How 5 years of reading HN enabled me to build the website for my business

The site looks very good, but $122 monthly costs for getting your site to 'a few hundred' visitors (mostly friends) is crazy.<p>Of course, the site works and looks good (all that really matters to the end users), if you are getting a large income (and you got to that point quicker because of this outlay) then it may not be worth it to care, but that doesn't seem to be the case.<p>Personally I'm more interested in how you got a tech consultant position at deloitte (which i'm guessing is quite well paid?) given your lack of technical skills.. or, in what area are you skilled relating to this?<p>Also 'cpuStorage'.. i can't not think about a processor.

I do think Wordpress, big hairy pile of PHP that it is, is actually a much better way to learn to code than CodeAcademy or equivalent. In fact, it's because working with WP involves so much hacking and kludges that it's such a good way to learn.<p>CodeAcademy seems to follow the Dijkstra school of CS teaching... start people off with the fundamental principles. Sounds like the logical way to learn, but maybe it's not the most effective.<p>There seems to be a gulf between "I know how for loops and functions work" and "I know how to use HTML, CSS, PHP and an FTP account to get a website working". People also complain that CodeAcademy spoonfeeds you too much - those of us who had to claw our coding knowledge out of shitty w3schools and tizag tutorials might actually have been more fortunate.<p>That's why I like Wordpress, or similar platforms. I've known a few people who accidentally taught themselves to code this way: they install Wordpress, then install a theme, then decide they want to tweak the theme and end up accidentally learning HTML and CSS. Then they start installing plugins, decide they want to tweak the plugins and accidentally learn Javascript and PHP.

If you stopped reading HN, you could have done it in about 24 hours.

I learnt to code when I set up almost exactly the same business ten years ago - <a href="http://www.thebigspace.co.uk" rel="nofollow">http://www.thebigspace.co.uk</a><p>I built it in PHP and MySQL and there was no MVC for me. It was a mess. It's been completely rewritten at least three times, and is due another rewrite.<p>For about the first five of those years, the hosting cost £10 per year, and £2.50 for the domain name. I believe the site now uses a small part of a Linode $20/month VPS.<p>It's a fun business, but virtually impossible to scale. Good luck.

I love stories like this, because it shows what can be accomplished when you focus on something and just get shit done.<p>He didn't mess around, he just said "I want to build a website", so he started building a website. When he came across a problem, he searched for a solution until it worked. Sounds simple, but there are so many people who won't/can't do this.<p>Instead of hemming and hawing, and posting on forums asking "what is the best programming language to start with", or "is WordPress the best blah blah blah", or "what is the best tool for this", and pulling his hair out while people argue over Vim vs. Emacs, Ruby vs. Python, etc. He just picked some tools and got shit done. Brilliant. Keep up the good work!!!<p>Reminds me of what Sam Soffes said on his blog here: <a href="http://soff.es/how-to-learn" rel="nofollow">http://soff.es/how-to-learn</a>

I'd suggest the next step is looking into setting it up on your own host; say an AWS micro instance. Will cut your costs considerably, since an Micro instance runs about $15 a month + bandwidth. Theres plenty of guides available on how to set up and secure your own web host. Either way, all the best with your endeavour, hope it works out!

This (HN post) is a good marketing attempt, but perhaps the best way to grow your business is to add some sort of referral bonus (refer a friend and get $10 discount). Word-of-mouth is powerful, more powerful than posting on HN. ;-)

If costs are burning a hole in your pocket, I'd suggest you revisit your WP hosting solution. I think one of the shared hosting providers would suit your needs just fine if you enable caching on your site.

Compelling read to get beginners to actually take action. I'm in somewhat of the same situation and found it highly relatable.<p>Agreed on the previous comment, cpuStorage makes me think of a processor.

First of all, the site looks great.<p>Second of all, your home page says "Instragram" instead of "Instagram". Sorry to be _that guy_ but I figured you'd like to know.

Congrats on launching. CPUStorage seems a smart startup idea. Compelling web site, thoughtful writeup, good luck to you. I lived in Lincoln Park after college, by DePaul, and concur with your premise that the Chicago market is rich enough to warrant such a business. Flyers in dorms, flyers at el stations, flyers everywhere. Facebook page, viral liking. School newspapers might help distribute your story. Stay tenacious.

As for the form, you should take a look at <a href="http://www.jotform.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.jotform.com</a> , (not affiliate with them, just a happy customer) , they are less expensive and have a 50 % yearly discount during this period, that could be a place to start to bring your spending down

There are definitely cheaper ways to get SSL. The simplest might be a CloudFlare Pro account, since you won't have to migrate to a different host. (It wasn't clear how much of the $99 WPE charge was hosting and how much was an SSL surcharge. It's my impression that these surcharges vary quite a bit.)

I read the website several times and one question that I just never found an answer to is, "Where is this service available?"<p>I am not from the US so one of the first things I need to know is, can I actually use this?