4 ms·

How did you get the capital and find the time to do this? Is it your full-time gig? I've always fantasized about doing this in my mountain community but it seem

How did you get the capital and find the time to do this? Is it your full-time gig? I've always fantasized about doing this in my mountain community but it seems spooky

snihalani 2y ago
how can I do this for my city?
- internetter 2y ago
  Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around?
  - Nick-W 2y ago
    This. It's insanely expensive, I'm unpaid and I've sunk about half a million into the network so far and 3+ years of work. We now have enough revenue to keep the lights on if I no longer support the company, but just barely so, and assumes zero growth and minimal support hours. I did this because it genuinely helps our community and the impact is directly visible and notable, but the economics are basically impossible, especially as a startup.
    - idiotsecant 2y ago
      Do you operate it as a nonprofit? Seems like you could be at least seeing some tax benefits probably
m463 2y ago
This is yak shaving taken to factorio extremes, now shaving everyone's yak.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://startyourownisp.com/ https://startyourownisp.com/ Useful threads: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=startyourownisp.com https://hn.algolia.com/?q=startyourownisp.com
Nick-W 2y ago
I self-funded. It was about $500k and years of time to get things really going, but we have a dream greenfield deployment with a full-mesh network, our own ASNs & IP resources (couple of /21s & IPv6), and some super high-end network edges that support full multipathing with tons of redundancy throughout the network. It was a labor of love, I'm unpaid, and I'll never see that 500k back, but that's ok. I now have 8 employees and we're growing, fast.
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  That's a beautiful thing.
- sgarland 2y ago
  You are my hero. If you have a technical write up anywhere of your story, I would love to read it.
  - Nick-W 2y ago
    Would love to. Honestly nobody has really shown any kind of technical interest in our network and we've been operating under the radar now for a few years. Now that I have some employees to help out, I might be ok with us becoming a little more known. We have had something between 400-500 install requests purely by word of mouth and without ever advertising anywhere, so I'm a little nervous for us to have a hard-launch, especially since we can technically serve a pretty good chunk of the city of Boulder (which has a population of 100k+).
    - soared 2y ago
      Drop flyers on campus/doorsteps when students move in, good way to get 1 year contracts if those are worth it for you (might not be). Comcast just walks door to door and hands kids routers on the spot.
      - Nick-W 2y ago
        We'll probably do a "hard-launch" soon where we'll do a bit of advertising and open up installs within the city, instead of just serving homes up in the mountains. Good news is we don't need contracts, we have exactly 0 turnover and no real competition, it's not hard to beat Starlink and everyone universally hates CenturyLink/Comcast here.

How did you get the capital and find the time to do this? Is it your full-time gig? I've always fantasized about doing this in my mountain community but it seems spooky

snihalani 2y ago

how can I do this for my city?

internetter 2y ago
Do you have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around?
- Nick-W 2y ago
  This. It's insanely expensive, I'm unpaid and I've sunk about half a million into the network so far and 3+ years of work. We now have enough revenue to keep the lights on if I no longer support the company, but just barely so, and assumes zero growth and minimal support hours. I did this because it genuinely helps our community and the impact is directly visible and notable, but the economics are basically impossible, especially as a startup.
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    Do you operate it as a nonprofit? Seems like you could be at least seeing some tax benefits probably

m463 2y ago

This is yak shaving taken to factorio extremes, now shaving everyone's yak.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://startyourownisp.com/ https://startyourownisp.com/ Useful threads: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=startyourownisp.com https://hn.algolia.com/?q=startyourownisp.com

Nick-W 2y ago

I self-funded. It was about $500k and years of time to get things really going, but we have a dream greenfield deployment with a full-mesh network, our own ASNs & IP resources (couple of /21s & IPv6), and some super high-end network edges that support full multipathing with tons of redundancy throughout the network. It was a labor of love, I'm unpaid, and I'll never see that 500k back, but that's ok. I now have 8 employees and we're growing, fast.

idiotsecant 2y ago
That's a beautiful thing.
sgarland 2y ago
You are my hero. If you have a technical write up anywhere of your story, I would love to read it.
- Nick-W 2y ago
  Would love to. Honestly nobody has really shown any kind of technical interest in our network and we've been operating under the radar now for a few years. Now that I have some employees to help out, I might be ok with us becoming a little more known. We have had something between 400-500 install requests purely by word of mouth and without ever advertising anywhere, so I'm a little nervous for us to have a hard-launch, especially since we can technically serve a pretty good chunk of the city of Boulder (which has a population of 100k+).
  - soared 2y ago
    Drop flyers on campus/doorsteps when students move in, good way to get 1 year contracts if those are worth it for you (might not be). Comcast just walks door to door and hands kids routers on the spot.
    - Nick-W 2y ago
      We'll probably do a "hard-launch" soon where we'll do a bit of advertising and open up installs within the city, instead of just serving homes up in the mountains. Good news is we don't need contracts, we have exactly 0 turnover and no real competition, it's not hard to beat Starlink and everyone universally hates CenturyLink/Comcast here.