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Ask HN: My Hosting Went Down Right When I Sent A Link To A Promising Investor

1 points by DarrinC 14y ago

I don't want to name my hosting provider (they're a well known brand) just yet as they haven't fully finished resolving the problem with me. Basically I sent my company's website to a very promising investor. I bcc'd a few of my co-founders who frantically told me upon trying out the link that the site was down. I had checked it before and everything had worked fine. It was giving me a hosting error and there was nothing I could do. It literally said that the owner should contact their hosting. Long story short they ended up resolving it hours after the problem. If the investor clicked the link, it's seriously bad news for us. The hosting service claimed complete responsibility for the problem. My question is, what should I do? 1. With the hosting provider, should I ask for free hosting, domains, etc.? It won't come close to making it up but it's something. 2. Should I email the investor about the hosting problem? They don't know me directly, only through a contact. Should I just hope they didn't read it till after? Or is it too late? Please help me with this. Thanks so much. EDIT: This wasn't the user accesible part. It was an online presentation of the company. Sorry for the possible confusion.

niggler 14y ago
"1. With the hosting provider, should I ask for free hosting, domains, etc.? It won't come close to making it up but it's something." You should leave. Demand some sort of refund for the remaining time (and possibly a refund for the service up to this point) "2. Should I email the investor about the hosting problem? They don't know me directly, only through a contact. Should I just hope they didn't read it till after? Or is it too late?" You should sign up with another hosting provider, have it up and running, and tell the investor that you are seeing issues and that this other site reflects the current state. Treat it as if your service is currently down. If you would sit on your hands under normal circumstances, your users probably wouldn't be happy and I'd hope you'd be working on a backup plan.
- DarrinC 14y ago
  Thanks, it's up and running now, should I still tell the investor it was down? I'm thinking of tomorrow emailing the investor to tell them our hosting had some issues but they are resolved now. It sounds bad that even before the investor responds they get an email telling them that we had a problem. A big red flag it seems. Is that naive?
  - niggler 14y ago
    "telling them that we had a problem" A very short period of hosting downtime isn't deadly. What would be a "big red flag" is if you didn't learn anything. You should be able to answer: - How did customers react to this (assuming, of course, you already have customers)? - how are you going to prevent this in the future? What is your backup plan?
    - DarrinC 14y ago
      As I should have clarified, it wasn't the user side of the company they were looking at, but rather the online presentation of it. But I get the feeling I should email them regardless and explain our hosting problems. I really appreciate your guidance!
anigbrowl 14y ago
2. Email the investor. Get the hosting co's OK to quote them and then state simply what occurred and that they took responsibility. Don't point the finger of blame, just apologize for the inconvenience and ask them to take another look if they have not already. Obviously you can mention that you are reviewing your hosting options.
- DarrinC 14y ago
  Got it, I haven't been in contact with them before, is it better to just hope they didn't see the email yet? (that kind of email turnaround seems pretty abnormal to me) I just don't want them to open up the email tomorrow and see that I had hosting problems. To me as a first impression, any problem a red flag. Or is that just me being naive?
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    I would assume they've already seen it. I'm no VC but as a general matter I'd prefer an up-front explanation than the possibility of being kept in the dark. If they have seen it and there's no follow-up from you then you look like an idiot. If not then you just look awkward.
    - DarrinC 14y ago
      Great advice! should I just send a quick email saying that: They may have experienced some problems accessing our presentation. Our hosting had some difficulties that they took responsibility for and we're currently reevaluating our hosting options. I apologize for any inconvenience it might have caused them in learning more about the company? (by the way you're amazing for putting up with me, I am so grateful)
      - anigbrowl 14y ago
        Pretty much. I agree with Niggler's advice that you also need to be looking at firing your hosting company, but even companies like Amazon mess up sometimes so YMMV. You can't afford to let good leads go cold though. And if this lead doesn't bite, don't despair - you can always contact that person again in a month or two, and in the meantimekeep plugging away. Hope things work out for you.
Matsta 14y ago
So are you using Shared hosting? Well if your a startup, you shouldn't really be on shared hosting to begin with. I would recommend you look into getting a VPS or even a dedicated server if you can. There could of been a chance that your current server was getting DDOS'd, but there's not much you can do about that unless you get DDOS protected hosting. You can also look at setting up CloudFlare, which will cache your site if the main server decides to go down.
- DarrinC 14y ago
  I should have clarified, the link was to an online presentation of the company. It's mostly front end which is why I used shared hosting. Is even that a mistake? I mistakingly trusted that a well known hosting company wouldn't have this problem. Also, from my conversation with the company it's not like server went down, they somehow screwed up all of the DNS settings.

1 points by DarrinC 14y ago

niggler 14y ago

"1. With the hosting provider, should I ask for free hosting, domains, etc.? It won't come close to making it up but it's something." You should leave. Demand some sort of refund for the remaining time (and possibly a refund for the service up to this point) "2. Should I email the investor about the hosting problem? They don't know me directly, only through a contact. Should I just hope they didn't read it till after? Or is it too late?" You should sign up with another hosting provider, have it up and running, and tell the investor that you are seeing issues and that this other site reflects the current state. Treat it as if your service is currently down. If you would sit on your hands under normal circumstances, your users probably wouldn't be happy and I'd hope you'd be working on a backup plan.

DarrinC 14y ago
Thanks, it's up and running now, should I still tell the investor it was down? I'm thinking of tomorrow emailing the investor to tell them our hosting had some issues but they are resolved now. It sounds bad that even before the investor responds they get an email telling them that we had a problem. A big red flag it seems. Is that naive?
- niggler 14y ago
  "telling them that we had a problem" A very short period of hosting downtime isn't deadly. What would be a "big red flag" is if you didn't learn anything. You should be able to answer: - How did customers react to this (assuming, of course, you already have customers)? - how are you going to prevent this in the future? What is your backup plan?
  - DarrinC 14y ago
    As I should have clarified, it wasn't the user side of the company they were looking at, but rather the online presentation of it. But I get the feeling I should email them regardless and explain our hosting problems. I really appreciate your guidance!

anigbrowl 14y ago

2. Email the investor. Get the hosting co's OK to quote them and then state simply what occurred and that they took responsibility. Don't point the finger of blame, just apologize for the inconvenience and ask them to take another look if they have not already. Obviously you can mention that you are reviewing your hosting options.

DarrinC 14y ago
Got it, I haven't been in contact with them before, is it better to just hope they didn't see the email yet? (that kind of email turnaround seems pretty abnormal to me) I just don't want them to open up the email tomorrow and see that I had hosting problems. To me as a first impression, any problem a red flag. Or is that just me being naive?
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  I would assume they've already seen it. I'm no VC but as a general matter I'd prefer an up-front explanation than the possibility of being kept in the dark. If they have seen it and there's no follow-up from you then you look like an idiot. If not then you just look awkward.
  - DarrinC 14y ago
    Great advice! should I just send a quick email saying that: They may have experienced some problems accessing our presentation. Our hosting had some difficulties that they took responsibility for and we're currently reevaluating our hosting options. I apologize for any inconvenience it might have caused them in learning more about the company? (by the way you're amazing for putting up with me, I am so grateful)
    - anigbrowl 14y ago
      Pretty much. I agree with Niggler's advice that you also need to be looking at firing your hosting company, but even companies like Amazon mess up sometimes so YMMV. You can't afford to let good leads go cold though. And if this lead doesn't bite, don't despair - you can always contact that person again in a month or two, and in the meantimekeep plugging away. Hope things work out for you.

Matsta 14y ago

So are you using Shared hosting? Well if your a startup, you shouldn't really be on shared hosting to begin with. I would recommend you look into getting a VPS or even a dedicated server if you can. There could of been a chance that your current server was getting DDOS'd, but there's not much you can do about that unless you get DDOS protected hosting. You can also look at setting up CloudFlare, which will cache your site if the main server decides to go down.

DarrinC 14y ago
I should have clarified, the link was to an online presentation of the company. It's mostly front end which is why I used shared hosting. Is even that a mistake? I mistakingly trusted that a well known hosting company wouldn't have this problem. Also, from my conversation with the company it's not like server went down, they somehow screwed up all of the DNS settings.