Hosting Providers Have Become Strategic Partners  🔗 **Source:** [Hosting Providers Have Become Strategic Partners](https://share.snipd.com/episode/9ef92f72-b55c-4953-9900-5d5bf3cc996b) ## Highlights - **Customer Didn't Know How To Refresh** - Metodi described early customer support moments where users didn't even know how to refresh a browser, revealing how varied customer knowledge can be. - He recounted a customer who read menu items like File Edit View and couldn't find F5, showing why human-led support matters over docs alone. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski That's a very, very good question and not with an easy answer. In fact, our first hosting experience started back in 2002. And back then, we started with a few friends who were working in a hosting company and they said, you know, it's very easy to run a hosting company. You put a server, you install the control panel, the customers are coming and you are doing almost nothing. And we had no experience and we say okay let's try let's see how how this this work it appears that there is nothing like this in fact it is it is completely different it is very in fact it Is very easy to to put a website that say that he offers all the fancy things you can copy from all the other hosting companies what they're putting on their website and the difficult part To to prove that you are a real hosting company is when you start to have real customers and they have start to have real problems that in in one moment you you are not sure that you understand In the early days for example we have a conversation with the customer and he said I'm doing all the changes on my website and nothing is changing and we say how is not changing refresh The website and he said how to refresh the website we said hit uh f5 and he said i don't see f5 f5 and we say how you don't see it and he said i ([Time 0:02:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/684a59d8-ebc5-40c0-8061-15375b711250)) - **Use AI For Onboarding Not For Dangerous Writes** - Use AI to onboard and surface internal knowledge, but keep humans responsible for production changes and risky actions. - Jethost embeds decades of team knowledge into AI to train new hires while senior staff supervise live support. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski First, the foundation of our team is built entirely from people that have, we all have more than 20 years experience in web hosting and in fact also in web development and in hardcore Programming. In fact, before I started being in the hosting business, were really a hardcore programmer, Java Enterprise and things like this. So we have some very fundamental knowledge about how the technology is working. Then during the years, we start to understand better how to understand better customer and translate this technology understanding into helping customers. And then we start to build a very, how can I say, process that we enter person into our team. So yes, we are using AI because the technology is changing very fast but we have a very very big foundation of knowledge that we are putting in an AI so we can easily onboard new customers New people in the support team we don't expect the AI to solve a customer problem because usually he will say, do this, this, this, and this, and the customer might not understand. Sometimes we need to do this for them. In the moment, it is dangerous to say the AI, okay, delete his files and create them a new one or to give whatever read, read write access, read yes, but write access is dangerous to give To a production environment. There are cases where it appears to do some things not as expected. So we are, we are working on the foundation that we have as a knowledge and put it in the AI so it will be easily accessible to the new people that are onboarding in our environment and telling Them how to work. ([Time 0:06:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e476d09f-e253-460a-92e2-3d2e8e84eb60)) - **Explain Hosting Limits As Business Constraints** - Frame technical hosting limits in business terms so customers grasp the impact, e.g., compare PHP workers to needing a bigger retail shop. - Metodi uses retail and restaurant analogies to avoid jargon and make upgrade decisions intuitive. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski Is no straight way formula that can describe how this is going to do the first thing is that if a customer is making money from his website he understands that if it is one of the examples That we use in fact is like a store if you have a small store in a shopping mall and you are running a big advertisement the customers cannot enter into the shop so either you have to stop The advertisement or there will be a big queue waiting to enter into the shop and might be that your working time will end and you will close the shop and some of these customers will not Be able to buy anything or you have to rent a bigger shop and all the customers will enter yes you have more sales but you need a bigger shop physical shop it's the same when you are online You may need a bigger space for your website to work properly and to be able to handle every person that is coming. For more technical people, sometimes it's more easy. In fact, yesterday I was on an event speaking with a customer when we say about PHP. He was showing me his e-commerce website and he tried to log in and it gives internal server and say, look, you have a problem where you are hosted. You have a problem with the PHP max execution time. And he was, ah, what is this? And I said, okay, I can help you. Not exactly here in the moment, but when we see the problem, we know how to identify it. When you have to tell him if you are on a plan that needs more php workers or php execution time we don't exactly use this but we say them you need more space because it's like a real shop this Or if you have a restaurant we try to frame it with how the customers uh what is the the customer of the business what is the business of the customer? So he can better understand this because if we talk with technical jargon, we lose him. ([Time 0:09:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/eae0ec89-6c76-4623-87d0-5c1657c6b89d)) - **Dry Cleaner Stopped Ads Because He Couldn't Handle Demand** - Matt told a dry cleaner story where running Google Ads overloaded the shop, forcing the owner to turn ads off due to capacity limits. - The story illustrates real-world consequences of sudden traffic spikes and the need to scale infrastructure proactively. Transcript: Matt Medeiros And I went to go pick up from this dry cleaner. This dry cleaner next to me also does tailoring, right? So alterations, like tailor your suits and whatever. And the place was booming. Like the store was booming i was like what i've been i went to you last last time i needed dry clean it was nothing i come in now the place is booming and actually one of the other customers In line because the line was ridiculous i'm like i come here often and it's never like this and he's and one of the other customers said what's going on like you having like a a two-for sale Or something And the store owner said that he started running Google ads for the first time. And nobody around him does Google ads like in this particular area within this particular business. He's like, I put like seven, $800 worth of Google ads. And he's like, I have he's like, I had to shut him off. He's like, I was getting so much business that I had to shut it off. And I'm picking up my clothes. I'm like, boy, what a freaking problem to have where you have to shut it off because you're doing so good. But I want to pull on something that you said. You said you were on the phone with a customer. Now, I don't want people to think ([Time 0:12:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b1255582-9069-4f33-9c97-d5f9e7d50570)) - **Ecosystem Depth Keeps WooCommerce Practical** - WordPress and WooCommerce retain strength because of ecosystem depth: agencies, plugins, and local integrations that other platforms lack. - Metodi notes local payment processors and courier integrations make WooCommerce the practical choice in many regions. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski Today we had a conversation with a partner of us, with one of our partners, and he said that currently he's building mostly he's using WordPress like a headless CMS. And this happened for the couple of few months. It started to change. But so probably this is one direction. But there are a few things. When we started back in 2002, there was this saying that there was ICQ, if you remember, and other things, and then Skype, the email is dead. So I think these strong apocalyptic sayings never, never happen. In fact, email now is more important than before. But we have also other examples. I think Robert Jacobi said about Joomla. It was one of the biggest CMSs, but then it shrinks a lot. So how WordPress will transform depends on how the community will adapt to the new requirements of the business. Because the business is the one who is paying money. Currently, if we speak about the agency, we have a lot of agencies that their business and they have people in this agency, they have skills and knowledge how to build good websites in WordPress, how to build good web stores using WooCommerce, how to integrate with different suppliers. There are a lot of plugins to integrating with payment processors, with, how can I say, with suppliers like DHL and other. In fact, if we, the straightforward process, you put a WordPress website, you have a WooCommerce and you have Stripe integrated. But for example, in other countries, Stripe is very expensive. It has the commission in, for example, here we have payment processors that have commissions three to four times less than Stripe, but there is no particular plugin. So there are plugins built especially for WooCommerce. Want to use a local payment processor or delivery courier, they will implement on Booker Commerce Board because on the other platforms there are neither integration nor sufficient People with skills that can build with new platforms. I speak with people that is using, I don't remember exactly the name of the CMS, and he said, I cannot use it. It is a new one based, again, on TypeScript and other like Astro. But he said, there is no integration with any local payment processor on Courier. So I can build it. And I said, but if you build it, then put it as a plugin, because this will help other people to adopt it. But currently, if you want to build fast a store, he will use WooCommerce because there is a community, there is the agency, there are the skills, there are the plugins. And this is nothing that can be replaced very fast. ([Time 0:17:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a3c0622c-de44-4425-a126-dbec5fad1327)) - **Prototype With AI Then Migrate To WordPress** - Try prototyping with AI but plan to migrate to WordPress when limitations appear; AI-built projects often reveal maintenance gaps. - Metodi and Matt agree many will prototype with AI then shift to WordPress/WooCommerce for stability and extensibility. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski Yes, I think also this is one of the ways that it will go. First, about building, I think people are just fascinated that they're able to build something that they don't understand. Like for them, it's a magic. Just write something and it builds for you. But I think that this, and sometimes they build it just for the sake of the possibility to build it by themselves. And when they start to use it, they will very start to understand the limitation of what they have built and that it is not easy to make it work. Because building something you can build, if you are not a builder, you can try to build a house and when you enter it, you will fall, but you will understand it a little bit. And then you will hire a construction company to build the house for you. But this is something that is happening. And they will hit the wall and they understand, oh, man, it's not so easy. So I think this is what you do. And they will say, yes, it's better to use WordPress with WooCommerce where everything is ready. ([Time 0:29:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e6d3a083-30fe-4f90-934f-2663d205077f)) - **Stay Focused On Hosting Not Becoming A SaaS** - Focus hosting products on core competency and partner with software makers instead of becoming a full software company. - Metodi explains building hosting vs building commercial plugins are different businesses with different org structures and skills. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski Plugin that we have is built to simplify the smallest customers. The small SMBs that want to have the confidence that when they install it, they will not happen something that they are not familiar with that might get hacked their website. So they don't have to check it every time and things like this. It is not replacing other plugins. It is not a product that can replace commercial products that are used by our customers. Whether a company wants to, a web hosting company wants to build a product of their own My perspective and our vision is that, in fact, we want to work with people like this that are building This software. And we always, for the last 25 years, work with the community and the people that are building software. And ever since then, we were asked, why you don't build websites? Why you don't do it? And I always answer, because we are doing web hosting. Yes, but to use web hosting, you need to build a website. And I say, this is completely different businesses. Building a software is a completely different business, completely different project organization, complete skill set. Company structure is different. So, yes, we have a software team, and it is working on our internal systems and things that are improving the user experience and better integration with different products. AI Builder, on the other hand, I think is helping the agencies. Our AI Builder is built on WordPress. It's using Xandify, the background. So it's based on Xandify. And why I like this product? Because when a customer builds a website using this, he has a working WordPress website that is ([Time 0:33:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/afa69d0e-645f-403a-92ee-b58c6d608827)) - **AI Builder That Produces Portable WordPress Sites** - An AI site builder built on WordPress gives a portable working prototype agencies can extend, reducing client onboarding friction. - Metodi highlights JetHost's AI builder produces WordPress sites that freelancers or agencies can pick up and refine. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski AI Builder, on the other hand, I think is helping the agencies. Our AI Builder is built on WordPress. It's using Xandify, the background. So it's based on Xandify. And why I like this product? Because when a customer builds a website using this, he has a working WordPress website that is completely portable to any other solution where he wants to move it, whether he upgraded, And is able to go to uh when he see that he cannot do anything more he can go to a wordpress agency and say look i have this website it is built on wordpress and i need to build on top of it can You help me and this saved tremendous amount of time because the customer already has built his prototype. Because this is not usually a working website, but it's a prototype that he can show to the agency what he was thinking about. Because most of the time, the first-time users cannot explain to an agency what they really want. And I see that more experienced agencies don't want first-time users. If freelancers are watching, they can say, ah, but we want them. Yes, most freelancers are wanting them, but experienced agencies. And this is an opportunity for the freelancers also. They can build also with a better, faster website because they have the experience after the initial setup to tuning it. ([Time 0:35:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c7b05f40-ffe2-4d96-a4c6-9c5a11623315)) - **Choose Hosts For Support Not Just Specs** - Choose host partners that guarantee attentive monitoring and rapid, professional incident response over just price and specs. - Metodi emphasizes agencies need hosts that will act at 2 a.m., dig into configs, and even optimize queries when needed. Transcript: Metodi Drenovski From a technical perspective, we are built on a light-speed enterprise for all our hosting plans, which gives incredible speed improvement. We have e-mini 5360 and all the other things that are important for a modern hosting company to have a secure and fast environment for their clients. But I think these are the things on the shelf. Everybody can take them and put them. And what I see that we are building and I'm proud of is that we are fine-tuning this to work in the best possible way and the hour what is the biggest nightmare of and I experienced it by myself Because the people can explain it to me how they feel a web agency owner that was wake up literally in 2 a.m. And asked them why my site is not working and they cannot do anything and I think this is this is a big nightmare for all the agencies all owners especially for the smallest one because They have must have more clients they are not in some high-end enterprise environment. So it has to be very fine-tuned. And they must know that the hosting company will handle properly the configuration, the management, the monitoring. And if there is something, they will react professionally. Because I have a conversation with people that ask me, okay, I know you will promise me that everything will be okay. And I say, look, man, I cannot promise this. It is a technology. If somebody promise you this, I don't know how he can do it, but it is alive. So what I can promise you that we have a team of professionals that will act immediately and professionally, whatever will happen and will help you in every step if something happens. And you can rely on us about this, that we will act on your side professionally and will help you with everything. And sometimes it go beyond hosting. Sometimes it is even some really about some wordpress integration sometimes it's even goals in uh in helping them with um real programming stuff sometimes just to to help them with Their client they are having some issue with something might be related to some configuration. The server might be related with something else, but we go deep with them. Sometimes it's even indexing a table that makes the website 100 times faster. It is something that we really go deep and try to understand the technical stuff and the business of the customer and try to help them. And they can rely on this. ([Time 0:43:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d447b70-6299-443e-a05a-9992eb68376f)) - **Watch AI Token Usage Or Costs Will Surprise You** - Monitor AI/token consumption closely because idle or misconfigured agents can burn thousands of tokens and cause unexpected costs. - Matt shared his OpenClaw/OpenRouter setup idling and consuming millions of tokens over days, demonstrating opaque billing risks. Transcript: Matt Medeiros And get in now because the price of humans are going up. We don't know the price of AI. Metodi Drenovski For the last two weeks, I always read, look, I have the max plan for $100, but it consumes $2,600. So we don't know how we'll go with AI. Yeah, yeah. Matt Medeiros And guess what? You have no idea. Like you have no idea about like how those tokens were being used. Like did I really, did it need to use that? It's like the craziest business where there's like you just, it's obscurity. You just send out the message and then it comes back and it just says, yeah, it took me I don't know. It took me 4000 tokens to say hello. And you're like, wait a minute, 4000 tokens for that. What? Here's another thing before before we sign off. So I tried jumping on the open claw bandwagon. Right. Like I think there's maybe you'll agree with me. Like I I think there's, especially in AI, there's, like, bleeding edge, then there's cutting edge, and then there's, like, AI, which is already fairly, like, even the chat of AI is still Not something a lot of people do, and agents, like, in openclaw, that's, like, to me, that's, like, bleeding edge stuff, that's still way out there like it's not as uh stable uh and as Uh you know as smooth as if you just logged into cloud code anyway so i finally i set it up i got it set up and i got busy and i totally forgot about it right i just totally forgot that i had set It up and like four or five days passed and I was like, oh, I got to finish setting up my open clock client or service. And then I connected it up to open router, my open router API for the API. I wasn't using Claude codecs or anything like that. And just idle. The thing just sitting there used like eight million tokens over those 4 or 5 days. Just with like its heartbeat. Just like sitting there doing. Now 8 million tokens sounds like a lot. It's not a lot. But it's just sitting there doing nothing. If I started to chat with it. Try to configure it. Try to get it to do things for me. ([Time 0:49:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f4521896-3586-4abd-8863-9dfded1acd55))