home-based micro data center. The key to 
BaseSpace's success is that the owner lives above the data center, so 
that 7x24 support is provided by being able to dash down to the machine 
room in the basement when required. Any IT professional with a 
reasonable level of experience, a service orientation, and a house can 
successfully run and grow this business.

Colocation is billed monthly, so it is recurring revenue. Running a data 
center is a bit like being a landlord: in theory, you do nothing and 
someone pays you every month. Of course, in practice there is 
maintenance that needs to be done, customers who need to access their 
machines, or sales leads to send quotes to.

Our customers include: hobbyists who just want to own their own mail 
server, moonlighting businesses that make no money, moonlighting 
businesses that barely make enough to cover the cost of hosting, small 
businesses that pay one or a handful of FTEs and to whom $100/month for 
colocation is a fairly small expense, and even departments of large 
corporations that find it easier to pay BaseSpace than to deal with the 
hassle of their own IT department. Also, we periodically get startup 
companies in their early stages of growth, who eventually outgrow us.

For our past 10 years of operation, BaseSpace has made around 
$10-$30k/year: enough to pay the mortgage but not enough to live on. 
This level of income has declined lately. When kids arrived 6 years ago 
the amount of time I devoted to the business dropped precipitously. I 
would estimate that I spend about 10 hours on BaseSpace per month these 
days. And that leads into why I want to sell: to grow the business will 
take time and mental space that with small children around I just don't 
have. Realize that I have not really updated the web site in 10 years, 
nor done any marketing whatsoever. With a decent marketing strategy, it 
is possible that BaseSpace could grow significantly. BaseSpace sells 
itself to such a degree that even with no marketing effort at all we 
have almost replaced natural customer attrition.

We would prefer to sell BaseSpace.net along with the house it is in, a 
2300 sq ft townhouse in Cambridge Cohousing. If we don't find a taker 
for both the house and the business, however, it is perfectly possible 
to move the business to the buyer's home, though some value would be 
lost (eg, the infrastructure improvements to the house's electric power).

While I've received offers to buy BaseSpace from large corporations, I 
would prefer to sell to an individual who will enjoy the work, continue 
to provide the same personal connection to the customers, and adhere to 
my founding principle: to help make the internet a place where things 
are done right.

Thanks for any leads or suggestions,
  - Alex Aminoff
    BaseSpace.net