INNOVATORS VS COVID 19

HostGoi: Helping Small Business Owners During COVID19

Published

3 years ago

02/11/2021

Kokou Adzo

We talked to Natan Ray on how HostGoi makes sure websites are fast, secure & always up and this is what he had to say about it.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Natan Ray: Thanks for asking. Luckily we’re all safe in this COVID19 pandemic. After the announcement of the national lockdown, I restricted myself from getting outside for non-essential reasons. I wore a mask, keeping social distancing, and taking other necessary precautions. Thankfully, during this lockdown, all my family members and I took leave for some days from work, spending time together after many years.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded HostGoi?

Natan Ray: Born and raised in West Bengal, India, until age 18, moved to study Science in Uttrakhand, India. To start, I’ve always had a business spirit with me. Early days, I did freelancing projects, created small business websites, design works for various businesses, and, you know, doing whatever I can as a youngster to get some extra cash in hand. I also worked remotely with some web hosting companies as a DevOps Engineer, which allowed me to gain some essential industry experience, which helped me start HostGoi. Today I am the CEO, and Founder of HostGoi Technologies Pvt. Ltd. We are a fully managed cloud hosting and Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider.

How does HostGoi innovate?

Natan Ray: Innovation is in our DNA. HostGoi has very dynamic, scalable, and fully managed services that could be used by any SME owner regardless of their business sector; as long as they required a solution for online presence, HostGoi is there to help them. We listen carefully to our customers’ needs, and we are continuously building new features for different markets; we are pushing boundaries every day.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Natan Ray: COVID19 made a radical transformation in people across the world. Online businesses were significantly impacted. While some are seeing sales plummet, others are struggling to cope with growing demand. But we have found, the online marketplace is rapidly changing in the current circumstances. The pandemic forced us to close our office for at least four months, and the entire team had to manage all our tasks remotely. We organized more online events than ever before, together with our clients, where many live events were canceled. While COVID19 financially affected most of the offline sectors, we have decided to decrease our services’ prices by at least one-half so that the SMEs struggling for growth can take advantage of it and shift their business online.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Natan Ray: As an entrepreneur, I make tough decisions almost every day. The hardest lesson we learned as a team was to work remotely. When does the workday start? End? Creating a hard line between work/home is tough. And when personal life and work are both under the same roof, it’s harder to switch off. However, this was a great experience for all of us, and we are changing our operating model as a result. And now we can say, we are now more efficient to work remotely than ever before.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?

Natan Ray: Stress and anxiety are part of human life. This is how I react to it and how I handle the situation that differentiates us. I do daily workouts, listen to podcasts, and read books. And when our company touches a new height of success, I don’t forget to celebrate! That’s how I can control stress and anxiety.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Natan Ray: You can say all the companies offering web hosting services. The hosting industry is pretty crowded, and some big players are dominating the market. It means, by applying strategy and increasing our network, we can make a place for ourselves. Although we believe in our services, people will recommend our service to their network if the quality is excellent. We target specific audiences who are mostly small business owners, and we will continue to help them make their online presence, which separates us from the crowd.

Your final thoughts?

Natan Ray: When we look back on the years in the industry which we’ve passed away, we’re proud to say, not only most of our employees but also a lot of clients have been with us since the very beginning. We are grateful that many clients seek our services to empower their vision. We remain to expand our portfolio, do our research in this innovative industry, and keep offering the best, reliable hosting solutions that will be best in the industry. Lastly, there is no better time to strengthen our bonds, to stand together (digitally), to help each other through this storm (COVID 19), and come out the other side stronger.