mattheaton.com

Well its Christmas Eve morning! Its also my birthday! I turn 35 today. I am actually quite a dinosaur in the hosting world. Most of my counterparts at different companies are 5-10 younger than I am. I won’t go on about a hosting topic today as today is a time to be with my family and NOT think about business or hosting. My thoughts about family extend to all of my employees at Bluehost hence we are closed today (Christmas Eve), and Christmas. The servers are still monitored during the holidays but regular support will not be available. I am sorry for the inconvenience this will cause some of you.

I want to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and encourage everyone to remember why we celebrate this festive holiday. Thanks to everyone for making this year at Bluehost our best ever. We look forward to 2007 with anticipation for many new features and services and a concerted effort to improve all things Bluehost.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

Well, we are now about the largest bandwidth consumer in the state of Utah. It has been a signicant challenge getting enough bandwidth from diversified providers to provide fast internet to the sites we host. In the last month we pretty much completely saturated all our pipes. The worst part was that I thought I had “thought ahead” when I ordered more bandwidth months ago. It took so long to get it sorted out that I wanted to throttle XO Communications for dropping the ball so badly.

This made us look bad and caused issues with our customers that we couldn’t fix. We HAD to wait for XO to solve our problems. That is a bad position to be in. The good news is that we now have 700 Mbits of bandwidth more today than we did yesterday and it shows. Things are running MUCH faster!!!

We have also taken advantage of the new huge bandwidth pipe to remove/scale back bandwidth limits that we had on customers with dedicated IP addresses and FTP downloading. There are still limits in place, but they are very high so if you are bumping into the limits you shouldn’t care because it is ridiculously fast now. We have also greatly improved the CPU situation on most of our servers. We still have about 10-15 servers that need to be further upgraded, but we have made excellent progress.

I am writing this to let you know that I am not all talk and that real dollars and real resources are being poured into the speed and stability of our network. The next major change is already 50% done and that has to do with our support. The number of people and the quality of our support will be noticably better in the coming weeks. We have more people than ever and our training process is good and will soon be great.

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

Do you know how many times in my life I have been told that I can’t do something?

I have never been a great listener. That has worked to my favor and hurt me at the same time. I never really cared what anyone thought of me. It is a very difficult task to say or write something that offends me. Yet, those same characteristics were what allowed me to try and do things in the face of “reason” from friends and family.

I am just writing to give some encouragement to those that need the last straw to get them going. People are sedentary by nature. Change isn’t a comfortable situation for most people. I have been cautioned by many people for choices that I have made, and I have been told by others that my chances for success were limited at best. Some people opined out of genuine concern, while others did it out of a sense of resentment that I was trying something that they knew they wouldn’t/couldn’t try themselves.

The simply fact is that you CAN DO IT! Whatever it is you are trying, with enough effort and desire you can make it happen. I am not suggesting that you take unreasonable risks, but all efforts that are truely worth it take some risk. Don’t give in to the nay sayers. They are the “do nots” of the world.

Now people will look at my situation and say I got where I am because of “chance” or “luck”. Rubbish! Sure, nothing is guaranteed, but I would have no chance of success if I didn’t get out and try. That is what I want you to do. Get out and try, and put the reaons why you can’t behind you. Sometimes all it takes is someone to say they believe in you.

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com

I have come a long way in my 34 years (Almost 35 as my birthday in on Christmas Eve!!), and realize I still have a long way to go. For those who don’t know me well I can be very abrasive at times and extremely demanding. I want things done now, and I want them done right the first time. When that doesn’t happen I look to see why the person isn’t performing to my, sometimes unrealistic, expectations. When I finally come to my senses I realize that people that work with me don’t love my business like I love my business and to expect them to always perform like it is life or death is silly on my part.

You see often people that you perceive as “slackers” simply need to be presented with the right situation to shine. I have been around long enough to see several people that I never though would “make it” end up doing great things in areas that they weren’t involved in at all just a few years ago. The problem is finding or creating that perfect situation where you can shine!

I believe one of the key areas that separates successful people from unsuccessful is a persons ability to create an environment where they can show off their stuff. Every person on this earth has incredible potential. I see it everyday. It isn’t judged on money, or how big your house is, but on whether or not you can look yourself in the mirror and say “I did well. I made the most of what I have been given.”

Find your niche and it will be your moment to shine! Stick with it and you can have a satisfying life day in and day out!

Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com