Editor’s Note: This interview was meant to have go out about 3 months ago, when Ahmad Mukoshy decided to re-brand Aimtech, a web hosting company, to Gigalayer. Why did he decide to do this? At what cost? And what followed afterwards? These and more were the questions we asked the young startup founder. Check out his escaped on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and his Blog.
OTEKBITS (O): Background information about Ahmad Mukoshy.
Ahmad Mukoshy (Mukoshy): I was born in Sokoto, Nigeria. I also grew up, studied and live in Sokoto. I studied Physics at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto graduated with 2nd honors I am a web developer and entrepreneur as a hobby. I am 22 years old and I run a few start-ups. I am the founder of Aimtech Hosting Company, and have also worked on a number of projects, more about that on my personal site .
O: What’s the Story behind Aimtech – why establish such a company, and how was the response been?
Mukoshy: Aimtech is a web hosting company which I founded in 2007 after my secondary school at the age of 17. I’ve been building websites since 2005 as a hobby. I started getting a number of people asking for my service, so I started providing hosting/domain registering for them through third-party hosting companies, until I decided to start my own hosting business out of frustration from insufficient level of control with third-party hosting providers back then.
When I started Aimtech in February 2007, I also registered the company with Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria before commencing business. That also energized me to treat the business as a standard company and not a hobby anymore.
The response was awesome; Aimtech became a profitable business in its first 3 months of operation and has been growing since then.
O. So you decided to re-brand from Aimtech to Gigalayer- why and at what cost?
Mukoshy: Yes, I decided to re-brand after a long chain of challenges trying to do so. The main reason why I re-branded was because I wanted a more memorable name than Aimtech NG which is also internationally marketable, looking at the future plans for the company.
I actually tried all my best to acquire the domain aimtech.com from a UK based company which has already folded, but the company wouldn’t sell its domain even with an offer of $2,500 (raised mainly for that purpose). After about 2 years of battling to get the aimtech domain, I managed to get aimtech.net from a domain company in Hong Kong.
I tried to see how the .net will fit into my business, but I knew .com was the big hit. So I went on to search for a better domain name, until I got gigalayer.com owned by a folded web hosting company, I got the domain registered and acquired the twitter handle @gigalayer with the help of third-party in auction and negotiations with the owner.
O: What developments and reactions came with re-branding?
Mukoshy: I will say I am really impressed with the customer reactions after re-branding, lots of customers told me they love the new name and the new website. Some of the strategies I used to ensure a smooth and perfect rebranding were:
- To keep the company name Aimtech Hosting Company and use gigalayer.com as a trademark instead, in order to avoid misinterpretation with an acquisition or a whole new company.
- To make sure we improve the quality of services rendered on aimtechng.com both in products and in support so that customers will be happier with the transition.
- To improve on the brand’s image online and all aspects of its relationships.
These have really helped us in growing the company, and I am glad to say the growth rate has drastically improved after the change of domain.
O: What’s the set up, Revenue, Team, Target Market, and major source of expenditure or running cost?
Mukoshy: I consider our revenue and team to be confidential information, but I can talk about our target markets which are start-ups, small/medium sized companies and hopefully in the future large corporations.
We are currently positioning our business to perfectly suit the likes of entry level site owners, web developers and companies that require a minimal server configuration. On the other hand, we also provide virtual server hosting for those in need of an above shared hosting configuration and server resources.
We will also be looking into expansions as our market penetration grows.
O: Other ventures that you are into
Mukoshy: I am currently focusing on Gigalayer, all other ventures I work on for now are secondary to me. However, I would like to mention that I have other ventures on the low profile.
And what do you do outside business-as-usual?
I do some minimal freelance jobs. I also work part-time on experimental jobs. I also study a lot about business, entrepreneurship and productivity which I share what I learn on twitter and on my personal blog. When I am not working, I love to watch movies and hang-out with friends.
