Lime Labs - Web Services with a Twist

How do you help people succeed on the Web? John Enright, VP Marketing & Business Dev’t. of Lime Labs shares a few ideas.

TH: To those who are unfamiliar, what things about the Lime Labs business model or characteristics about the company need to be highlighted?

JE: The goal here at Lime Labs is to provide the best environment for building stuff on the web. Right now, building a robust web presence from scratch is a pretty daunting experience - even if you're a developer. There are a ton of powerful open source apps out there for nearly every type of website (e.g. e-commerce, blog, etc...) but there's no way to easily try them out or get help in customizing them if you need it. We're working on several different services to address this problem and lower the barrier to entry on the web, both in terms of time and money.

TH: Recently, Lime Labs introduced free Web hosting to its portfolio. How is this offer different from the existing solutions on the market? Will customer support and technical assistance be provided for no charge also? Are there upgrades to the complimentary services that will generate revenues to the company?

JE: The primary differentiator with our free hosting service is that there is no catch - we provide a fully functional account that isn't crippled or horrifically slow, and we even include a library of powerful open source apps that you can install and publish in your account. We also don't place any mediatory ads on your site or force you to wade through tons of spam or solicitations from third parties. In short, we provide a risk (and stress) free way to get a functional site up and running on the net. Our hope is simply that you'll buy extra services from us if and when you ever need them.

TH: From your extensive background in the Web hosting industry, are there specific and successful elements from the companies you have worked for that you've introduced at Lime Labs? Without giving away trade secrets, what new ways of conducting business have you witnessed or been involved with at Lime Labs?

JE: I think that any company that focuses on the user experience is bound to succeed. Often times, technology companies get wrapped up in back-end functionality that, while it may be cool and interesting to work on, has no actual impact on the end-user. If you look back at all of the successful hosting companies over the past decade or so (including the ones I've worked at), all of them had something that set them apart in terms of the user experience - whether it was an awesome control panel or great customer service. In our case, the user experience is especially important, because we allow people to experience our service before they become paying customers. That's great for our users - they only pay if they're delighted with our product and successful on the web - but it puts extra pressure on us to make sure our users are delighted and successful - which is as it should be.

TH: Lime Labs also operates in India. Generally speaking, is the customer base (or mix) different than the North American operation? Does your company take a different market approach or employ a different product/service mix to address customers in other regions?