Agonus.com was a hosting idea that was before its time but has quickly become out-moded. I started it about four years ago when hosting in Malaysia was under the stranglehold of hosting companies that were out of touch with their customers. They were selling 20mb of space for USD7 per month when hosting companies in the US were selling four times the space for half the price. They were also selling domains for USD18 whereas I thought it ought to be half that price. And the industry had sustained that price for several years without waver.
My core competency is consumer analysis and brand creation. So it was obvious to me that hosting in Malaysia needed to catch up with the rest of world and the market was demanding it. I was buying space on American servers for my blog and it seemed that I wasn’t the only one. So I decided to get my own server and bring prices inline with the Americans.
However my competency is not in server management nor is it in business management. So I wasn’t able to adapt to the market as fast as Professors John Hagel III and John Seely Brown advise in their new book The Only Sustainable Edge. The other local server companies saw what I was doing and were soon matching me. Although it made it harder for me to gain new customers, I was exceptionally glad — I was making headway in forcing the industry to change. Last year Exabytes.com.my started offering 2gb of space for under USD5 per month. With a strong burst in advertising, they were able to change the direction of the market and now their 2gb offer is the industry standard.
So now it’s time to pack up Agonus.com. Mission accomplished.