matriarchy
11-02-2001, 01:45 AM
A week ago, I was a tiny brand-new reseller with giddy visions of building a nice little hosting product for my clients and for other small web developers like myself.
Today, I am thinking about getting a waitressing job.
I picked spewey (despite the really bad Flash intro), because a) they were attractively cheap, yet offering nothing "unlimited;" b) I liked owner Steve Smith after a couple long phone chats - our business styles and goals seemed to match; c) I am not buying their bad website copy, I am buying hosting.
But Steve told me he had a problem with his control panel and was discontinuing it in favor or something he had developed in-house. Unfortunately, he put ME on a server still using cpanel, and I was too new to know what it was.
Monday, I liked cpanel3. Tuesday morning, spewey had some sort of big disaster... but everything was quickly fixed... except on my server, which has problems that require him to get support from cpanel... and he is waiting for a response on a trouble ticket.
Perhaps my foolish mistake was moving a primary business website to an untested host. Perhaps it was Steve's mistake in not giving me a choice about which sort of server I wanted to be on. Certainly he is making a mistake in not calling or emailing me with an update after 36 hours of downtime.
But nonetheless, I am on my second full day of no business email on my two major websites. I can contact clients in process, but no new contacts and my almost-signed prospects ran like hell. My revenue streams have slammed to a complete halt. I am now in serious business trouble. I started auctioning my primo domain name stash and my extra equipment this afternoon.
My questions for the forum:
1. Think cpanel is really the problem or is Steve covering an internal problem?
2. Think it is reasonable for me to expect a full refund of my hosting fees? I need to go get a new hosting solution, and I want my money back to go do that. We are only talking about $64 dollars here... but I was a one-person shop already recovering from the business silence after Sept 11. I'm f*cked.
3. How have other small design/hosting shops recovered from such a disaster? What do I say to regain my clients' trust in my reliablity after they see me go down? I am supposed to be advising them on this sh*t and I make a major bad decision... what do I do for spin control? (Besides go to work for someone else... I'd rather keep staying home with my small children, even if Christmas is really sparse.)
Tracy
Today, I am thinking about getting a waitressing job.
I picked spewey (despite the really bad Flash intro), because a) they were attractively cheap, yet offering nothing "unlimited;" b) I liked owner Steve Smith after a couple long phone chats - our business styles and goals seemed to match; c) I am not buying their bad website copy, I am buying hosting.
But Steve told me he had a problem with his control panel and was discontinuing it in favor or something he had developed in-house. Unfortunately, he put ME on a server still using cpanel, and I was too new to know what it was.
Monday, I liked cpanel3. Tuesday morning, spewey had some sort of big disaster... but everything was quickly fixed... except on my server, which has problems that require him to get support from cpanel... and he is waiting for a response on a trouble ticket.
Perhaps my foolish mistake was moving a primary business website to an untested host. Perhaps it was Steve's mistake in not giving me a choice about which sort of server I wanted to be on. Certainly he is making a mistake in not calling or emailing me with an update after 36 hours of downtime.
But nonetheless, I am on my second full day of no business email on my two major websites. I can contact clients in process, but no new contacts and my almost-signed prospects ran like hell. My revenue streams have slammed to a complete halt. I am now in serious business trouble. I started auctioning my primo domain name stash and my extra equipment this afternoon.
My questions for the forum:
1. Think cpanel is really the problem or is Steve covering an internal problem?
2. Think it is reasonable for me to expect a full refund of my hosting fees? I need to go get a new hosting solution, and I want my money back to go do that. We are only talking about $64 dollars here... but I was a one-person shop already recovering from the business silence after Sept 11. I'm f*cked.
3. How have other small design/hosting shops recovered from such a disaster? What do I say to regain my clients' trust in my reliablity after they see me go down? I am supposed to be advising them on this sh*t and I make a major bad decision... what do I do for spin control? (Besides go to work for someone else... I'd rather keep staying home with my small children, even if Christmas is really sparse.)
Tracy