8 ms·

Digital Ocean’s journey from TechStars reject to cloud-hosting darling

94 points by bjenik 13y ago

comice 13y ago
Article doesn't disclose that Crunchfund has a stake in DO.
politician 13y ago
"rejection" -- I had to reread that headline 3 times before I figured out what it was trying to say.
- neotek 13y ago
  "Reject" is fine, it means "a person or thing dismissed as inadequate or unacceptable."
larrys 13y ago
Totally misleading linkbait title. Sure they were "rejected" by NYC (for valid reasons - apparently treated very well) but then went into the Boulder program after applying. And no doubt the reference given by Tisch must have certainly helped I'm guessing.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Nux 13y ago
Every day, working with customers' products or witnessing stories such as DO's I realise that success is 90% marketing and 10% actual technical stuff. You don't have to have the greatest features or too many of them or even all of them working as advertised. You don't need to take security very seriously (hello DO, WhatsApp!) or use buzz-stuff such as OpenStack (hello Rackspace, HPCloud!) or any existing "cloud standards" in order to succeed. You just need to market it and promote it right. I'm not even sarcastic or anything. As a techie I always frickin overlook it and this is the single most important element that can help you make serious money/business. There's a whole bunch of people out there who don't know shit or don't really care about how great your product is technically (or not ;> ). All you need is it satisfies some basic "need" and a shiny packaging, it's enough to go out there and get some milk flowing in. Kudos to the DO folk!
- solve 13y ago
  Alternatively: all the ways that it could fail don't matter if there's at least one way it could succeed.
- giulianob 13y ago
  I think at the end it came down to price. No one else was offering SSDs at the time for that cheap. Sure you get what you pay for but for a lot of people I guess it's good enough.
  - alien3d 13y ago
    Yes.because it cheap and i want to test ssd. I want to test how include or require in php can be speed up.
- jonesetc 13y ago
  > or use buzz-stuff such as OpenStack (hello Rackspace, HPCloud!) Maybe I misread the tone of this post or I'm fuzzy on the history, but it sounds like you're saying Rackspace is trying to be hip by jumping on the hype-train. My understanding is that Rackspace co-created [1] Openstack and let it out into the wild. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#History
  - Nux 13y ago
    What I meant is Rackspace (also RedHat, HP, Mirantis etc) would have you believe that if you're not running Openstack then your "cloud" is shit and has no future. DO clearly demonstrated otherwise. They're inflating the hype because they generate $$$ this way - from their public cloud, private deployments, training, certifications etc etc. Nothing wrong with that I guess, it's business.
    - dmourati 13y ago
      I actually think they are right. If you are not AWS (Google or Microsoft), and you are not embracing OpenStack, you are an also ran and you will be irrelevant.
frakkingcylons 13y ago
I know that TechCrunch isn't interested in discussing any actually useful details of what made DO successful...but for me it came down to them doubling the RAM per instance and using SSDs in 01/2013, creating a collection of excellent sysadmin articles, and cheap/free backups and images.
- rythie 13y ago
  I used slicehost, though when it became rackspace cloud it became way more complicated. The main draw for me was the $5/month pricing combined with a $50 voucher they gave for black friday and they use SSDs. Even with all those benefits there are still switching costs due to having to re-setup on the new host, though I imagine most of their growth is people starting new projects.
computador 13y ago
What the HTML is that?!
- computador 13y ago
  ...was their catchy phrase on their earlier video commercial on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZLCahai4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZLCahai4Q I'm sure this contributed in a way to their current success
coreymgilmore 13y ago
DO really is a tremendous product. The simplicity, pricing, and speed of setting up an instance is awesome. For setting up a quick dev environment or a simple host for X or Y, it is definitely easier than through AWS. I use DO pretty often and I hope they have some cool new offerings in the future. Maybe really simple load balancing?
- ycombasks 13y ago
  I wish they could address these issues: http://www.redbottledesign.com/blog/five-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-choose-digital-ocean-your-next-project http://www.redbottledesign.com/blog/five-reasons-why-you-sho... I think "There's no way to increase storage space without major down-time" is the most important one. One hour of downtime is no good for production.
  - btgeekboy 13y ago
    For what it's worth, #4 is a moot point: DO has said that they're not currently billing for bandwidth overages.[1] [1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/where-can-i-see-the-used-traffic-of-my-vps https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/where-can-i... (Kamal Nasser February 13, 2014)
  - rschmitty 13y ago
    For #2 vote for this https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/4914144-make-sure-we-can-keep-an-ip-if-we-recreate-a-dropl https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... and https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/2993170-movable-ip-from-vm-to-vm-elastic-ip https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... I don't think the time behind the scenes will ever be zero so I'd rather 100% be guaranteed not to lose my IP address. Spin up a new VM and assign prod-new the IP of prod-old similar to how you might do it with AWS Elastic IP
  - coreymgilmore 13y ago
    I do agree with this. Adding storage to an existing droplet would be nice. Even if it required adding a separate "disk", this would be useful. But obviously, adding, for example, 20GB disk after disk after disk could lead to a lot of annoyance.
joshmn 13y ago
DigitalOcean is not a cloud or anything that resembles what a "cloud" is. If you consider "cloud" hosting backup-enabled virtual private servers with multiple operating-system choices and multiple locations, well, hate to break it to you, but that's has been around since 2005. Everyone is hopping on DO because it's marketed as a "cloud" and it's part of a tech accelerator (and maybe because it has SSDs and is so damn cheap). Other than that, there's really nothing special about it. Source: me; hosting-industry expert.
- ohashi 13y ago
  >Everyone is hopping on DO because it's marketed as a "cloud" and it's part of a tech accelerator (and maybe because it has SSDs and is so damn cheap). Other than that, there's really nothing special about it. The marketing is good. The quality of the product is good. It's incredibly easy to get started with. The tech accelerator I don't think plays any factor. I searched my database and there are 24 mentions of TechStars out of 3213 positive mentions. That's 0.7%, I can't imagine it has much impact right now on their growth. To give some other comps cheap is 115, affordable is 36, ssd is 133, fast is 174, amazing 212, easy is 134. Source: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean
  - joshmn 13y ago
    The marketing is false though. That would mean I can go ahead and market a Galaxy S6 as an Apple device and watch all the fanboys and teenage girls hop on. But of course I need pretty colors.
    - ohashi 13y ago
      I measure what people are actually saying about them. People seem pretty happy. You can pontificate all you want, but I am looking at thousands of people's opinions on them, the consensus is that it's pretty good. If your complaint is the marketing about 'cloud' is false, then cloud computing in general is a pretty ambiguous term. It's being used for things as simple as a VPS in the industry. It's pretty meaningless at this point, people will use it to market their products and I don't think they are wrong. I still couldn't tell you where the line is drawn and I've been around this business for ages.
priyankt 13y ago
My opinion. I am a DO user and I don't think you can use it for production application. Casual hosting is fine. For production servers, deterministic backups are very important. DO does not provide that. I faced a lot of issues when transitioning my server from non-backup to backup mode. To do that, you need to take a snapshot(server shutdown is required for this)of server. Then, you need to destroy it to get the same ip. There is a chance that your ip may go to someone else & any services that are dependent on ip may need changes. I was lucky to loose the ip for a while & get it back after some trial & error. Also, you don't have any control on the backup. It is taken by the system and is supposed to be anywhere between 2-3 days.
- xur17 13y ago
  Are those the only backups you take? I have all of my code stored in git, and my database (and assorted files) get backed up each night to aws. I figure a snapshot is my first line of defense, and aws is my backup in case this doesn't work.
jaequery 13y ago
i dont know why but i'm so tired of these posts
soci 13y ago
I wonder at what scale a business like this is sustainable with this low pricing schemas. Whatsoever, will it ever be?
teekert 13y ago
I really loved DO, that is until they emailed me that my server had to be rebooted and I found it with all the config files being replaced by a bunch of @@@'s (I had to use the browser VNC to log in). I asked them what had happened and if it can be fixed, they tell me to make a new droplet. I ask what will prevent this from happening again... no response... Bye bye DO.

94 points by bjenik 13y ago

comice 13y ago

Article doesn't disclose that Crunchfund has a stake in DO.

politician 13y ago

"rejection" -- I had to reread that headline 3 times before I figured out what it was trying to say.

neotek 13y ago
"Reject" is fine, it means "a person or thing dismissed as inadequate or unacceptable."

larrys 13y ago

Totally misleading linkbait title. Sure they were "rejected" by NYC (for valid reasons - apparently treated very well) but then went into the Boulder program after applying. And no doubt the reference given by Tisch must have certainly helped I'm guessing.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Nux 13y ago

Every day, working with customers' products or witnessing stories such as DO's I realise that success is 90% marketing and 10% actual technical stuff. You don't have to have the greatest features or too many of them or even all of them working as advertised. You don't need to take security very seriously (hello DO, WhatsApp!) or use buzz-stuff such as OpenStack (hello Rackspace, HPCloud!) or any existing "cloud standards" in order to succeed. You just need to market it and promote it right. I'm not even sarcastic or anything. As a techie I always frickin overlook it and this is the single most important element that can help you make serious money/business. There's a whole bunch of people out there who don't know shit or don't really care about how great your product is technically (or not ;> ). All you need is it satisfies some basic "need" and a shiny packaging, it's enough to go out there and get some milk flowing in. Kudos to the DO folk!

solve 13y ago
Alternatively: all the ways that it could fail don't matter if there's at least one way it could succeed.
giulianob 13y ago
I think at the end it came down to price. No one else was offering SSDs at the time for that cheap. Sure you get what you pay for but for a lot of people I guess it's good enough.
- alien3d 13y ago
  Yes.because it cheap and i want to test ssd. I want to test how include or require in php can be speed up.
jonesetc 13y ago
> or use buzz-stuff such as OpenStack (hello Rackspace, HPCloud!) Maybe I misread the tone of this post or I'm fuzzy on the history, but it sounds like you're saying Rackspace is trying to be hip by jumping on the hype-train. My understanding is that Rackspace co-created [1] Openstack and let it out into the wild. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStack#History
- Nux 13y ago
  What I meant is Rackspace (also RedHat, HP, Mirantis etc) would have you believe that if you're not running Openstack then your "cloud" is shit and has no future. DO clearly demonstrated otherwise. They're inflating the hype because they generate $$$ this way - from their public cloud, private deployments, training, certifications etc etc. Nothing wrong with that I guess, it's business.
  - dmourati 13y ago
    I actually think they are right. If you are not AWS (Google or Microsoft), and you are not embracing OpenStack, you are an also ran and you will be irrelevant.

frakkingcylons 13y ago

I know that TechCrunch isn't interested in discussing any actually useful details of what made DO successful...but for me it came down to them doubling the RAM per instance and using SSDs in 01/2013, creating a collection of excellent sysadmin articles, and cheap/free backups and images.

rythie 13y ago
I used slicehost, though when it became rackspace cloud it became way more complicated. The main draw for me was the $5/month pricing combined with a $50 voucher they gave for black friday and they use SSDs. Even with all those benefits there are still switching costs due to having to re-setup on the new host, though I imagine most of their growth is people starting new projects.

computador 13y ago

What the HTML is that?!

computador 13y ago
...was their catchy phrase on their earlier video commercial on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZLCahai4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHZLCahai4Q I'm sure this contributed in a way to their current success

coreymgilmore 13y ago

DO really is a tremendous product. The simplicity, pricing, and speed of setting up an instance is awesome. For setting up a quick dev environment or a simple host for X or Y, it is definitely easier than through AWS. I use DO pretty often and I hope they have some cool new offerings in the future. Maybe really simple load balancing?

ycombasks 13y ago
I wish they could address these issues: http://www.redbottledesign.com/blog/five-reasons-why-you-shouldnt-choose-digital-ocean-your-next-project http://www.redbottledesign.com/blog/five-reasons-why-you-sho... I think "There's no way to increase storage space without major down-time" is the most important one. One hour of downtime is no good for production.
- btgeekboy 13y ago
  For what it's worth, #4 is a moot point: DO has said that they're not currently billing for bandwidth overages.[1] [1] https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/where-can-i-see-the-used-traffic-of-my-vps https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/where-can-i... (Kamal Nasser February 13, 2014)
- rschmitty 13y ago
  For #2 vote for this https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/4914144-make-sure-we-can-keep-an-ip-if-we-recreate-a-dropl https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... and https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocean/suggestions/2993170-movable-ip-from-vm-to-vm-elastic-ip https://digitalocean.uservoice.com/forums/136585-digitalocea... I don't think the time behind the scenes will ever be zero so I'd rather 100% be guaranteed not to lose my IP address. Spin up a new VM and assign prod-new the IP of prod-old similar to how you might do it with AWS Elastic IP
- coreymgilmore 13y ago
  I do agree with this. Adding storage to an existing droplet would be nice. Even if it required adding a separate "disk", this would be useful. But obviously, adding, for example, 20GB disk after disk after disk could lead to a lot of annoyance.

joshmn 13y ago

DigitalOcean is not a cloud or anything that resembles what a "cloud" is. If you consider "cloud" hosting backup-enabled virtual private servers with multiple operating-system choices and multiple locations, well, hate to break it to you, but that's has been around since 2005. Everyone is hopping on DO because it's marketed as a "cloud" and it's part of a tech accelerator (and maybe because it has SSDs and is so damn cheap). Other than that, there's really nothing special about it. Source: me; hosting-industry expert.

ohashi 13y ago
>Everyone is hopping on DO because it's marketed as a "cloud" and it's part of a tech accelerator (and maybe because it has SSDs and is so damn cheap). Other than that, there's really nothing special about it. The marketing is good. The quality of the product is good. It's incredibly easy to get started with. The tech accelerator I don't think plays any factor. I searched my database and there are 24 mentions of TechStars out of 3213 positive mentions. That's 0.7%, I can't imagine it has much impact right now on their growth. To give some other comps cheap is 115, affordable is 36, ssd is 133, fast is 174, amazing 212, easy is 134. Source: http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean http://reviewsignal.com/webhosting/company/101/digitalocean
- joshmn 13y ago
  The marketing is false though. That would mean I can go ahead and market a Galaxy S6 as an Apple device and watch all the fanboys and teenage girls hop on. But of course I need pretty colors.
  - ohashi 13y ago
    I measure what people are actually saying about them. People seem pretty happy. You can pontificate all you want, but I am looking at thousands of people's opinions on them, the consensus is that it's pretty good. If your complaint is the marketing about 'cloud' is false, then cloud computing in general is a pretty ambiguous term. It's being used for things as simple as a VPS in the industry. It's pretty meaningless at this point, people will use it to market their products and I don't think they are wrong. I still couldn't tell you where the line is drawn and I've been around this business for ages.

priyankt 13y ago

My opinion. I am a DO user and I don't think you can use it for production application. Casual hosting is fine. For production servers, deterministic backups are very important. DO does not provide that. I faced a lot of issues when transitioning my server from non-backup to backup mode. To do that, you need to take a snapshot(server shutdown is required for this)of server. Then, you need to destroy it to get the same ip. There is a chance that your ip may go to someone else & any services that are dependent on ip may need changes. I was lucky to loose the ip for a while & get it back after some trial & error. Also, you don't have any control on the backup. It is taken by the system and is supposed to be anywhere between 2-3 days.

xur17 13y ago
Are those the only backups you take? I have all of my code stored in git, and my database (and assorted files) get backed up each night to aws. I figure a snapshot is my first line of defense, and aws is my backup in case this doesn't work.

jaequery 13y ago

i dont know why but i'm so tired of these posts

soci 13y ago

I wonder at what scale a business like this is sustainable with this low pricing schemas. Whatsoever, will it ever be?

teekert 13y ago

I really loved DO, that is until they emailed me that my server had to be rebooted and I found it with all the config files being replaced by a bunch of @@@'s (I had to use the browser VNC to log in). I asked them what had happened and if it can be fixed, they tell me to make a new droplet. I ask what will prevent this from happening again... no response... Bye bye DO.