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Virtual Private Server Hosting vs. Colo + Own Server(s) for Early-Stage Web-App

I'm working on a web-application and need to figure out the best way to host it. I'm looking to minimize "Total Cost of Ownership," but it's more important to keep hosting costs low than labor costs in my case.

Potentially, some day, it will grow quite large (in terms of user-base) with heavy traffic but, of course, it will start out pretty small.

So, does it make sense to start out with a low-end virtual private server hosting plan, grow the server slice until it stops being cheaper than running my own servers, and then buy servers and set them up at a colocation provider, with all the pain of migrating everything,

-OR-

Buy my own server, set it up at a colo provider, and waste most of the server capacity to start, but reduce the pain in scaling from small to large significantly?

Has anybody tried both of these options? Are there pros and cons beyond the ones I'm considering?

Thanks.

Addendum: Thanks for the suggestion, but a shared hosting account probably wouldn't cut it, since I need to run persistent processes and access things like sendmail configuration files. I'm looking at either a VPS or my own server(s).

Are there any pitfalls trying to run DNN on Windows Server 2008 Web Edition?

I am considering switching to a co-located solution running a DNN (DotNetNuke) installation and an email server that mostly just does alias forwarding. I think I can get DNS services outside of this colocation box - but that could be an issue.

I am running this website for a non-profit group and trying to stay inexpensive. Will Windows Server 2008 Web Edition be acceptable for running all of this? My research so far says it will but I am looking for anyone with any experience running web edition and what sort of pitfalls does it have?

I was going to install SQL express as the backend for the DNN site. Indications are that you can't connect to SQL from outside the Web Edition box. Does this include SQL Management studio?

Any assistance or advice on this would be appreciated.

Update:

Still looking for any specifics with Windows Server 2008 Web Edition

Netezza - What is colocation in the perspective of SQL?

I know that colocation is important for distributed joins in Netezza. At a high level, it has the following definition:

All data for joins are located in the same SPU

I also talked to some Netezza employees in the past and they mentioned that a join is considered colocated if all tables distribute and join on the same columns.

However, I still feel that definition is a bit lacking ... Based on my understanding of 1-phase and 2-phase GROUP BY's, I suspect colocation really operates on the following definition:

A join is considered colocated if the set of columns used in the join condition is a superset of the distribution keys of all participating tables.

Is that a correct definition? I tried searching for a precise definition of colocation in NZ but all I got is a bunch of articles that kinda assume you know the definition already.

Input on this would be appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: Based on ScottMcG's suggestion, I reformulated the definition of colocated join as:

1. It must be a HASH or MERGE SORT JOIN
2. Set of columns in join conditions must be superset of all distribution keys of all participating tables
3. ?

The ? mark for #3 is an ambiguity I need to iron out. Accordng to ScottMcG, the distribution keys of each table must also be joined with each other.

Suppose Tables A, B, C are distributed on text columns A.C1, A.C2, B.C3, B.C4, C.C5, and C.C6 and we have the following join.

SELECT * FROM A 
    INNER JOIN B "Join1"
        ON A.C1=B.C3
    INNER JOIN C "Join2"
        ON A.C2=B.C4
        AND A.C2=C.C6
        AND [X]

Now, let us provide a few possible definitions of [X]. Then for which definitions of [X] will Join2 be colocated?

(1) [X] = A.C2 = 5

(2) [X] = A.C2 = B.C1 OR A.C2 = C.C5

(3) [X] = A.C1 IS NULL

(4) [X] = A.NonKeyColumn1 = B.NonKeyColumn2

Howt to achieve data locality on Cassandra node

I'm looking for a solution, that will allow me to colocate the code with the data. As a Db I have Cassandra and would like to be able to get the data, that is on a specific node.

The importance here is that I try to achieve it from my own code without using frameworks, as Hadoop or Spark.

I wounder, if someone could explain or provide a link, as I have not found yet a solution. The question here is, how that could be achieved with Cassandra.

Thanks in advance