As we wrap up another year at Hostek, we want to take a moment to thank our customers and partners for trusting us with what matters most—your websites, applications, and businesses. From everyday uptime to behind-the-scenes problem-solving, our team works hard to keep your hosting reliable, secure, and stress-free. To share a bit more about the people who make that happen, we’re excited to sit down with Joshua Brown, for a behind-the-scenes look at leadership, culture, and what’s ahead for the new year.
Tasha- “Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me, Josh. Welcome to our holiday, Christmas ,and New Years greetings blog post employee spotlight. Let’s get started. Tell us about yourself, your role at the company at Hostek, and how long you’ve been with us”
Josh – “So I started October 1st of last year, so 2024. I was brought on for a four-month contract to help fix the support department, and that was supposed to be it. But after we did such a good job in most cases, there were still, of course, a few things we missed, but mostly, we got it fixed up pretty good. They offered me a chance to stay on for a full year contract to do the same for the rest of the North American brands at Miss Group. We did that, and then just recently, they offered me a permanent position to run all operations for North America. After getting to know the people here, especially the cold fusion customer community, and just some of the customers in general, the loyalty of both the staff and the customers really impressed me, to a level of stuff that I haven’t seen in over a decade. I’ve bounced between seven companies since 2019. Previously before that, I was with a company for 7 years. That was the last time I saw this sort of level of loyalty and it was intriguing to say the least. And so, here we are.”
Tasha- “I can definitely agree. I really appreciate that answer and it resonates with me for sure because I remember first coming on, I didn’t know what to expect, or what the environment was gonna be like. It’s very, special and so thank you for sharing that. What’s a typical day look like as the North America’s Operations Director?”
Josh- “Well, I can tell you there is no such thing as a typical day for your North American Operations Director ha ha. The closest I can get to a normal day would start with looking at my calendar to see what meetings I have and make sure I’m prepared for them. And then I go through chats to make sure my staff’s taken care of. And then emails to make sure our customers are taken care of. That takes about an hour or so which results in a massive notepad file. Which then organizes my day, what I need to do, in order to make sure all those meetings go smoothly, to make sure all the demands are met. What isn’t critical that can be moved to the next day if necessary. My job is obviously not an 8 hour a day, 5 day a week job, so, you know, there’s those nights where I, I catch up on some of those non-critical things and make sure that everybody’s just taken care of. So, no, there is no such thing as a typical day in this job, unfortunately, but that’s also what’s exciting about it.”
Tasha- “Hey, that’s honest. I agree. Now, let me ask you, what is something the Hostek team does really well that you don’t think we talk about enough?”
Josh – “I think, especially our Junior staff members do a great job of going the extra mile for the customers when time allows. For the customers reading this, I wanna make sure that they understand we are always willing to go above and beyond for you when time allows. There are, of course, going to be those busy times where that’s not possible, and it’s not a slight against you guys. It’s just, that’s when we have to hold to the line of what we can and can’t do. Our senior members, they are really great about when I ask them to join a meeting with a customer, regardless if it’s a $5 a month or a $5000 a month customer. I would, I wish we could do more of those with the $5 a month ones, but we’re getting there, and we will continue to get there. And then, of course, my management team is just all rock stars. They have done so much more than what a typical management team would be asked to do during this massive overhaul, and they’ve done so without any complaint. So even though they probably have a dartboard of my face at home, they don’t say that publicly, which is all that I can really ask for. So, I think it is our commitment to going above and beyond when possible that sets us apart.”
Tasha- “Yes, yes. that is a great, point, and I can recognize that from all factions, as you mentioned. Wonderful. Well, before we go into a little bit more personal, let me just ask you, what are you most happy with that you’ve accomplished at Hostek so far?”
Josh – “ This is not a slight on our customers whatsoever, but our employee satisfaction rate going up 25% in less than a year, was probably the thing I’m most proud of. Our customer satisfaction has gone up the same amount. But given what you guys had gone through before I got here, to be able to turn it around that quickly for you guys, I think was the best thing that I did. Not to mention getting us all together, and fighting with the board to get that money to make that happen. That’s the type of stuff I love to do because you guys did come through and showed them that it was worth it to do something like that.”
Tasha -“Right, and you had the results to back it up for sure. All right, well, let’s get a little bit more fun topic, a little bit about you. Do you have any pets you can tell us about?
Josh- “ Oh jeez, I’m surprised it took this long to talk about Mr.Max. Yes, Mr. Max has been with me for Just about 10 years now. He is a 50 pound to 55 pound lab basset hound mix. And he’s the true brains behind the operation because he will actually put his head on my laptop if I’m trying to work too long, and he’ll be like, nope, you’re not doing that. And he’ll make sure I get away from the desk as well. So without him, I’m probably dead at this point. So Max is the real brains behind everything.”
Tasha -”Yeah, that kind of follows up my next question, but I guess you basically answered it. I was gonna ask, how often does Max interrupt your day, but it sounds like he’s directing your day.”
Josh –“He’s the director. He’s the true director of the day, yes. He’s very good though. He, they say pets take after their owners. He’s very relaxed and calm, you know, I’m, I very rarely, even when it’s good times or bad times, I try to stay as level as possible. He’s the same way. And maybe too personal, but I definitely have a bladder on me. I, you know, I can, I can go for a road trip and wait until the gas runs out before I have to go. And he’s pretty much the same way. If he sees me really into it, he will not bug me. He’ll wait until he sees the opportunity, and then he’ll give a little nudge.”
Tasha “Wonderful. Well, let me ask you cause we around the team at Hostek know that you’re moving soon back to Florida. After enduring some time in the colder states, what’s your favorite uniquely Florida thing that you secretly love and what’s the thing about Florida that you wish you could trade in?”
Josh – “The thing I secretly love about Florida, well, it’s very similar to here, where I grew up in Allentown. There’s New York City, Philly, DC, Pittsburgh, Boston, Atlantic City, Niagara Falls. All of these places are within 3 or 4 hours of you. It’s kind of the same thing about where I live in Saint Pete, Florida. There’s Orlando, there’s Miami, there’s Jacksonville, and so many other cities that you can go to without having to fly. It’s, you know, a 2 or 3-hour drive. So even when you’re getting bored or monotonous, it doesn’t take much to get away. And obviously, I think everybody would say the same thing. If Florida didn’t have 3 months of hell, it would be the perfect place to live. But we sacrifice that 3 months of hell for 9 months of beautiful.”
Tasha – “Yes, yes, I could agree as a fellow Floridian. What’s the craziest location you’ve ever worked? You know, us being remote workers, most of the time, you can find us in strange places cause we gotta get the job done. What’s yours?”
Josh – “I have worked…. I have taken meetings while walking onto a plane. I have taken meetings from the gate. I am available until the last second that WiFi is no longer available on a plane. But then on the plane, I am completely unplugged. That’s the one thing I always keep to. Not at Hostek but back in my 20’s, I would very often be seen with a laptop at the bar. When I was a CTO, those days are 24/7, 365. You always have to be on call and it was not uncommon to see me with a laptop behind the bar, while enjoying a couple of drinks and fixing the websites of the many around the world.”
Tasha- “Of the many, of course. Thank you for that little interlude into your personal life. Let’s just get back to host tech for a second. What’s one thing we’re doing next year that you think really elevates the customer experience?”
Josh – “Well, one thing that we’re going to do, barring an emergency is bring back phone support for our shared customers. It’s a very big deal, you know, we didn’t advertise that it was ever going to come back because I wasn’t even sure myself. I wanted to see how things go. But we’ve done a pretty good job of getting the infrastructure done in the back end, up to date. We’ve set expectations. That has been not easy for a lot of our customers to understand, but we’ve done it in a way where we don’t BS our customers. We’re perfectly honest with them, and we make sure they know what they should expect for what they’re paying. So being able to bring back phone support for them, of course, with some caveats, is definitely one thing I’m looking forward to, so that everybody has that phone contact available to them. The other thing that’s really gonna set us apart again, is just being able to offer some more complex setups. We’ve had customers that need some really cool things that I have experience with doing. There’s a couple of people here who have had experience with it. And we’ve gone through some extensive training, and we’ve actually started offering a lot of those things to our current customer base, but we’re gonna start offering them publicly as well. And I’m excited to, see what kind of new customers that brings in for us, new friendships, new relationships, new business partnerships. You know that’s always my big thing is they’re not customers to us, they’re partners. Once we get those expectations set properly, and they know what to expect, we can truly be partners to our customers.”
Tasha- “ That sounds really exciting and I’m sure the shared customers are excited too. You know, just have that feature back and I’m sure they appreciate you always having them in mind. All of our customers, you know, I definitely have seen, such a tremendous growth in this company, and since you’ve been here, and we’re really are happy you’re here, and I’m sure you know that because we’re always kissing your behind.”
Josh –“ Ha ha ha”
Tasha -”No, I’m just joking, but all right, thanks for sharing all this, but I do have a few questions from the Hostek team directly themselves, and you told them to not spare anything, so here we go.”
Josh – “I did.”
Tasha – “One of them being, what’s one support myth customers believe that you wish you could gently retire forever?”
Josh – “I’ve been doing hosting for 25 years. It’s the only career I’ve ever had, and other than for 6 months during COVID where I sold cars, believe it or not, very successfully, by the way, this is all I’ve ever done. All I can tell you is that the hosting industry that we all knew and loved from 2005 and even 2015 just doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a harsh reality that, you know, security is now the top expense at every company, whereas security wasn’t even a line item on the budget. I mean, maybe at the very bottom, back in those days. And yet, those costs, in addition to, you know, power, and transit, and space, have gone so far up. And yes, we do, we do raise prices here and there. There was a major one last year, of course, to try to right size a little bit, but even still, our costs went up way more than that. So, if there was one thing I wish we could always get across is that “it worked this way a year ago”, just isn’t a viable statement anymore in this industry. And yet, I still think we do a great job of trying to go above and beyond when we can. So, It’s one of those things when something is critical to a person, you sometimes still have to level set with them. And it doesn’t always go perfectly, but I like to think that 99% of the time, the fact that we’re honest and upfront sets us apart rather than having to go back and say, yeah, we sold you that, but we can’t really do that. I’m actually really proud of the fact that I’ve never had to say that to anything I’ve sold yet. So, I hope the customers appreciate that. And for the ones who don’t listen, everybody’s got to make the best decisions for themselves and their business. And so we, of course, hold no hard feelings if that sort of setup doesn’t work for them.”
Tasha – “Agreed. Alright. I got a funny one for you here. If web hosting had a reality TV show, what would be your job title and who would get voted off first?”
Josh – “Well, I would be the.. The uhh.., we met the Product evangelist for Adobe Cold Fusion in Vegas. And this is a very fun guy who gets a lot done, and I like to think of myself in a very similar way. Who would get voted off first? Oh boy. There’s no way this question ends up well, but I said I would, I said I would answer it, so. I gotta go with the obvious one just because her and I give each other crap every single day, and I think it actually makes our jobs easier. So I think just for our mental sanity, I would vote myself and Kelsey off at the same time, just to make sure that at least I have somebody to jump over the edge with.”
Tasha – “Nice, like a Survival type elimination.”
Josh- “But I will also say that Kelsey has done an amazing job for us. She’s been promoted as often as I have since I’ve been here, and she’s deserved it. And she’s now heading the Cold fusion team and doing an excellent job at it. So, hopefully, we don’t get into that scenario. And then if, if there was a backup, I’d probably go with Vlad, just because for the same, just for the same reason, we give each other crap every day. And I think if I had to jump over the edge with somebody, it’d be one of those two. There you go.”
Tasha – “And then some are asking ….where your hair went.”
Josh – “ha ha. My hair ha ha.“
Tasha- “This is what they asked haha.”
Josh –“During my last promotion at Host Gator, before going to become a CTO at a different company, was probably where the hair started going and eventually went. That was when I adopted the saying that I don’t do anything halfway. And I certainly don’t. But I’m just not the type that can have something open on the task list at the end of the day. Either there has to be a plan for it to get done or it has to be done. So, when I started being like that, when I first had that management job, that was pretty much the end of the hair. “
Tasha – “Well, you’re lucky because you wear the bald well. Some people, you know, it’s, it’s kind of like, whoa. You wear it well, you know, you got the Vin Diesel going on.”
Josh – “It, it took me about a year to commit to shaving the rest of the head off. I had. That little side crap going on, and it looked horrible. But everybody kept saying, Well, you don’t know what your head actually looks like underneath the hair. So, I actually gave in to that scare tactic. But then one night, I finally just said, I’m doing it. And it turned out it doesn’t look too bad.”
Tasha – “Yeah, no, not at all. All right, one last one for you and I’ll let you go off with any comments you want to end with. Are we going to have a manager’s meeting in Florida the summer of 2026? Ha ha”
Josh – “Ha ha. Oh, a manager’s meeting. So that narrows it down as to who would have asked that. OK. It will… I’ll put it this way, we’re obviously going to have a Tulsa meetup right around the same time as the ColdFusion summit, which I actually just got an email about today. It’s in June this year. So we will be heading to Tulsa in June. Which leaves open the possibilities for a fall or early winter meetup in Florida, which basically just means early summer, late spring type weather. That either, you know, if we have a really good year, it could be for everybody. If we have a decent year, it could be for all managers, or it could just be on a reward basis. We.. we don’t know. We’ve got a lot of cool things coming. We’re gonna go to that summit in Vegas. I believe they’re having one in DC as well. I’m just waiting to hear. We’re gonna do one event in the UK. We don’t know what event that’s going to be yet. So if any customers are reading this and have a suggestion, please reach out. and then a 4th one to be determined based on how those three go. So, all I would say to that is stay tuned and start selling some stuff, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Tasha -“Well, to wrap it up, do you have anything you wanna say to our customers or to our family? Any goals or any holiday plans, anything you wanna end this interview with? “
Josh –“Yeah, so, I mean, our personal family tradition is that we just make breakfast tacos together and eat those in our pajamas Christmas morning, so nothing crazy there. For our employee family, for all of Miss Group North America, just thank you for a great year. And to our customers, even the ones that I haven’t gotten a chance to speak with yet, stick with us. The best is still yet to come, as I said in the most recent newsletter. Make sure you’re reading those, and our blog. We’re gonna start really communicating a lot more over these channels. And hopefully, this puts a nice little personal touch to me in case you ever you need to talk to me, at least you know there’s a real person behind the curtain.”
Tasha -“Awesome. All right, and that’s a wrap! Thank you, Josh.”
Well you heard it here folks! We have a lot in store for all of our users at Hostek and we thank you all for sticking by us whether new and getting to know our family or you if you have been with us for years as a valued part of our community at Hostek.
Joke of the month
What’s a web host’s favorite holiday snack?
Byte-sized cookies!