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Comment by rom1v | Hacker News Reader

If you want to (also) backup remotely (the server don't have access to encrypted data), I would recommend some borg-specific hosts:

- Rsync.net: https://www.rsync.net/

- BorgBase: https://www.borgbase.com/

- Lima-Labs: https://storage.lima-labs.com/

- others?

(I'm not affiliated in any way, I'm just a client of one of them.)

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Hetzner's "storage box" product also supports Borg backups:

https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box

Thanks! I had no idea, this is going to simplify my backups a lot.

I use Time4vps storage boxes. They are the best deal I could find. I have a 1TB one that I've used for a couple years.<br>

https://www.time4vps.com/?affid=1881&_ga=2.61032364.12812044... - (referral link)

https://www.time4vps.com no affiliate link for time4vps

Mhm, BorgBase looks a bit fishy.

It is based in Malta, but why? For "tax efficiency"? They share the office address with [1] and the CEO of the parent company PeakFord[2] seems to be a CEO-for-hire[3].

Their GDPR page[4] mentions that they are not based in the EU and want to use the German privacy regulator. Malta is very much part of the EU.

[1]: https://opes.com.mt/corporate-services/ [2]: https://www.peakford.com/about/ [3]: https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/56060344 [4]: https://www.borgbase.com/gdpr

BorgBase founder here. All correct what you found. I started the company from the US via YC startup school in 2018, but later decided to place myself in Europe again. Hence moving the incorporation to the EU made sense. My director is handling the commercial aspect, like VAT, taxes and banking. Myself, I maintain our open source projects like Vorta, our Ansible role and macOS packaging for Borg.

Hope this helps to clear your reservations. I should update our GDPR page with regard to the regulator. That's outdated by now.

Thanks for the reply. I guess a tech person not wanting to have anything to do with bureaucracy just looks similar to an attempt at tax evasion from the outside.

Do you have any advice for a technical 1-dev-army who wants to expand out to a small product-focused team and outsource (most of) the commercial and sales aspects to a partner?

Thanks for being a class act, based just on your presence here I might go Borg for a backup solution in the near future

Such a big question.. Here from least to most involved based on my experience:

If you only need incorporation, accounting and taxes solved, you can just pay ~hourly. Price will depend on time spent. Budget more in the beginning to find a good setup that will save time later. Accountants generally know very little about automation opportunities, so you need to find them yourself.

For sales positions, I'd always go for results-based compensation (like awarding equity as results are reached).

If the person does more than pure sales, you need a non-tech cofounder with some equity and the task to build commercial processes, do sales, decide features.

What you need will depend very much on your own skills and the product. Some stories: For my first startup, a physical consumer product, I had an equal partner with complementary skills who was very involved in product dev and sales. This worked well.

Later, in two other startups, I had technical cofounders and there was nobody to do sales and collect feedback. Worked less well obviously.

Hope this helps a bit and good luck with your idea!

"Mhm, BorgBase looks a bit fishy."

I don't think it is - it has been around for several years and appears to be completely legit.

CEO is based in Hong Kong (I think) and appears to be more "international" than perhaps you or I are. He is relatively active here and on reddit.

I hope to call him up and meet for a drink next time I am building things in HK ...

You're awesome for defending one of your competitors like this.

Wow! Thanks for the kind words and reference!! Much appreciated. :-)) Will PM for drinks and to link up. I still love how friendly everyone in IT and around backups specifically is.

More international for sure. But with Covid last year and offspring on the way this year, we are looking to spend more time in Europe closer to family. Hence the change of incorporation earlier this year.

Customer for several years of Borgbase here. I can assure you the service and the support are very good, and Manu does a good job. Would recommend.

Same here, I'm using them since 6 months and I'm very happy with the service, support is great as well :)

Multi year user here, nothing but good experiences with them.

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