While we built the server for ourselves to support a website, https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com, which kept crashing on share hosting other VPS services we tried, we switched over to a dedicated bare metal host and never looked back. However, we needed more than just "placing a website on a bare metal server." We needed this server to really show us the power that came with it, and thus, we designed WP Bubble.
Our first paying customer invested in half the server, which was quite a steep monthly price to keep it going while we took care of the rest. While there were bumps in the road, we certainly knocked out all the kinks and have a very loyal customer that was with us since the start.