diff --git a/zulip/zulip/__init__.py b/zulip/zulip/__init__.py
index fc9cbf3..27efab6 100644
--- a/zulip/zulip/__init__.py
+++ b/zulip/zulip/__init__.py
@@ -271,6 +271,9 @@ def get_default_config_filename():
                            "  mv ~/.humbugrc ~/.zuliprc\n")
     return config_file
 
+class ZulipError(Exception):
+    pass
+
 class Client(object):
     def __init__(self, email=None, api_key=None, config_file=None,
                  verbose=False, retry_on_errors=True,
@@ -382,6 +385,8 @@ class Client(object):
 
         self.session = None  # type: Union[None, requests.Session]
 
+        self.has_connected = False
+
     def ensure_session(self):
         # type: () -> None
 
@@ -507,6 +512,8 @@ class Client(object):
                     timeout=request_timeout,
                     **kwargs)
 
+                self.has_connected = True
+
                 # On 50x errors, try again after a short sleep
                 if str(res.status_code).startswith('5'):
                     if error_retry(" (server %s)" % (res.status_code,)):
@@ -528,6 +535,13 @@ class Client(object):
                     return {'msg': "Connection error:\n%s" % traceback.format_exc(),
                             "result": "connection-error"}
             except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
+                if not self.has_connected:
+                    # If we have never successfully connected to the server, don't
+                    # go into retry logic, because the most likely scenario here is
+                    # that somebody just hasn't started their server, or they passed
+                    # in an invalid site.
+                    raise ZulipError('cannot connect to server ' + self.base_url)
+
                 if error_retry(""):
                     continue
                 end_error_retry(False)
diff --git a/zulip_bots/zulip_bots/lib.py b/zulip_bots/zulip_bots/lib.py
index b8550e5..12eca3b 100644
--- a/zulip_bots/zulip_bots/lib.py
+++ b/zulip_bots/zulip_bots/lib.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ if False:
 from typing import Any, Optional, List, Dict, IO, Text, Set
 from types import ModuleType
 
-from zulip import Client
+from zulip import Client, ZulipError
 
 def exit_gracefully(signum, frame):
     # type: (int, Optional[Any]) -> None
@@ -95,7 +95,17 @@ class ExternalBotHandler(object):
     def __init__(self, client, root_dir, bot_details={}):
         # type: (Client, str, Dict[str, Any]) -> None
         # Only expose a subset of our Client's functionality
-        user_profile = client.get_profile()
+        try:
+            user_profile = client.get_profile()
+        except ZulipError as e:
+            print('''
+                ERROR: {}
+
+                Have you not started the server?
+                Or did you mis-specify the URL?
+                '''.format(e))
+            sys.exit(1)
+
         self._rate_limit = RateLimit(20, 5)
         self._client = client
         self._root_dir = root_dir