JustHost Interview with Luke Kendall

Posted by Daren in JustHost on October 14, 2009 | 3 comments
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JustHost has been a leading web host in the industry for some time. They have earned their reputations through their quality product and good after sale service. Also because of that JustHost has earned their top rank on the best web hosting list around the world. I manage to keep in touch with one of the managers and am honored to have the opportunity to conduct this interview session. Do enjoy the interview and visit JustHost.com for more information.

Interview With Luke Kendall of Just Host

Daren from WebHostingDeals.org Luke Kendall from JustHost.com
  • For the benefit of our visitors, perhaps you could briefly introduce yourself and let us know your role at JustHost.
  • My role at Just Host as Product Manager means I spend most of my day talking with customers and working with them to improve our services plus introduce new offers and services like Google, Yahoo & MySpace ad credits.
  • I see. Then I’m pretty sure you know JustHost hosting inside out. Anyway, are you a PC or Mac? Do you prefer IE or Firefox?
  • Yes I do know JustHost as long as I work with them. To answer your question, PC of course, I can never get to grips with the Apple mouse. As for IE of Firefox, I choose neither.. Google Chrome is much faster!
  • JustHost has been around providing hosting services for years. Can you please enlighten us on the background of JustHost and how it came about?
  • Just Host started out providing web hosting to small businesses, we mainly targeted this audience. We spent a year working on the control panel, making it easier and easier to use before deciding to make Just Host more commercial. Now we boast one of the best, most user-friendly control panels and a first class hosting services which has grown by over 100,00 customers in the last year alone!
  • JustDevelopIt is formed by a group of young entrepreneurs. How does JustHost deal with the possibility that people doubt on the host efficiency due to the common belief that young age means inexperienced?
  • Anyone who doubts our efficiency just needs to look at our recent growth, we have expanded massively over the past year and it is not only due to our marketing efforts. At the end of the day it comes down to great service, something we pride ourselves in. We are actually the only web hosting provider to offer an anytime money back guarantee, we wouldn’t offer this if we weren’t confident enough that our service was up to speed with the other leading web hosts in the industry.
  • Date center is always the heart of a hosting company. Can you tell us more about the data centers of JustHost?
  • Just Host’s data center is based in Chicago, IL and currently houses over 2,000 dedicated servers for both shared and dedicated customers. It is manned around the clock with no less than 4 technicians on duty at any given time. We have also implemented an advance server monitoring solution that can often alert techs BEFORE an issue arises ensuring the fastest possible solution in any situation.
  • We all know web hosting is an industry with fierce competition. So in what aspects do you think JustHost is doing better than the others?
  • It all comes down to branding, when you Google “web hosting” you will notice Just Host appears on the majority of websites within the search results. Where we do appear we usually do so very prominently and we will often come recommended on these sites. This means building relationships with your customers is key, without great customer service any success will be short term.
  • Hacking is becoming common nowadays. Can you tell us what is JustHost doing on securing the servers?
  • Just Host will never be hacked, you can be rest assured that we always use the latest software releases and install the latest security patches to ensure we are protected against the latest threats. These updates are offered to our customers for applications like WordPress and Joomla, obviously we cannot force customers to install these updates but we do make every attempt to inform customers about the risks of using outdated software.
  • What is JustHost up to now? I hope you could reveal some insider news on the future development of JustHost.
  • Just Host is currently working on the free incentives given to customers such as the free Google and Yahoo ad credits. We are not talking marketing gimmicks, these are valuable offers that customers can use to get on their first step of their ladder to success. As of Yesterday, Just Host is the first and only web hosting provider to offer $50 of free MySpace ad credits! And keep an eye on the website as we will soon be launching more ad credits with another very well known name.
  • Is there any chance of JustHost expanding their service to Virtual Private Server (VPS) and Dedicated Server? If yes, could you tell us the rough time line?
  • We currently refer all these customers to SingleHop whom we have a very good relationship with, right now we are happy with how things are but I would imagine that within 18 months we will be managing these in-house. Just Host grew so rapidly that we didn’t have chance to focus ourselves on dedicated and VPS clients, this is obviously a big project and we just don’t want to rush it, we want to get it right first time.
  • Can you give some advices to all the web hosting seekers?
  • Shop around! Sites like yours provide valuable tools for consumers saving them both time and money, Google your web host and see what others are saying! And if you are thinking of signing up with Just Host look for the special link in the footer of our site, this will give you 20% off your order! Just a little something for the users of WebHostingDeals.org.
  • Thank you Luke. Your thought and time are very much appreciated.
  • You’re welcome.

About Luke Kendall

Luke Kendall from JustHost Luke Kendall is the Product Manager of JustHost.com and has been dealing with customers on various issues. He is one of the top level personnel and knows the operation of JustHost inside out.

JustHost Interview: Editor’s Notes

When I came across JustHost, I am surprised that the staffs of JustHost have young age averagely (Check out their staff photo). I wasn’t having much favor at first to be frank but as Luke said, look at their achievement! Getting 100,000 customers in a year time really does mean something! It turns out to me that the people in JustHost are a group of capable entrepreneurs building an online empire!

Do keep up with the fine work JustHost!

Further reading: Just Host Review


3 Comments »
  • Just Host Blog said:

    [...] To read the interview in full, head over to the Just Host interview page. [...]

    # 27 October 2009 at 5:24 am
  • Pete said:

    I’ve just signed up with justhost and found a disturbing problem… when you signup you receive absolutely no acknowledgement from justhost that your order has been taken and is being procesed/pending…

    I received a receipt from paypal luckily but Justhost have nothing.

    This a serious concern as the most basic shopping cart should be sending me out an email ackowledging my order has been at least taken.

    Security and confidence are a big thing and this smells a bit too much for my liking.

    # 3 November 2009 at 5:20 pm
  • Nick Baker said:

    Luke Kendall, have you anything to say about the thousands of customers who have had their accounts suspended for apparently using over 10% of your CPU?

    LK: No comment.

    Luke Kendall, you say you’re the best web hosting company and one of the cheapest, but we looked into the details. You charge extra for almost everything else which a lot of other hosting companies include as pretty much standard which actually puts you amongst the more expensive budget hosting companies.

    LK: Earm… no comment.

    Luke Kendall, what exactly is it you hate so much about streaming media, enough so that you suspend people’s accounts that they paid years upfront for, simply for having a couple of streaming MP3’s?

    LK: Well, this one I can answer. It’s because our servers are utter shite, the tiniest thing can bring the whole system to a halt. That’s why most of our websites are usually down with no word from us. We are all too busy scratching our heads.

    Luke Kendall, who is justhost for?

    LK: Well we like to think we are for everyone, but mostly we are for people who don’t actually need a website, but want one anyway. That way we get a client who will use pretty much none of our resources, what resources I mean, ha ha, no, but seriously, the less visitors to your site the better. You wouldn’t want us to pull the plug on you would you?

    Luke Kendall, what about all those independent hosting review sites that have you as their number one web hosting company. They can’t be wrong can they?

    LK: Ha ha, well this is just between me and you. We own all those domains. We write the reviews ourselves. We also have many “agents” going around to other review sites, posting phoney comments making us look better than we are. It’s a pretty standard thing to do.

    Luke Kendall, is there anything you would like to add?

    LK: Yes, I may look like a twelve year old boy who doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, but… oh wait I forget the rest. Oh yeah, choose JustHost.com and if your websites makes it past the month mark, consider yourself lucky.

    Luke Kendall, thank you very much for your time.

    LK: It was my pleasure.

    # 9 January 2010 at 6:49 am

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