Cyberwings quickly rose to the top of the web hosting world and the issues that have occurred lately have affected many people. Shawn White of Cyberwings has agreed to an interview with us in order to share his side of the story. Shawn's answers are contained below in an unedited form.

DJ: What motivated you to enter the web hosting industry and what unique function were you trying to bring to the market?
SW: Cyberwings was a brainchild of mine from many, many years ago. The name, the concept of continuing technology education and supporting a web community. The entire theme. I initially played around with the web hosting ideas many years ago in a very rough, unedited, and non-productive way. In June 2001 I really wanted to push Cyberwings. I decided it was time to try to do what I had wanted to do all along. I wanted to build a web hosting community of people through a service which was incredibly reasonably priced. The idea behind Cyberwings was that customers could help customers, within a forum/chat setting, and we would have a limited amount of "Cyberwings Staff" people online to assist.

DJ: Cyberwings grew very quickly. At it's busiest time how many servers were on-line and how many customers were you serving?
SW: The business plan that I had drawn up (yes, I really did put a lot of thing into Cyberwings before I started it) really was rock solid. However, the one thing I never anticipated during writing the business plan was the enormous growth that we experienced. About 6 months into our 13 month venture (as it now stands), I found myself re-writing the business plan and trying to accomodate for the growth. At our peak, we had 14 servers at RackShack along with 16 additional servers at our data center space in Portland, Maine. At our peak, we had over 3,000 individual clients and were hosting between 16,000 and 17,000 websites on our servers. That includes all individual, AYW & Reseller domains.

DJ: Shawn White has gotten a lot of press. What is the real Shawn White like?
SW: I can assure you the real Shawn White is not anything like what some people have made me out to be in the past 2 months. What shocks me is that we did amazingly well for 13 months - we gained a huge client base, we brought on our first staff, we opened our first data center space, we really did have amazing customer service. I have sat down and spent a whole lot of time, days and weeks, thinking about Cyberwings and what went wrong. I was not prepared for the level of growth we had. I was also not prepared for the level of attack we endured when things started to hit bumpy roads. Instead of a mob of people supporting Cyberwings, pushing us forward, helping us to get over the bumps, a "lynchmob mentality" was created and people started wanting to drive us into the ground. The competitors and some of our dis-satisfied customers out there saw it as their chance to really slam Cyberwings and make it even harder for us to recover from an already difficult situation. Throughout all of this, I did the best I can to maintain communication, but it reached a point where no matter what I said or how I tried to communicate with our customer base, the group of people who were against Cyberwings screamed louder, made more noise and did their very best at trying to drown out everything I was trying to communicate. I am not the type to confront or fight, so I sat back and tried to figure out the best solutions. By me sitting back, I didn't realize it then, but do that, that silence fed the hysteria.

DJ: Cyberwings had one of the more robust and loyal communities in the web hosting industry? What did you do to grow that community from nothing and what do you attribute that success to?
SW: In the beginning it was very very easy to give extremely personalized customer service. For the first 3-4 months that we existed I was actually able to remember many customer's names, remember their situations, and assist them without them having to re-explain their situation. I started to know many of our customers on a first name basis and assist them whenever and however I could. Between January and March when the explosion in our customer base happened, many of the loyal "from the beginning" customers began to ask me where I was at - how come I couldn't respond personally to their requests - I tried to explain that I was trying to balance the popularity and was doing the best I could. I brought on 2 people in March, 2 in April, 2 in May and 1 in June to assist. Throughout that time, popularity went up, customer service declined due to the volume of requests we were getting, and things started to slip. What do I attribute the success of Cyberwings to? Personalized customer service in the beginning, amazing pricing plans which, good service & servers (even though we did experience our fair share of technical difficulties from time to time), and the desire of customers to want to belong to a "web hosting community", and not just be a "customer" of a web hosting company. I wish Cyberwings could have stayed smaller, grown at a much more steady pace, instead of exploding like it did. People knew me in the beginning - they knew what I was trying to accomplish and they were proud to be a part of that. Over time, when we became too popular (and yes there is such a thing as being "too" popular when it comes to business), I couldn't provide the one-on-one attention that had made Cyberwings what it was. I didn't recognize at that time, in the middle of all of this, that there were things I could have done to maintain a steadier pace. One thing I would have done, looking back, is I would have regulated the number of customers we took on in any given month - or time period. Then again, hindsight really is 20/20.

DJ: If you could choose three things that make a successful web hosting service what would they be and why?
SW: A community feeling is key. People, socially and psychologically, really enjoy being a part of a commnity - a project - a goal. Cyberwings was a wonderful community of people helping each other - our forums were extremely active, our customers were creating other websites to help other customers (example, cyberwingers.net was the brain child of one of our customers who became a volunteer and later a member of our staff.)

Strategic, competitive & amazing pricing plans. Back when I started Cyberwings there were not any other companies offering such competitive yearly hosting plans - or even nicely priced low cost reasonable monthly plans. Now that Cyberwings has begun, grown, and some would say "past", though I wouldn't say that yet, many companies are starting to jump on the bandwagon that Cyberwings started.

An accessible owner. I remember when I was a web hosting customer of our companies - I felt like I couldn't get anything done. I felt like no one was listening. The one thing about Cyberwings that set us apart was that I was always involved - every day, all day, from day one. I was always listening. I personally responded to hundreds of support tickets, emails, issues, etc. I sat in chat, and sometimes on the telephone, with customers for hours and hours on end. I did my best to also be around at odd times of the day (USA Time) to help customers internationally. If the owner of the company does not have his heart in the project, it won't succeed. I did (and do) have my heart in Cyberwings. If I didn't, I wouldn't have thrown up my hands and walked away from it when things started to get tough. I'm still here, and I will see Cyberwings through to whatever it holds in the future.

DJ: The current Cyberwings is a shell of what it was in the past. What is the future of Cyberwings at this point?
SW: Cyberwings started out small, the underdog that no one thought would go anywhere. We grew, got a little bigger, people started to talk more about us. Then as we got bigger, popularity grew, and things started to really move, people started to say we'd never make it. The only thing I ever said was that I could never guarantee "no growing pains", but I truly did believe we would make it. To this very day I get a lot of emails from people giving us their support. Asking how they can help. Telling me how they wish Cyberwings could get back to where it once was. I will not make any guarantees about the future of Cyberwings. I will say, however, that I have received enormous support from a particular group of people on the Internet who are willing to do just about anything to help us revive Cyberwings. The level of community feeling & involvement, the passion about Cyberwings that existed and still does to this very day, was truly, and still is, amazing. Granted, we are currently at a "make it" or "break it" point - but only time, and the support of the people who supported Cyberwings originally, will predict the outcome.

DJ: Many people are concerned about refunds and the lack thereof. They're very concerned that timetables haven't been met and the processes you created haven't been followed. What are you doing to address their concerns?
SW: We are definitely doing the best we can when it comes to this. We have poured all of our financial resources into trying to take care of staff (still working on this), trying to issue as many refunds as possible (we're delayed and slow on this), and trying to maintain our new DC in Virginia. Just recently, when I honestly thought there was nothing more I could personally do try to pump life back into Cyberwings, support has started to pour in from all over the place. We are currently working on a complete revival plan of Cyberwings and we have the committment of a variety of internet suppliers, service providers, etc. to help Cyberwings recover. I do fully intend to continue to process as many refunds as we can as often as we can, and we will get all of them done. We're not leaving them untouched or un-honored.

DJ: Many parody sites concerning the Cyberwings experience have been posted. Have you seen them and what is your thoughts about them?
SW: As a human being, I think it's disgusting that people would go to such lengths and stoop to such a childish level. As a business, I guess I should have expected some people out there, maybe competitors, maybe people who just didn't like our goals and initiatives, to do such things. I've seen probably just about every parody site that exists out there right now. Childish. They cannot attack how we started. They cannot attack how fast we grew and how well we did. They cannot attack the community we built. So they have to go for the lowest childish common denominator and try to attack us by using parodies and the like. I am a believer that what you put out comes back to you ten-fold. I think their personal choices to publish parody sites about a person and not discuss the business side of the situation is disgusting. But then again, just my opinion.

DJ: What do you think are the three most important areas that a web hosting service should focus on for its customers?
SW: Be sure to keep your one-on-one attention if at all possible. Growth is good, but don't lose site of what made you in the first place. Cyberwings never lost site of it, I just never knew how to get back to the point where I could meet everyone's needs and still maintain a good level of growth.

Communication is key. Take that from someone who used to be really good at communicating with our customers on a person to person level. It's something I was really really good at when we were small, but as Cyberwings grew, speaking to a much larger group of people and meeting their needs for constant communication & updates became a challenge for me. Trying to speak "louder" and more "clearly" than the people against us grew to be a problem. Cyberwings truly threatened the way web hosting works/worked - we made people stop and look.

Do not let the doubts, fears & negative comments of other companies stop you from trying to provide a unique, wonderful, highly competitive service. If you want to build a community, build it. If you want to concentrate on customer involvement, do it. Your customers will need your full, undivided attention & committment. Others will try to stop you and get in your way. Don't give in, or give up. I learned this lesson only recently - the hard way.

DJ: What does the future hold for Shawn White?
SW: Cyberwings for the immediate future. Plain and simple. I have not left this project yet, and I am not planning on leaving this project until it's seen through to whatever finish, or revival, is in store for us in the future. If there is one thing I have never been a victim of it's a lack of self-esteem and self-determination. It was that determination that grew Cyberwings and created the community with everyone's help, and it's that same determination and faith that will do it again. I'm staying right here until it's over. Whatever over means.

Read the First Cyberwings Article

Read the Second Cyberwings Article

Read the Third Cyberwings Article

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