Liquid Web

Liquid Web, Inc. is a privately held provider of web hosting services based in Lansing, Michigan, United States. The company also has locations in Ann Arbor, MI, Phoenix, AZ, San Antonio Tx, and Amsterdam, NL. They provide dedicated servers, virtual private servers (VPS) servers, Managed WordPress, Platform as a Service, and a wide range of additional hosting products and services. Jim Geiger, has been CEO since 2015.

As of 2017, Liquid Web employs nearly 600 technicians and has been on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing, privately owned US companies for nine years in a row, from 2007 to 2015.Liquid Web powers content, commerce and potential for SMB Entrepreneurs and the designers, developers and digital agencies who create for them. Liquid Web offers a broad portfolio designed so customers can choose a hosting solution that is hands-on or hands-off or a hybrid of the two. The company owns and manages its own data centers providing a diverse range of offerings spanning from bare metal servers and fully managed hosting to managed WordPress and continues to evolve its service offerings to meet the ever-changing needs of its web-reliant, professional customers. With over 30,000 customers spanning 150 countries, the company has assembled a world-class team, global data centers and an expert group of 24/7/365 solution engineers

History

Liquid Web was founded in 1997 by Matthew Hill in Holt, MI at the age of 16. The company grew quickly because of its then-unique focus on always available and responsive customer support.

On May 27, 2015, Liquid Web announced that it had accepted a significant financial investment from Madison Dearborn Partners. In addition to the majority investment by Madison Dearborn, Executive Jim Geiger also invested in the company and was named CEO. The investment was made to accelerate the company's growth and add to its offerings in the web hosting market. CEO, Jim Geiger, stated that he will focus on support further growth for Liquid Web, but will remain dedicated to the company's "core values of unparalleled customer support and hosting solutions."

Heroic Support

The company is well known for their customer support, which was a defining feature in their early days. It offered 24/7 support to customers, even early on in the company’s history at a time when they only had 16 employees. In 2007, their customer support was re-branded as “Heroic Support” and they introduced their “Hero” mascot. In 2012, Liquid Web further expanded their notion of “Heroic Support” with a 59-second response time guarantee to their telephone and chat support. In 2017, the company continues to declare their employees and their fully managed hosting experience as their market differentiation touting that they are “The Most Helpful Humans In Hosting™.

In 2015, Liquid Web announced a best-in-class Net Promoter Score of 74, which indicates the overall satisfaction of their customer base and how many would refer the company to others. In a 2016 interview, CEO Jim Geiger referred to the term Heroic Support as the firm’s “de-facto Brand”.The company continues to lead the industry with best-in-class Net Promoter Score for 2016 of 71.

Products

The company originally offered only shared hosting services, but has since expanded to include dedicated and virtual private servers, a host of add-on products, and managed applications.

In 2009, Liquid Web launched its Storm Platform, a line of cloud servers that provided customers the capability to easily deploy, replace, clone, and increase capacity on a server. In 2017, the product line was renamed from Storm to Cloud. Their Cloud Servers are easily scalable and utilize a fully automated platform developed in house. The Liquid Web Cloud Platform now features VPS, dedicated servers, and private cloud servers, as well as a series of add-ons, including load balancers, block storage, and object storage. The platform has been continually expanding, including new operating systems and providing new regions and geographic redundancy in early 2012.

In 2015, Liquid Web launched its Managed WordPress product, the first in its strategy to add Managed Applications to the product portfolio. In 2016, the company acquired Cloud Sites from Rackspace®, an all-in-one technology platform designed for high-traffic websites with easy scalability.  Strategic to Liquid Web’s mission to power the potential of SMB entrepreneurs and the designer, developer and agencies that create for them, Managed WordPress and the Cloud Sites platform-as-a-service (PaaS) product significantly augments Liquid Web’s portfolio, and adds capabilities to further simplify web hosting and cloud services. 

Locations

Liquid Web maintains five data centers in Lansing, Michigan, the location of the company's headquarters. The first of Liquid Web’s Lansing data centers opened in 2003. Data Center One (DC1) is 5,058 square feet and has a capacity of 2,000 servers. By 2005, the company expanded to a second data center in Lansing (DC2), which has 32,000 square feet and a capacity of 8,000 servers. Their third and largest data center, now their headquarters, was opened in 2009. DC3 is 90,000 square feet and has a capacity of 25,000 servers.

In 2011, Liquid Web expanded its operations to include a location in Phoenix, Arizona, which has a capacity of 2,000 servers. In 2015, a location in Amsterdam, NL was opened. The company also operates a remote office in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In 2016, the company acquired the customers of WiredTree, a hosting provider in Chicago, Il. Additionally, in 2016, Liquid Web purchases the Cloud Sites business unit from Rackspace® which remains in San Antonio.

References

External links

• Liquid Web Website
• Storm Website