Today’s WPExperts guest is Salman Patel, the visionary Founder & CEO of Fastcow Hosting, who has been shaping the web hosting industry since 2005.
With an unwavering passion for customer service and an in-depth mastery of the technical landscape, Sal launched Fastcow to meet the increasing need for reliable, lightning-fast, and managed cloud web hosting.
His leadership has positioned Fastcow as a standout provider, offering exceptional performance, affordability, and top-tier support that streamlines the hosting experience for WordPress users. Sal’s relentless focus on innovation and customer satisfaction fuels Fastcow’s remarkable success.
Join us as we explore his experiences, insights, and the story behind his inspiring journey in the world of web hosting.
Q#1 How long have you been in the WordPress industry?
I’ve been in the web hosting industry since 2005, a time when WordPress wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. Back then, most websites were built using HTML, PHP, and tools like Dreamweaver (for those who remember!).
Dreamweaver was the go-to for people who wanted to make live changes without knowing how to code. Fast-forward to today and WordPress is everywhere, powering over 62% of websites online.
Q#2 What inspired you to start FastCow, and what was the initial problem you aimed to solve in the managed WordPress hosting market?
Honestly, once you enter the hosting industry, it’s tough to leave. I enjoyed interacting with customers through live chat, phone calls, and support tickets, helping them resolve issues ranging from website problems to plugin errors. These interactions built trust and strong relationships, and I missed that.
So I started to plan what I could do and what essentially this managed hosting company could really focus on, which is affordable, reliable, fast, and secure. The WordPress market was a natural choice since so many websites use it, but with that comes issues and regular problems such as theme, plugin issues, malware, and so forth. I wanted to build this brand to focus primarily on this issue, where ‘FastCow’ would be the first and last stop for everything hosting-related. We’d host you, manage your themes and plugins, make minor changes, and recommend what you need and do not require. Our goal is to make the WordPress and hosting experience simple and stress-free.
Q#3 What sets FastCow apart from other managed WordPress hosting providers?
Honestly, There are several reasons to choose FastCow. We’re working hard to be the leading, fastest WordPress hosting provider out there but at a fraction of the cost compared to our competitors.
Speed, affordability, and our outstanding support team are our key differentiators. We can, hands down, say we are fast, very, very fast. We own everything in terms of our infrastructure, and we’ve invested heavily into making our setup very secure and rock-solid. All websites hosted with us sit on high-end AMD latest generational CPUs SSD NVMe drives for ultimate speeds inside top-tier data centers. We utilize a custom control panel that allows us to isolate each and every website into its own container for security purposes and have a malware/security scanner that runs automatically 24 hours a day.
Price was another factor; competitors have set prices on the high end, but what you get in return is minimal. We’ve set prices to reflect our service but at the same time, give enough hosting resources to our customers so they don’t have the much need to scale up or down regularly.
Additionally, we’ve partnered with Bunny.net, the world’s fastest CDN provider, to offer all our hosted sites free CDN services. We configure this internally so our clients can experience even greater speed and performance.
Q#4 What have been the most significant technical challenges in running a managed WordPress hosting company, and how have you overcome them?
There are a few, but one I would highly say is a constant challenge is finding the right team members as we scale. We only hire people who enjoy what they do, seek to learn further, and ensure that every time they help a customer, the customer is always satisfied.
Not every issue can be solved by one person, so we’ve built a culture of internal collaboration and maintain a comprehensive knowledge base. This ensures that when a problem arises, we can handle it efficiently and prevent it from recurring.
Q#5 What emerging trends in WordPress hosting do you think will shape the industry’s future?
AI integration with WordPress is a game-changer. AI can now assist in building websites, creating logos, generating content, and more—all in minutes. The possibilities are vast, and I believe AI is just beginning to revolutionize the industry.
Q#6 Have you attended any WordCamp? What’s your opinion about the Global WordPress Community?
I actually went to my first WordPress WordCamp meetup in London this year, and I loved it! We’ve planned to send a few of our members next year to as many regions as possible and hopefully be able to take part in them. We will be actively active come 2025 🙂
Q#7 What are your key strategies for ensuring the security and protection of your clients’ WordPress sites?
We always advise our clients and anyone reading this to update their plugins and themes regularly. Most websites I come across that are hacked are because they’ve not been updated regularly, which leads them to be prone to out-of-date software that has been compromised. As part of our service, we monitor all sites, but as a great precaution, we ask our customers to do the same. It’s honestly as simple as that!
FastCow provides free backup to all of our customers who host with us. We have a totally separate data center location for this, and the backups are taken daily and stored for 30 days. If someone did have an issue, they could go back in time easily in the last 30 days and select a restore of their files or database with ease.
Q#8 Can you describe your approach to customer support and how you ensure a high level of service?
We are heavily built around customer support. Without our customers, we would not be able to exist, so everything we do revolves around their success and happiness, which in turn means success for us. Our global team offers 24x7x365 technical support and provides multiple channels for customers to reach us, including phone support, live chat, and ticket submissions.
We don’t take hours to reply; we reply within minutes, and most issues are fixed within 10-12 minutes, depending on their complexity.
Q#9 What has WordPress given to you?
The best thing about WordPress is that it has allowed us to engage with all types of people, from bloggers to Woocommerce website owners to large corporate websites that have hundreds of thousands of visitors daily.
We’ve been lucky enough to meet everyone’s requirements and allow them to grow with us. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen WordPress’s major changes from its initial foundation to its current status as a major leading CMS.
Q#10 What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own managed hosting business or enter the tech industry?
Consistency is key, and that’s with everything. Try to find a niche in the market, whether it’s selling hosting, virtual servers, or managed WordPress hosting services, but consistency is key, along with networking. There are thousands and thousands of hosting companies out there. You’ll need to stand out, and one way to do so is by providing exceptional service. This will allow your customers to recommend you, and then it will become a snowflake effect. In my opinion, word of mouth is the most effective marketing strategy.
Time To Say Goodbye!
At the end of the interview, we’d like to thank Salman Patel (Founder & CEO at Fastcow) for spending his precious time with us.
It’s time to say bye until the next interview. Stay connected!
