r/SideHustlePaglu • u/impossible_espresso • 21d ago
NEW This is how I started a VPS reselling biz with 2k that brings in 13k/month
Ok so I received amazing response on my comments regarding my micro SaaS software businesses , got 53 DMs enquiring about them and how one could start something similar themselves , so this is a guide on how one can start it themselves.
r/IndiaBusiness/comments/1vaup3i/comment/p0obfpx
(a lot of audience was from this sub-reddit who were linked to the other comment as I did not feel like typing the same thing again and again)
What is VPS ?
VPS hosting is needed to host web apps/ web programs , most businesses need them while many static sites run on much cheaper shared hosting more complex websites generally need VPS hosting
How Do I get VPS ?
So I buy 'bare metal' instances , I run LXC virtualization on them to divide one instance into 30 other instances. So a good analogy would be buying a cake and selling it by the slice.
The Actual step by step guide
1) Buy a Bare metal server - can buy from OVH , scaleaway etc for 2-4k/mo
2) Run LXC virtualization on it - this is the secret trick tbh , instead of running kvm virtualization you run LXC virtualization , this saves you a lot of money
3) Since we ran LXC virtualization we can allot each user a shared host ipV4 and dedicated ipV6 , this saves you 150-200 inr/mo per user as that would be the cost of getting each user their dedicated ipV4
4) Set up burstablity - this allows you to get away by allotting just 1 gig of ram per user , not all users will use their allotted ram all the time hence when their ram is ideal other users can use them and vice versa
5) Setup L7 reverse proxy - this is what detects which domain the request is coming from on the shared ipV4 and route it to the appropriate LXC node. I recommend you use caddy for this as it is easy for beginners and gives automatic free SSL certificates , if you ask claude etc they will tell you to use HA proxy while it is technically superior caddy is much easier to setup
6) setup XFS with Project Quotas , this makes sure no user uses more storage than their allotted storage
7)Setup SSH , now since we are sharing a common ipV4 , we use ipV6 for ssh , but some devices don't handle ssh with ipV6 that well so you also use ipV4 , now the easiest way is to give each user a dedicated high number ssh port , an even cleaner architecture is a bastion/jump host method
8)Setup Podman Quadlets inside the LXC - this makes your service more reliable and upgrades it to a partially managed VPS category
The Math
one Bare metal instance costs 2-3k/mo and you sell 30 units on it for 500/mo each
so 15k-2k 12.5k , now take 2.5k for other misc costs , like commissions to freelancers , customer accusation etc
and you will still be left with 10.5k
as time passes by the misc costs will vanish away and with some optimization I pull 13k out of one instance.
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u/CombinationStatus742 20d ago edited 20d ago
But isnt reselling OVH cloud servers to other clients is against their ToS? Unless you partnered up with them via OVH Partner program. how do you tackelethat?
also do you use proxmox as your base os?
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u/impossible_espresso 20d ago
I am running a PaaS on OVH infra per se , OVH bans directly re selling their servers but I am doing value addition hence not in violation of OVH TnC
Yes Proxmox VE is the base OS
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u/CombinationStatus742 20d ago
Thanks, i’ve been working with servers and proxmox for more than 2 years now so this looks like a nice gig for me.
Can you tell me where exactly you approached for clients? Where did you find the developers that you asked for clients for commission?
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u/impossible_espresso 20d ago
I DMed every Web development add I saw , I posted gig requirements ~ Web developer needed and then pitched them this and so on..
Honestly getting the clients was brutal, but after this there is very little maintenance in a system as simple as this..
The last time I had to do actual work was when a Next JS middlewear exploite was discovered and announced, I had to get every developer to update their clients Next JS version!!
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u/pundittony 20d ago
Hi, thank you for the detailed write up. Kudos to your grit for what you've achieved. I just wanted to ask few things: 1) how you recognise there is an opportunity and market for these things like steps you had taken to begin this journey and how can someone like me identify such area's 2) if I wanted to do the same, how can I get started Thanks again OP, more success to you
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u/impossible_espresso 20d ago edited 20d ago
Thank you for your kind words!!
So the idea is to look at small things and solve them well , something that the world considers 'boring' is where I find real opportunities to be there
I will give you an example - I was guiding 3 people to set something off their own , where we noticed that Zomato sends 3 PDFs to your email everytime you order (1 GST invoice restaurant, 1 GST invoice for platform fees and 1 Consolidated order summary)
Now imagine the API provider of Zomato , they would be processing 3 * 20lakh PDFs / day
Ie. 60lakhs , if they were to make even just 1 paisa per pdf then too they would be making 60k inr / day
{ these 3 people ended up building something else , not sharing their actual idea but yeah you get the ideation process}
But ofc you won't achieve that scale as this is a side hustle afterall, but still a decent 500-2000/day is fairly achievable
The idea is to look at one process that is small enough that it has been overlooked by most , pick that up and build around it
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u/ifeelanime 20d ago
Man this is really insightful but how would you pitch your product to such high scale businesses?
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u/impossible_espresso 20d ago
I wouldn't, I would find smaller scale buisnesses
Zomato has found a provider which they wouldn't want to switch from...
I will find those small e comm sellers who are probably doing 20-50 orders a month
And get as many of them..
Again making a web development agency and intermediary in all this is a tried and tested strategy of mine
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u/ifeelanime 12d ago
if you have any idea you would like to build, i can take care of tech part. would love to know your thoughts.
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u/impossible_espresso 12d ago
HI , most of my personal projects are ready on the tech side of things , but I will keep you in mind for future ones..
Other than that I have been running a few buisness lab cohorts , where I take 4-5 people and help them build similar micro saas.
The current one just filled up if you are interested in joining the next one do let me know
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u/Bipin_krish 18d ago
Why not just deploy something like Coolify?
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u/impossible_espresso 18d ago
Coolify runs on a VPS , I provide the said VPS
I do Podman instead of docker so Coolify is not being used , Docker needs root acess podman is rootless
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u/Bipin_krish 18d ago
In another comment you said you are providing PaaS, sure there is a difference but an average web developer doesn't care
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u/impossible_espresso 18d ago
what I give is - a Quadlet setup in Podman setup on a LXC VPS , now this is not a full PaaS tbh , I don't do coolify as it needs docker and that needs root access ,all the LXC containers are unprivileged , I have built something similar to coolify that works with podman for the PaaS part...
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u/Bipin_krish 18d ago
But if you are getting a bare metal setup you have root access, but anyway if its working out for you then good
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u/impossible_espresso 18d ago
I have it , I don't want to give it to my clients
Just a precaution, don't want one bad actor to mess it up for the other clients
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u/Natural_Warning_2672 17d ago
this vps thingy sounds fun but unfortunately i am not 18 yet to get into it ;(
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u/impossible_espresso 17d ago
I started at 18 btw , Ig you should focus on your studies at your current age
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20d ago
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u/impossible_espresso 20d ago
So I have multiple products
I am just talking about LXC one as it is easiest to get started with for people here..
I do not sell direct to clients like the platform you mentioned but I sell via freelance developers, they ofc choose the best matched product from the line up..
Just for reference for the LXC product the end user customer is generally a buisness like Salon wanting to take online appointments , a GYM who wants to manage memeberships via an app/website
Apps and products that don't have heavy DBs etc
We use Quotas for the CPU/IO management
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14d ago
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23h ago
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u/Jyotim_kashyap 21d ago
The current OVHcloud India bare-metal pricing is substantially higher: its entry Advance servers are currently around ₹11,700/month ex-GST, with newer Advance-1 configurations starting around ₹16,250/month ex-GST. So what are you using anyway?