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Let’s face it, web hosts are a dime a dozen – they are everywhere and easy to find. This is because it’s relatively easy to establish a traditional web hosting business. So lots of people do, and end up running passionless, mediocre “me too” businesses, with no clear differentiation. The fundamental reason why Hilenium is different, is because of WHY we are in this business.

Start With Why

If you are in marketing, or are a business entrepreneur, you have probably heard of Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. If you haven’t, I strongly recommend you watch the video before reading further. 

In summary, the Golden Circle says that great organisations start by first addressing why they exist, then they look at how they go about their business, before finally addressing what they actually do. It looks like this:

My Why

I have worked in senior marketing and tech roles for years, and I vividly recall watching this video for the first time. It had a profound impact on me, not just from a professional perspective but also personally. I realised that I hadn’t been focused on the why in my career. Instead, I was just focused on the what (e.g. “I’m in marketing”); I didn’t really know why I was “in marketing”. 

From that moment, I was determined to do something I really loved, something I was passionate about, to focus on the why. The only issue was, at that time, I didn’t actually know what that was…

What Drives Us

Years later, after working together on a number of highly technical projects, Julian Drake and I had an epiphany. Over a casual chat we realised that the thing that gave us most enjoyment at work and also in our hobbies was tweaking, refining and improving things – making things work better and run faster.

In retrospect, it was pretty obvious. Julian is an engineer by trade who is obsessed with all things mechanical and making things better. I’m a technical marketer who prefers the measurable aspects of marketing, website design, SEO and optimisation. We are also both avid cyclists and love pushing ourselves to get fit, go fast and run the best gear we can. 

At the heart of it, we realised we are obsessed with maximising potential. 

We’ve both had many years experience working with web designers, developers and web hosts and have noticed that:

• Web designers want your site to look good
• Developers want to get your website built; and
• Web hosts want to make sure their servers are running.

Very rarely, except at the top end of town and technical startups, is anyone responsible for making sure a website reaches its potential. This is crazy given that research consistently demonstrates a clear relationship between website performance and critical metrics, such as conversion rates.

That very day, we decided to establish a performance website hosting business. Not just any old hosting company, but one that is obsessed with making websites reach their potential. We knew we could do it better than pretty much anyone else, simply because it’s what we love doing.

Our Why

Sure, we run great hardware and take security seriously, just like traditional hosts, but these are hygiene factors. Unlike everyone else, we are razor focused on making the sites we host fast and found – keeping them fast and helping make sure they get found.

So, coming back to the Golden Circle, and using the same language Simon Sinek uses to describe Apple, this is how it works for us:

• Why – In everything we do, we believe in making things reach their potential.
• What – The way we make things reach their potential is by improving performance.
• What – And we happen to be great web hosts.

So, not only do you get a fast server with Hilenium, you also benefit from our obsession with maximising potential.

Note: Julian has also written an article from his perspective on why we founded a performance web hosting company.