About Me
My name is Matt Heaton. I am the President and CEO of Bluehost.com, Hostmonster.com and Fastdomain.com. This is my personal blog site where I share thoughts and experiences involving the web hosting industry and my personal life. In the past I had almost no information on this page but have recently decided to update it a little with some professional and personal information. Below are some of the “vital stats”.
I am 36 years old
I have been married for 13 years
I have 5 children (4 boys first and then finally got our little girl!)
I was a missionary in Taiwan (Yes, I can still speak Mandarin, but its getting a bit rusty at this point)
I love ping pong, and am a nationally ranked 1650 player (SOON I hope to be above 1800 after I attend the US Open in Las Vegas in July)
I LOVE all things web and am a serial entrepreneur
When I was 21 I open my first computer hardware store (Computer Warehouse), by 23 I had three stores going with about 35 employees
At age 26 I decided to sell off the computer store and concentrate on my web statistics software that I had written on the side while I still owned Computer Warehouse.
The web statistics software went very well and eventually transferred over to starting a business where I did free hosting.
If you have comments or just want to say “HI!” you can always email me directly at matt@bluehost.com.
Thanks,
Matt Heaton / Bluehost.com
[...] a favicon. I wasn’t happy with my crude graphics skills. So, I abandoned it for the standard bluehost favicon. That funky blue [...]
[...] web address of their “competitor” ? That’s why I decided to write an e-mail to Matt Heaton, the President and CEO of Bluehost.com, to know something more. Here is my e-mail and his short [...]
[...] On the positive side, they do have instant support via chat and their CEO, Matt Heaton appears to have the best intentions; he maintains his own blog where you can contact him (yes, his email is listed) here. [...]
[...] web hosts and Matt Heaton cheerfully mentions the relationship between BlueHost and HostMonster on his blog. So why the [...]
[...] Heaton, president, CEO of BlueHost has a blog: http://www.mattheaton.com/?page_id=2 [...]
Hello Matt- I have been a BlueHost customer for two years. I congratulate you on your successful endeavor. As an executive coach and former Fortune 500 executive, I know the types of challenges you face daily.
Which is why I wanted to provide you with this feedback. During this limited service outage (Jan. 5-9 and ongoing) my business mail has been down. There is limited functionality (can’t access control panel), though my site has remained up.
But I have never dealt with consistently more surly and unhelpful support people in any organization. I’ve requested having my site moved to an unaffected server and have not even had the thought entertained for a nanosecond. I know that this attack has to be challenging, but with customer service like this, I believe that you are going out of business…slowly.
One of the greatest challenges business leaders face is the ability to receive unfiltered information, ergo this note.
I humbly request your assistance and wish you the best.
Dear Mr. Heaton:
I have been developing web sites for about 5 years. Since that time I have had nothing but headaches and heart breaks with other servers. Two years ago I came across your service (HostMonster) and could not be more thrilled! As a newbie to the web site world I often have many “beginner” questions. In the past my only choice was to send an email and hope to get a helpful responce which rarely, if ever happened. Then I came across HostMonster. I could not believe how wonderful your service is.
I was no longer forced to become a nameless and faceless “E-Ticket.” I did not have to deal with the frustration and aggrivation of people hiding behind technology. Your service and your staff are always there at the touch of a finger to help me with my problems and assist me in the day to day operations of developing and uploading my sites.
You have no idea how wonderful it is to be able to talk to a real person 24/7 in this ever expanding world of technology. Your staff are always friendly and helpful! I take my hat off to you, Mr. Heaton! You make my job so easy. I cannot thank you enough for everything you have accomplished! I wish you all the best and look forward to a long and happy business relationship with your company.
Sincerly,
K. Gibson
Grizzly Enterprise.
Helllo Matt Heaton! I just love the bluehost for more than 5 years! …. but today bluehost system make a error! In the web file manager i selected just one folder to delete from public_html, and when a click in delete, than the file maneger delete all of the files in public_html…. Gbs in less 1 second!) Can you save me by recover the “shadow of the disk? the domain is farolmultimedia.com
tks!
Matt! I just wanted to drop a line and say way to go and thanks! I use your service and think you guys do a great job. Your customer service is top-notch and have been impressed in my short time (almost 1 year) as a BlueHost customer.
Also… as a resident of Provo, I have a couple of friends that are employed by your company and they seem to enjoy it.
Thanks for providing a great service and great jobs.
Hello Matt,
I have been very pleased with bluehost ever since I moved here. I have been telling every one I know to abandon their old slow-frustrating host and move to the fast-friendly bluehost. I really did this.
Just today I receive a not-so-friendly mail from bluehost, notifying that my account has been suspended due to a virus attack or something like that. I asked the customer support about what happened. I could follow any instruction, and I am sure that I follow every detail regarding protective steps. Somehow, I was put in an impossible solution : to manually search through hundreds of files in my sites to seek for the virus manually. I personally think, unless you’re a programming-genius its an impossible solution for just-a-user like myself.
I asked them (the support staff) furthermore, if I have done any of the above and I still haven’t find a clue so what should I do ? They said its time for me to choose for another hosting service.
I am desperately seeking help for my problem, and I do hope that you can get me a painless solution.
Thanks.
Matt, My name is Seth Zuber. I currently have you host http://www.sethzuber.com. I recently had a problem. Partially …. My oversight; Partially… Me not being informed that i needed to manually renew my URL every month. I already have sugested 2 of my clients to you. I would love to continue a good relationship with your hosting srrevice but it seems I am being charged a fee. When I was simply unnotified of what couls result. Please either yourself Camile in billing contact me as soon as possible .
Thank you.
I just wanted to thank you and the team there at Bluehost.com for the quick response to my problem. Sometimes when a company get so large they can quickly become very impersonal and uncaring. I am happy to say Bluehost did address my problem in a timely manner to resolution. I appreciate the quick response to my issue. It took a few calls, but I am 100 percent satisfied with the results. I will continue to recommend you to any future customers of mine and hope to join your client program.
Thank you.
seth
Hello Matt. I have been with Hostmonster.com over three years and I must say, I’ve been very pleased with not only the service, but the support I have gotten when it was needed. My previous experience with hosting companies was not a very good one. They first sold out to another company and then finally went belly up. I lost two of my original domain names because I could never get anyone to provide me with the EPP codes so that I could have them transfered. So with your continued support and site improvements, I won’t be looking for another service anytime soon.
Keep up thew good work
Joe Dunegan
Hi Matt.
I have been affiliate to bluehost, for more than 2 years already, making websites and hosting to bluehost. Bluehost has been my main tool, and great tool.
I was reading, and i see you were a missionary, now i understand why your business has progressed, AS you i am missionary too. I am 32 years old, i live in Florida, us.. But Now i am in Lima Peru. My goal with my business its to make places where poor people can eat for low or nothing of money, they can have health and education.
I hope That’s God will.
God keep blessing you, and keep it like that.
GOOD JOB, friend.
Javier Montenegro
CEO MWDesigners.net – webdesign company
constructoramcd.com – construccion company
http://www.mipuntope.com – red social
Hello Matt,
When the time came for me to publish my own website, I was overwhelmed with information. I chose Hostmonster, all good so far! I now recommend it to all my clients . Compliments to your technical staff and response time. Will keep in touch! Thank you.
Matt
I have had some REALLY BAD web hosts in my 15 years or so on line and HostMonster.com is definitely NOT one of them. How is it that someone can be 99% happy with a web hosting service? Hey, nobody’s perfect and sure there are troubles now and then but, compared to the misery of past hosting experiences, I couldn’t be happier. I have been hosting my sites on HostMonster for about 5 years now and have no desire to relocate. Keep up the good work my friend. – jimmau
One of my clients on your server had their website hacked undoubtedly due to the shoddy password system. This was a radiology service. A malicious script was put into a page.
Your company deactivated the account without contacting me.
It would have been taken care of instantly had I been aware.
I called and received a voice-mail for about 2 days.
I called Mr. Ashworth.. but did not receive a call back.
After the script was removed, the site was reactivated HOWEVER:
My clients emails were not activated and I was on the phone with a senior supervisor for over an hour and several phone calls to reactivate the email. The issue was inevitably resolved with an IT oversight on your end.
This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. If my client were to go after me due to loss of service, inevitably, no matter what “TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT INDICATES” you would have a lawsuit on your hands.
THIS PROTOCOL MUST IMPROVE.
Hi Matt!
Love your BlueHost.com.
U R the best.
Keep the good work!
This site was “hacked” not because of our system, but because of a SUPER weak password being used. We really can’t be blamed for that, but we did force most users to change their passwords because of dictionary based passwords that are easily cracked. I understand the frustration, but we can’t leave sites up that were hacked and doing damage until we can contact the customer. It HAS to go down first to keep everyone elses sites up and available.
Matt Heaton
Matt,
Your hosting is by far the fastest I have ever used! I send all of my customers to your hosting company because of it’s reliability and customer support.
Best wishes!
Bob Hicken
SEO
Killerclimbs.com
I think BlueHost is absolutely AWESOME! Customer service is second to NONE and wonderful for web newbies like me! I send business your way every chance I get…even have your link on my website! Couldn’t ask for a better web host!!! Keep up the GREAT work!!!!
I have never used your hosting Matt. I will certainly give it a whirl though. A very intereting bio, I love a good story.
Hi Matt, I’ve been using bluehost for quite a while and it’s pretty much the best cheap hosting out there. Now will you mind if I leave a backlink on your blog?:P
Thanks, Dan
Hi Matt, I have been a loyal Blue Host client since 2007. It’s fast and I like using Simple Scripts to install Drupal. My only gripe is the Postini anti-spam ads that pop up each time that I log into the control panel. I was told that this is only supposed to happen once. I use several computers to log into my Blue Host account and I get hit with these pop ups all the time. I know that you are in business to make money, but there must be a better way to promote Postini. I would even be willing to pay an additional fee not to get the Postini pop up ads. Thank you for running a great hosting service.
Great Hosting !
Matt, if you ever get the missionary bug, and if you still like Chinese food, take a Chinese BoM (Simplified script, the one with the -265 suffix) along with an english BoM to your favorite Chinese restaurants (Ok, most Chinese restaurants serve Americanized-chinese), and offer it to them free as “ESL” (english as a second language) material for them to read.
The ones that are right off the boat from Mainland China usually love it. I’ve placed 100′s that way. No baptisms, but lots of fun, and I think it helps in the long run.
Get the books from http://www.ldscatalog.com (‘Simplified Script’ for people from the Mainland, and “regular” for people from Taiwan/Hong Kong.)
Enjoy.
Hi Matt! Love your BlueHost.com. Kick ass hosting. Thanks dude.
Hi Matt,
I have been a customer for a few years now and I have enjoyed a really good service. Hats off to you for setting up these companies which are thriving.
Thanks
Amir
Hey Matt
Ive been hosted with you for a couple of years now, and have also — happily –steered a large number of clients your way. Thanks for the great service, all around. My site has never crashed, even once, and every time Ive called customer service with a technical issue, Ive gotten through within minutes, and the person on the other end is always polite, patient, friendly, and helpful….and you cant ask for better than that.
Have a great summer.
Will
[...] Open Letter To Bluehost July 26, 2010 | Posted by Randydeluxe To: Matt Heaton, President and CEO of [...]
Seriously dropped the ball, Matt… http://bit.ly/bAYjiL
Mr. Heaton,
Today, your company dumped a good customer without warning or just cause. Out of the blue today, you made the decision to unplug all of Scott Johnson’s Frogpants network of podcasts, blogs and social media. It is difficult to estimate how many potential customers you have given error to today, but in iTunes alone, you have refused service to possibly 100,000+ people. Those people need to know who is suddenly preventing them from accessing what they’re looking for.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you – since it’s your job to know such things – but you have just dumped:
An entire network of podcasts and blogs, comprising a dozen very successful podcasters who have disparate audiences of thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of listeners.
A massive web of highly effective social media mavens, most of whom have thousands of followers in Twitter.
Media that has an unusually high international reach, with well above-average numbers of listeners outside of the United States.
One of the top 100 podcasts in the world, according to listeners in iTunes, The Instance.
A cursory glance at your own Twitter feed makes it clear that you don’t understand or value the power and utility of social media. Today’s bit of bad business by you was clearly the result of cold, hard calculation: you made an agreement with Scott Johnson that appears to be less profitable than breaking the agreement. So much for almost every claim on your website “guaranteeing” “unlimited” “reliable” hosting that is “better” and “professional”. The statement on your site, “we specialize in customer service” can now be considered laughable.
Of course, everyone involved with the Frogpants network will be henceforth opposed to patronizing your apparently fly-by-night operation. The Internet meme you might become aware of is this: Get out of the blue.
I encourage any and all customers of Bluehost.com to get out of the blue, before Bluehost.com suddenly leaves all of your content un-hosted. Get out of the blue as soon as it is feasible for you to stop paying a company that cannot be trusted with your blogs, forums, videos, podcasts and pictures. I am not suggesting that any customer stop payment if you owe Bluehost.com money. Don’t be like them, and break an established agreement. Just take the first, honest opportunity to get out of the blue and take your content to another host.
Mr. Heaton, I sincerely hope that this letter finds you well, and that you take the opportunity to comment below if you have anything to say here. Internet 2.0 is not a bum’s rush. Rather, it is an open and ever-expanding platform upon which those who speak have every opportunity to guide discourse, and those who remain silent increase the value of nothing.
Those who attempt to do any silencing will find such an attempt to be utterly impotent.
Thank you.
To: Matt Heaton, President and CEO of Bluehost
Mr. Heaton,
Today, your company dumped a good customer without warning or just cause. Out of the blue today, you made the decision to unplug all of Scott Johnson’s Frogpants network of podcasts, blogs and social media. It is difficult to estimate how many potential customers you have given error to today, but in iTunes alone, you have refused service to possibly 100,000+ people. Those people need to know who is suddenly preventing them from accessing what they’re looking for.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you – since it’s your job to know such things – but you have just dumped:
An entire network of podcasts and blogs, comprising a dozen very successful podcasters who have disparate audiences of thousands and in some cases tens of thousands of listeners.
A massive web of highly effective social media mavens, most of whom have thousands of followers in Twitter.
Media that has an unusually high international reach, with well above-average numbers of listeners outside of the United States.
One of the top 100 podcasts in the world, according to listeners in iTunes, The Instance.
A cursory glance at your own Twitter feed makes it clear that you don’t understand or value the power and utility of social media. Today’s bit of bad business by you was clearly the result of cold, hard calculation: you made an agreement with Scott Johnson that appears to be less profitable than breaking the agreement. So much for almost every claim on your website “guaranteeing” “unlimited” “reliable” hosting that is “better” and “professional”. The statement on your site, “we specialize in customer service” can now be considered laughable.
Of course, everyone involved with the Frogpants network will be henceforth opposed to patronizing your apparently fly-by-night operation. The Internet meme you might become aware of is this: Get out of the blue.
I encourage any and all customers of Bluehost.com to get out of the blue, before Bluehost.com suddenly leaves all of your content un-hosted. Get out of the blue as soon as it is feasible for you to stop paying a company that cannot be trusted with your blogs, forums, videos, podcasts and pictures. I am not suggesting that any customer stop payment if you owe Bluehost.com money. Don’t be like them, and break an established agreement. Just take the first, honest opportunity to get out of the blue and take your content to another host.
Mr. Heaton, I sincerely hope that this letter finds you well, and that you take the opportunity to comment below if you have anything to say here. Internet 2.0 is not a bum’s rush. Rather, it is an open and ever-expanding platform upon which those who speak have every opportunity to guide discourse, and those who remain silent increase the value of nothing.
Those who attempt to do any silencing will find such an attempt to be utterly impotent.
Thank you.
Matt,
I’ve always loved bluehost for the fact of super easy blog install. My own clients love that aspect of things. It is even easier to access than fantastico.
Kudos to you for running the show there!