Self-employed with Keolia Broadband at 19 Years Old

Hello!

My name's Josh from Rotherham, UK. One of my greatest ambitions since I was young was to start my own ISP within UK. I'm not too sure whether or not this is the right forum to post this on here, as I've seen so many different categories on here that would fit in quite well with this post.

I started my first business when I was 14 originally which was nothing more than a Web Design business creating websites for school friends and family. After progressing through the years up towards the age of 16, I was working from home and developing websites for UK businesses.

I've only just turned 19 very recently and for the last year and a half I have been redeveloping my core business and I have revamped and recently re-launched my business as the only ISP based within the Rotherham area. I believe the closest local based ISP to where I live is Plusnet in Sheffield.

My company now offers a portfolio of different connectivity options for SMB's including ADSL2+ Broadband, FTTC Broadband, Leased Lines connections.

I have still decided to keep my original core services within the website such as Linux & Windows Hosting, Dedicated Servers and Web Design services.

I'm not too sure whether or not I can post the link to the website on here, but the name of my company is Keolia.

I would appreciate your feedback in regards to the website I've launched. I will be publicising the business through my local chamber of commerce and also through a 3 month radio campaign on my local radio station. Although, if anyone else has any suitable routes to market, then that would be gladly appreciated.

My ideal focus to begin with is to target small businesses within my local area such as business centres, family operated businesses and hotels. I understand that competing with the dominant providers would be extremely difficult. Although, I believe reaching out and finding my own customers would be the best way forward to begin with.

One of our greatest advantages is that our bespoke control panel has been specifically designed to manage all our services within one control panel. We decided not to use cPanel for our hosting solutions. Instead, we thought it would be great to have an all-in-one bespoke control panel that allows clients to manage all their services from one central location.

I'd really appreciate any feedback that you have to share in regards to the website that I've designed. It has taken me near enough a year, but I'd thought i'd share it here to see what your opinions are.

Thanks,

Josh.

I notice it's a Non-Trading company.

Hi Josh,

Nice-looking website, but a couple of nasties. (As well as the fact you can't really make a post like yours at all on this site, so don't be surprised if it gets deleted).

Your Blog/Press Release pages are of course currently empty, with the Press Release one looking to me to give the same entry and page title. I suggest it would be better to remove the links and restore one or both as they acquire content.

More importantly:-

Get broadband & phone for £14.95 for the first 3 months! Order any unlimited broadband plan & line rental with keolia and pay nothing for the first 3 months, just line rental at £14.95 each month! (Subject to a 12 month contract)

I think you have forgotten there that you offer Fibre (FTTC) which could cost you an arm and a leg, quite apart from the 18-month Openreach minimum term.

If you have costed it out and are happy with that offer for that product, (several ISPs do offer 12-month minimum terms for FTTC), I apologise for doubting you .

That's only as at the last Company Return though . I'm not sure if they have to make an interim declaration if they start trading. Duedil in fact shows them as Active, strangely at odds with Companies House.

The next Company Return is due by 5 April.

@BatBoy,

Thanks for noticing this for me. I originally incorporated the business when I was around the age of 15/16 and then after a period of time, we started trading under a new name (LittleBigStartup Ltd - Hence the reason for why Keolia is non-trading) as myself and my business partner wasn't sure of the name "Keolia" at the time. Although, we took a liking on the name again late last year, as it's quite hard to come across distinctive names that are short and unique.

I will need to update my trading status with HMRC tomorrow and will post back on here with a further update as I'm not too sure how long it takes for the trading status to change after they have been notified of my situation.

Thanks for raising that though, otherwise I would of completely missed it!

Josh.

In reference to ukprnewswire.com/beyondpr/2011/10/03/joshua-blows-keolia%E2%80%99s-...:

The new firm specialises in web hosting, domain names and script installations and can already boast several prominent local clients � the Rotherham MP Denis MacShane, among others.

Oops
Is he still a customer, even though he's been jailed?

HMRC, or Companies House?

Hi RobertoS,

Thanks for your positive feedback regarding the website. Much appreciated!

In regards to your query about our offer which I'm guessing is the one on the homepage? This offer applies to only standard ADSL2+ 21CN Broadband plans in appose to our FTTC plans.

We have mentioned this offer in the slideshow as it states that it applies to all plans excluding Fibre. Although, I'm glad you've mentioned it as this is something I need to rectify within the offer banners.

Thanks again,

Josh.

When I was 16, I regrettably designed his website as he was the MP for my home town of Rotherham at the time. Although, we reached out when I first formed Keolia, as a way of getting local exposure within the Rotherham area, to see if there was any marketing that we could receive through my local MP. The article you see there should be dated back some time ago.

That was when Keolia was just a web design business. It's only recently I have looked in to expanding in to the Broadband and Telecom services.

Also, I will need to contact Companies House to reissue the trading status of the business. I have kept the accounts and tax returns up to date since though.

Thanks,

Josh.

Yes, though strangely I was looking at the offer near the bottom of your Home Page, having come in through google, and wasn't aware of the slideshow at all. The offer at the bottom was aligned perfectly in my screen giving no hint of anything above.

Though dumbo me now notices the scroll bar at the right well down. D'oh!

I can't recreate that situation.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 06-Mar-14 23:56:22)

I'm annoyed you discriminate against IE8 for no practical reason. It's my lookout not yours if it can't display everything, particularly as your site is not particularly demanding.

Good luck in your new venture .

Urm when was Openreach FTTC an 18 month contract at the wholesale level?

Being kind, you got away with that post, but self-promotion as in an advert is not allowed.

Otherwise the 1000's of others doing the same as you and reselling white label services from wholesale providers would flood the place.

@MrSaffron,

Ah apologies! I originally posted this topic on a complete different forum asking for feedback regarding my website and they advised me to post on Think Broadband and a website called Critique? I think?

I just saw the forum "Resellers and Other Providers" and thought it was somewhere other resellers and providers could post their business Please remove the topic though, if it should cause any confliction!

In regards to IE8, we are working on a version that does support that browser. It's just that with the timescale we had to launch the website, we didn't have enough time within the end to fix the issues we had within the Bootstrap framework to make it 100% compatible with IE8. There will be a version for it soon though!

Also @RobertOs & @BatBoy,

I have spoken with Companies House this morning regarding the trading status of my business. They said that my company will return as a trading status after my next set of accounts have been filed (Providing that I display relevant figures). However, they have advised me it's still perfectly fine to continue to trade even with the dormant accounts.

Thanks, Josh.

Edited by deleted (Fri 07-Mar-14 14:12:05)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Urm when was Openreach FTTC an 18 month contract at the wholesale level?

When I had a brain-fade.