Cave Bits: Uncovering Website Analytics

SaaStrophe Series: A Dark Mode for a Webinar by Michal Leszczynski @ GetResponse.com

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🚀 Key Takeaways:

  • The importance of having backups and contingency plans for live events
  • Why audiences are often more understanding than we expect during hiccups
  • How surviving a live-event disaster can make future presentations feel like a breeze

Tune in for a lighthearted look at how things can go wrong, how we recovered, and why I now approach live presentations without fear—because once the internet goes down mid-webinar, nothing else seems as scary!

In this episode, I recount the heart-pounding story of a live webinar disaster that still makes my palms sweat just thinking about it. We had everything planned perfectly—partner collaboration, smooth intros, and a couple of hundred eager attendees. Then, mid-presentation, the internet in our office block went down.

What followed was 10 minutes of sheer panic, with the team scrambling for a solution—only to have a nearby developer casually show us how to use a phone hotspot. When we finally got back online, we found our partner still presenting, with attendees joking that we had taken an extended smoke break.

A Dark Mode for a Webinar, a story by Michal Leszynski

Several years back, we were running a webinar with a partner. This was one of those events where you run a campaign for two weeks, invite a couple of hundred folks, and ensure everything goes smoothly. It should go smoothly, right?

The partner was connecting from another city, but we decided to host it from our HQ to ensure there were no technical issues. Everything started off well—we did the intro and passed the mic to the partner.

A few minutes later, the internet went down in the whole office block.

With our hearts pounding, we tried to figure out a solution to get us back online. Luckily, after about 10 minutes, one of the developers sitting next to us casually showed us how to turn on a hotspot on our phone (yes, we were that nervous).

We got back online and found the partner was still presenting, but people were joking in the webinar room that we must have gone out for a smoke or something.

Truthfully, the audience was understanding. Still, it must have been the most stressful event I’ve ever experienced at work.

On the bright side, I now rarely stress over doing live presentations, as there’s little that can surprise me anymore