Matt Heaton is one of eight children. His father died young, leaving Heaton's mother to raise her children alone.

But the owner and chief executive officer of Provo-based BlueHost also is fiercely determined to succeed and to excel — and not just in business.

Heaton loves Ping-Pong, but he goes way beyond playing regularly. He reads books about Ping-Pong. He watches videos about Ping-Pong. He requests practices with Ping-Pong players high in the sport's worldwide rankings. He competes every year in national Ping-Pong tournaments and is determined to get better each time.

Heaton brought that same focus and drive to his business career, starting at age 17 when he began selling computers over bulletin board systems, mailing out products from the basement of his home. That endeavor helped Heaton's family and, eventually, hundreds of employees who worked for him as the company expanded.

After selling that business, Heaton turned his interests to Internet-based projects. A fan of open-source programs, he began with a free hosting service that was supported by online advertising.

Over time, however, he felt that business model was not sustainable and, in 2003, started a new hosting company with a different model: charging reasonable subscription fees for hosting, and providing such good customer service that clients would want to continue with the service.

Heaton employs 250 customer service reps in a department that's open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and the company has hundreds of thousands of subscribers hosting more than 1 million Web sites.