10% Raises, No Longer for Sale, and Taking on GoDaddy: HostGator

Web host plans for big growth.

Web hosting firm HostGator has published excerpts of founder Brent Oxley’s recent email to employees. I found it interesting on a number of fronts.

1. The firm is giving its Houston employees a 10% raise immediately. This sounds like what Google recently did. This 10% is on top of any usual raises.

2. HostGator is no longer for sale. Oxley stated he had an end-of-year deadline to sell the firm and he’s taking it off the market.

3. The firm wants to take on GoDaddy. “This next year we will be going directly following GoDaddy’s business. I plan on investing over a million dollars a month into TV commercials. We are going to grow extremely fast, much faster then any growth we’ve ever seen ahead of”.

4. Offer to transfer to Austin. The firm is making a big splash in Austin with the notice of lots of hiring. Now it’s offering any of its Houston employees the option to move to its Austin office.

I think the email is an interesting look at how a fast-growing internet firm is planning for the future.