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A Message from the CEO Valentin Sharlanov

Hello everyone,

I could not imagine launching our new web hosting company without saying a few words first as an inauguration…

It took me some time to carefully think over what exactly I should say- should I keep it simple and just compose a brief welcome post, or tell you the whole story of how everything was carried out. I decided to go with the latter, that way you can understand my intentions and motives and hopefully find yourself your new home with us.

I have always been industrious, even before getting myself involved in the world of web hosting 4 years ago, I was ceaselessly looking for ways to start my own business. I didn’t feel like working for someone else because of my love of personal freedom and the constant need to express myself and all the ideas that cross my mind and I wouldn’t find opportunities to do that with my former employers. When I started working for SiteGround back in 2008 I thought that I had finally found a comfortable working environment and was eager to learn more about the industry. But 4 years later, with tons of hosting experience, I did not feel the same way anymore. Don’t get me wrong, SiteGround has got amazing services and support and it is a great place for both customers and employees but there always comes a time when you just exhaust all possible resources – there is nothing more you can learn and you are not self-improving at all. So I decided it was time we parted ways.

During my last weeks there I started looking for some new ways to steep myself in the depths of the Internet world and fortuitously a friend of mine suggested I went to help him with his web design business after finishing with SiteGround, and so I did. That was when the idea of opening a hosting company of our own came into existence. We knew it would take lots of time, money and efforts to accomplish that but we didn’t know just how much exactly and we thought we could manage everything without much trouble. Thank goodness, my friend and I have always had some additional sources of revenue coming mainly from online trading or we wouldn’t have been prepared for what was about to come.

I picked the name for the company without much hesitation because I wanted the company to be the new face of web hosting. One where customers are the TRUE face of the business and everything is determined and driven by their needs and requirements. And at the same time one composed of smiling and friendly young people who would gladly help all the customers and would not be constrained by any old and inefficient practices. Not long after, around March 26, 2013, we came with the slogan of the company and you might say that it came pretty damn naturally as a continuation of the name itself to further expand and strengthen the ideas of a friendly and professional service. With this important thing out of the way, I almost immediately started off with the interviews since the staff is the most important asset of all. I will not bore you with lots of details, I will just say that it was a long and arduous journey for both me and the interviewees because finding the right people you know will fit perfectly in your team is not that easy. But in the end I consider myself a lucky guy – all of the people working on this ambitious, time-consuming and yet extremely satisfying project are complete professionals and without the hard work of everyone, you would not be seeing what you are seeing today. Moreover, they all made a pretty good team capable of accomplishing everything they set their minds to and were all very unhappy when we had to split up in different shifts after the launch. I miss all of them working together at the same time, too, since they all became like a second family to me.

After setting up the office, buying the equipment and settling the first part of the staff in, we started working on the logo and the website itself. There are lots of funny moments that went along with the development – the whole site was initially drawn on paper with additional bits and sheets stapled to it and with all menus presented in diagrams – I hope you can see pictures of those in some future blog post. A considerable amount of different styles and looks were changed but the idea behind it has always been to represent our sustainability and Eco notions through lots of green and smiling faces, and to be pleasing to the senses – we managed that perfectly , I think. You can read about our green initiatives thoroughly in other blog posts and I do hope you like them. The design for the logo went through the same process as we looked through at least 500 different logos from different people and we even weren’t sure if we liked the final design enough to use it but now we love it. The concept behind it was to best embody everything that makes us who we are – a service which always comes with a smiling face and a place which employees and customers can call home – a concept presented strongly by the infinite smiling ‘e’ at the end.

I can hardly believe that in about 5 months we managed to put together all this that we have today and I want to thank everyone. Everyone on my team, the people who bought hosting packages from us long before we launched on August 15th, our future customers and everyone who contributed in making this dream come true.

I could not be more proud to lead you as an CEO of WebHostFace.

Thank you!

Valentin Sharlanov

He really enjoys preparing exquisite meals for his friends, going out with them for a walk or to a new club to have fun. And to top that, exploring distant and exotic lands is his real passion – everything in the name of experiencing new cultures.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Slavi

    good luck 🙂

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