Krystal Bonds, “Koru” and turning twenty!

Hello Customer,

This year promises to be our most exciting yet. Here’s why.

Krystal Bonds - we need your feedback

We believe that the way we do business is better than our competitors, but to match their deep pockets and keep innovating in the UK we need to raise capital.

Don’t worry - we're not selling the company.

We want to include our clients and partners on our journey but without compromising on our ethics. So instead of offering equity we’re thinking about offering interest-bearing “Krystal Bonds” with priority given to existing clients.

This would be a great way for us to raise money that we can use to hire additional staff in the marketing and software development team (Krystal Labs). It would also help us buy hardware to fuel Katapult’s growth (and save on expensive equipment financing).

We’d love your feedback to guide how that offer might look. More than 500 people responded to our first survey. We now have another survey and would appreciate your input. To learn more about what we’re thinking, including answers to some frequently asked questions and to help shape the proposal please check out the latest survey.

Got questions? Pop on to the Krystal Discord Community or just reply to this email.

Introducing “Koru", a new hosting experience

cPanel was acquired by WebPros (who also own Plesk) in 2018. In just over 3 years they’ve jacked up prices 3 times (which we’ve absorbed on behalf of web hosting clients) and at the same time very few meaningful features have been released.

We haven’t particularly enjoyed being at the whim of an international monopoly, facing increasing costs for a stagnant service. Nor has the rest of the industry. We’re quietly confident that our own development team that built DeployHQ, Onyx, Katapult, Dial 9 and Sirportly can provide a fresh outlook to what has become a rather dated and stale experience.

So, we have decided to build our own hosting experience from the ground up, “Koru”, which promises to be a game changer for Krystal clients and perhaps in time the wider hosting market. Here’s an early teaser from the Labs team:

Just so you know: we intend to run cPanel as an option alongside Koru for as long as it’s viable, and you will be able to choose which control panel and experience you want for each of your sites. (We’re not forcing users over to Koru - we just need a predictable alternative whose quality we can control if cPanel continues to stagnate.)

We’ll be recruiting for beta testing later in the year, so keep an eye out for your invite. In the meantime, you can get the inside scoop and have input on all Koru developments (and other Krystal services) by joining our community.

The big 2-0!

Incredibly, September 2022 also marks two decades since I founded Krystal! We’re planning something BIG for this one, (Covid permitting) and you’re all invited! :) We’re not revealing too much at this point, but let’s just say it might be prudent to start ironing your Lederhosen!*

It might sound odd to say after nearly two decades but it really feels like we’re just getting started. Krystal is improving at a phenomenal rate, and we couldn’t do it without your patronage. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Please don’t forget to take 2 minutes to fill out the Krystal Bonds survey and share your thoughts to help us with the next stage of our growth.

As always, please get in touch if you'd like to talk.

Thank you for reading,

Simon Blackler - Founder & CEO (LinkedIn)
* This was a test! If you own Lederhosen you know not to iron them!