building industry Case Study
mi shack
Marcus Browne, founder of mi shack®, creates architect-designed private homes, holiday homes and retreats across Western Australia. Using MIDS, the Modular Integrated Design System, mi shack tests the site, brief, budget and approval pathway early, then shapes each home to suit its place.
At 9:07am on a Thursday morning in October, it vanished.
A routine WordPress update had taken the whole site down. Marcus tried to log in. He couldn't. He tried his developer. Overseas, family emergency, unreachable. He sat there staring at a server error message with no idea what to do next — and a business that depended on a website that no longer existed.
Then he opened Google.
Three and a half years later, he's still our client.
Locked Out, No Developer, No Time.
Locked Out, No Developer, No Time.
A routine wordpress update turned into a total lockout emergency.
His site sat on top of Timber — a developer framework most WordPress users can't update. You need someone who can write code. Marcus had someone. His developer.
His developer was overseas. Family emergency. Unreachable.
So he opened Google.
How Perth IT Care helped.
How Perth IT Care helped.
Website Repair
Website Maintenance & Security
The 8:36am Distress Call.
The 8:36am Distress Call.
"Through my own mistake during an update for my Wordpress based site my website went off line and I was locked out!"
"Through my own mistake during an update for my Wordpress based site my website went off line and I was locked out! My web developer at the time was away overseas looking after an ill relative so with time differences was not contactable. Thankfully I backed up the website elsewhere prior to updating. I quickly Googled for help and found Perth IT Care. I filled out their contact form (made a distress call) and in no time Adrian was on the phone helping me out. I sent him my back up files and on the same day the website was up again and I was able to log into Wordpress. Subsequently I have transferred my web hosting to Perth IT Care and it runs faster than ever! If there was more stars above 5 Stars to click ... I would click them in a flash!"
Marcus Browne
Owner
The Result.
Fast Recovery, Better Support, Zero Headaches.
Fast Recovery, Better Support, Zero Headaches.
Back Online In Hours, Not Days
8:36am contact form to fully restored by the end of the day. One hour of actual labour. No data loss, no rebuild, no rewriting from scratch.
A Developer-Built Site, Without The Developer Dependency
Timber's still under the hood — but we configured it so routine updates can't break the site. The single point of failure is gone. Marcus doesn't have to hope his developer's reachable when something needs doing.
Faster Hosting That Actually Performs
Moved off basic hosting onto our infrastructure. His own words: "runs faster than ever". Less downtime, no more silent slowdowns, no more sites taking forever to load on mobile.
Three And A Half Years On, Still Going Strong
October 2022 to today. Site's still up. Hosting's still ours. Email's still on Microsoft 365. Marcus hasn't had to think about any of it — which is the whole point.
“I filled out their contact form (made a distress call) and in no time Adrian was on the phone helping me out”
No one is watching the whole stack.
No one is watching the whole stack.
Marcus's story isn't unusual. We see versions of it every month.
Small business owner pays a developer to build them a custom site. It looks great. Then the developer moves on, the hosting goes silent, or the whole setup falls behind. The owner is left with a site they can't maintain, can't update, and can't replace without starting over.
The fix isn't replacing one piece in isolation. Hosting, maintenance, security, the developer relationship — they all need to be looked after together. By someone who actually picks up.
That's what we built for Marcus. It's what we build for everyone we rescue.
Why This Matters for Small Business Owners.
Your website is expected to work 24/7. When it goes down, you don't just lose visitors — you lose the assumption you're operational.
Marcus had two things going for him: a backup, and someone who answered the phone the same morning. Without either, the story ends differently.
If you're running on a developer-built site, ask yourself two questions:
One: if your developer became unreachable tomorrow, who would you call?
Two: if your site went down at 8am on a Thursday, when would it realistically be back up?
If you don't have answers, you're one bad WordPress update away from where Marcus was that morning.
We can help with both — before it happens, or after.
Other Case Studies.
Site Down? Developer Unreachable?
Don't wait for your version of Marcus's Thursday morning. If your site's already down, fill in the form below and we'll be on the phone with you the same way we were with Marcus. If you'd rather sort it out before it breaks — same form, less pressure.
Marcus Browne
Owner, Mishack
Email Us
Phone Us
See Us
Maida Vale (by appointment)
