Category: Business

The best customer is a DIYer

If you work in customer service in a web-based company, the best type of customer you can ask for is a “do it yourself-er”, that shares their discoveries.  Why?  For a few reasons:

  1. The best characteristic of a DIYer is that they’re usually tech savvy.  They’re using your site not because they’ve been forced to or because it’s the first thing they found.  They use it because they’ve surveyed other offerings and decided that your’s is either the best, has the potential to be the best, or has some other advantage over a competing service.  (They also tend to know the “lingo”.  So supporting them from page to page over the phone or asking for a URL to the issue tends to be a simple task; not a formidable request.)
  2. another great advantage of a DIYer is that they’ll trouble shoot your site for you.  Whether your using an open source application or building a proprietary platform/application, the DIYer familiarizes themselves with the environment.  They read your FAQs and they engage the tutorials/training materials you’ve created and at that point (and only at that point) if they don’t know how to do something or are finding an insurmountable error they contact you.
  3. by contacting you they point out holes in your support/help foundation (because they know and are familiar with what you have provided and exhaust those resources before contacting you.  If you can identify these individuals early (and keep them) then they’ll be a great resource in deciding your customer support, help documentation, and even the software roadmap to improve usability.

It’s possible that you refer to these types of customers as something else (allies, models, etc.), but I’m sure you’ll agree that these customers are the best to have (even better than customers that are silent even in the face of buggy software of outages).

I bring this up because non-DIYers often take up the most time and are the most costly to appease.  In some cases getting them squared away is near impossible (or perhaps actually impossible, though I reject the notion that there’s a customer issue that cannot be resolved.  I’ll die trying.).

In closing, if you’re trying to build a product for a market that is devoid of non-DIYers (seniors, or 1st time internet users) then be prepared.

Swearing is Caring

You might not have ever heard of Gary Vaynerchuk, but he’s one bad ass entrepreneur.  Proprietor of Wine Library and WineLibrary TV, and a new wine-focused social network (corkd.com).  Not to mention this new book (Crush It).

In the world of online entrepreneurs, he’s been hitting the speaking circuit and getting plenty of press on TV.  Recently he spoke at FOWA (Future of Web Apps) in London.

WARNING: his talk contains explicit language.  Like construction worker explicit.  Though, his message is on point (customer service is paramount and is best shown by actually caring about your customers) and he is hilarious.  He’s just as funny in his WineLibraryTV stuff.  I particularly liked his review of Charles Shaw (aka two buck chuck).  If you want to save the 20 minutes, he recommends the Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc but panned the rest.

So, as far his talk at FOWA goes, here are the great points/quotes I gleaned from it (note that some is going to be paraphrased to nix the cursing).

  • “subscribing to cable…is like going into McDonald’s and ordering a burger and fries.  And then the cashier says, “that’s fine, asshole.  But you’re gonna have to pay for the whole menu.”  I’ve long wanted just to pay for HBO, Current and ESPN (and maybe the NFL redzone…).
  • “Don’t be a dickface. Because people will figure you out.”  My highest value is integrity.  I really love working with my clients and don’t take them for granted, when I say something I do it.  And when I say I really value their business I mean it.  It makes me happy beyond belief to hear that my reputation is unsullied and that people respect me (despite what they may think of a colleague or my employer).
  • “Customer service is not putting a feedback tab on the left side of your web page.  Customer service is answering every single email personally, meaning what you put in them and making your customers genuinely like you.”

His message about customer service and interaction is spot on.  It’s pretty refreshing to hear someone so honest and forthright get on the stage at the type of event that often degrades into the constant back-patting of speaker/millionaires.

Enjoy.

Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Too small to fail

It irks me that our government copped out of ditching a bunch of crap business by claiming they “were too big to fail.”  Bull crap.

Honestly I think the administration should have forced Ford (the only solvent US car maker) to buy GM and Chrysler.  Ford would have gotten a great deal and would be poised to totally drive American car manufacturing for the next decade at least (until the likes of Tesla or GEM caught up).  I’ve been a GM supported all my life, but that doesn’t mean I believe they “can’t” be allowed to fail.  In real life (at least what I thought was real life), if you make bad decisions continuously, you can/will fail.  Then you own up the the mistakes and regroup.  This is as opposed to unreal life, where we currently reside, where you can drive your company down the tubes, get a huge government bailout and then claim a profit.

He's not that chubby anymore.
He's not that chubby anymore.

That’s why I love the idea and process of launching web-based applications.  As a full-time employee and a work at home dad (I have a 8 year old wiener dog) I have the freedom to invest my spare time (what little there may be) into… well, whatever.

I have a business registered in Vermont.  We’re just getting started, there are two of us as partners.  But we have revenue.  In a sense we made something ($) out of nothing.  Our skills applied created a monthly cash flow that covers, among other things, the cost of this blog and enough for some good business related books and perhaps a breakfast/lunch at our favorite spot in Burlington when I’m in town.

Luckily it’s addicting.  I’m not satisfied with a few bucks a month and I believe I have the skills and connections to get that boosted (and hopefully high enough one day to be my full-time).  My partner has the same expectations.  Of course, it’s great that we have the luxury of spare time and other income to float us (don’t get me wrong).

The best part though, is that we’re too small to fail.  We’ve developed and deployed 1 web app already and are working on an additional while we cultivate the first project.  The total cost to do this?  About 100 bucks a month hosting, 50 bucks a year in domain registration fees and 125 dollars in business registration fees.  Are the apps high risk?  Of course, our time and effort is worth a lot (especially when we’re not paying ourselves), but the cost of keeping going is so low that we can chase whatever projects we want to.  When one fails completely, it just frees up room on the server and time in the schedule.  It’s nice to know that a part of our business could fail and we can keep on trucking.  We just need 1 stock in our portfolio to do well.  In the meantime I’ll keep advancing each.  Stay tuned.

the Killer Craigslist

Not to be confused with the alleged Craigslist Killer.  About 2 months ago CL actually took a step to highlight just why they hold all the power in the huge universal focus job boards: http://www.craigslist.org/about/job_boards_compared

They focus on a few points (though some of the data is a bit old, 2000?  Really, Craigslist?):

  1. Daily site page views as a % of total web traffic (they are 10x Monster and CareerBuilder)
  2. # of applicants per job (CL ranked #2)
  3. Cost of postings (CL is $25 in select cities while their competition is between $275 and $475)
  4. Effectiveness (this is that 2000 stat from the WSJ); CL scored the highest with 4.25 out of 5 (5 is the highest/best)

I’ve written about Craigslist before and I think it’s a great service.  Its genius is a product of its simplicity.  Before now though, they hardly ever brought attention to the fact that they were a leader in job boards and better than, or superior to their job board competitors.  I would certainly say they are.

Relatively Disconnected

There’s this little company out there, making big changes.  You might have heard of it.  It’s called “Facebook”.  In fact, you might even be reading this post within Facebook (I just blew my mind).

They’ve burned 700 million dollars in venture cap and dominate the social networking scene (the only other company with growth potential in terms of social networking, in my opinion, is Ning.com).  They’re simultaneously waging wars against Google (hoping to reshape search) and Twitter (adding live feeds and real time data aggregation); and on each front it seems that they’re winning.  That being said they also have something like 500 billion users (according to Wolfram Alpha).  Ok, so they are almost the size of the USA (250,000,000 users).  So less than 4% of the world is on Facebook.  They don’t seem that big anymore do they?

It must be Mark’s goal to sign up every single person (over the age of 13 of course) in the world. And apparently they’re working at it very hard.  When they do it (I don’t think it’s an “if”) it’ll be a momentous occasion: for the 1st time in the history of mankind everyone will be linked by a common technology/platform.

Then what?

More with Less (or why I made a bacon bit sandwich for lunch)

As a college student I discovered this on hungry weekends late at night, or when the university stores were closed: as my food supply dwindled, the complexity in recipe and my overall willingness to experiment with new food pairings increased.

It’s come around again.  I work from home, don’t have my car with me currently (it’s 3,000 miles away) and I’m doing my best to be thrifty.  Therefore my food stores are limited to say the least.  When there’s plenty of food around I find myself gravitating to the quick and substantial.  Honestly I eat a burrito/taco (or some simple beans + meat + cheese) variation 5-7 days a week for at least one meal.

But as supplies dwindle I become a lot more adventuresome.

Special K with Berries and Tuna?  Part of a complete breakfast/lunch!

No mayo?  No worries: tuna-ranch salad.

Two slices of bread and no meat?  Bacon bit sandwich to the rescue!

Cottage and Parmesan Cheese never tasted better together.

I know that some of these menu items sound gross, and I doubt I would voluntarily mix them with a fully stocked fridge and pantry.  But I have created some tasty treats with limited supplies.  For example here’s a great recipe I cooked up with 4 ingredients and an empty kitchen:

Lemon Pepper Shrimp and Spaghetti for 1-2

5-15 Shrimp, thawed in cold water

1/2 lemon or a few table spoons of lemon juice

1-2 servings of pasta, prepared

fresh ground pepper

Put the shrimp in a skillet with some butter or oil and start to saute, crack fresh pepper (a good amount) and squeeze or add the lemon.  Cook until just before the shrimp are cooked and remove from the burner (otherwise the shrimp will overcook).  Add to the prepared pasta, you’ll find that the lemon juice is a nice light acidic sauce for the noodles.  Parm if you have it (but don’t add cottage cheese).

That’s not too riské, (shrimp and pasta are a good fit generally) but the point is that limiting resources can lead to some great outcomes in cuisine (and some unorthodox mixes, afterall how do you think someone figured out Vinegar Pie?

As an aside (somewhat related), in business I’ve often found myself able to do much more with less.

  • less programming power = better end product;
  • less money/time gets the focus on the right parts of the project;

Fewer resources aren’t always a negative.  I am very surprised what simple aspirations and two guys can put together and produce (though it does help that one is an awesome programmer).

All you can learn for $99 a month

Buffet-style education?  Heck yeah.  The company is probably one you’ve never heard of (I hadn’t) but I already see it’s value and foundation: efficiency + quality + freedom = a better way for motivated learners to get degrees.  The company is StraigtherLine (based in DC) and it provides a carte blanche approach to education for a low monthly fee.  Partnering with colleges around the US for accreditation, it can eschew the rigors of meeting an accreditation but also provide credits as part of the monthly fee (I’m guessing that they assume students will average a certain number of days per course, ensuring their ability to cover course credit costs per student per course passed).

This model has its detractors and rightly so.  This is a major shakeup of the status-quo in American style (which in a sense is the global standard) higher education.  It’s a bet that 100s of millions–perhaps billions–of dollars are caught up in the system, an inefficiency brought forth by the “college amenity package” which currently consists of A/C dorms, game rooms, student centers, weekend trips, free internet, student clubs and activities, research grants, etc.  The whole shebang which constitutes the contemporary college experience.

That being said, I have to agree with the Washington Monthly‘s take on the so-called ‘education bubble’ (see a few earlier posts about this as well);

It’s tempting in such circumstances to take comfort in the seeming permanency of our colleges and universities, in the notion that our world-beating higher education system will reliably produce research and knowledge workers for decades to come. But this is an illusion. Colleges are caught in the same kind of debt-fueled price spiral that just blew up the real estate market. They’re also in the information business in a time when technology is driving down the cost of selling information to record, destabilizing lows. (Washington Monthly – “College for $99 a Month” pg 1)

It makes perfect sense that the arrival of ubiquitous, free information paired with easier to access internet connectivity means that costs will be driven down (what doesn’t make sense is that, until now, colleges have largely bucked the trend, charging what they want and increasing those charges at higher than justifiable rates):

Colleges charge students exorbitant sums partly because they can, but partly because they have to. Traditional universities are complex and expensive, providing a range of services from scientific research and graduate training to mass entertainment via loosely affiliated professional sports franchises. To fund these things, universities tap numerous streams of revenue: tuition, government funding, research grants, alumni and charitable donations. But the biggest cash cow is lower-division undergraduate education. (pg 3)

So what happens when that bottom falls out?  If Straighterline.com is marginally successful then there’ll be rivals partnering with as many accredited colleges offering the same programs.  Those colleges might even court several low cost providers to hedge their bets.  The unaccredited low-cost providers will cut out an entire swath of inefficiency (freshman lectures) leaving a gaping whole in university and college enrollments (cause those students will just pay the couple of hundred bucks and transfer in the max credits).  Where a university or college might have garnered $9000 from a student before (for 3 classes let’s say) the student now pays a few 100 and gets a jump start for him/herself and a bonus in his/her checkbook.  Colleges and universities will become leaner.  They’ll be forced to realize their competitive advantage and adopt a laser like focus to milk as much dough as they can from it (this is a positive in my humble opinion).

Honestly, this already exists for a lot of states that are smart about tiering their education: California is perhaps my favorite example.  As a “freshman” I can go to Community College (Santa Barbara has a particularly beautiful and esteemed on), I can finish 2 years of college (60 credits+!) and use them at any UC school in the state.  The total cost? 1200 bucks plus student fees (which includes a bus pass).  That being said, SBCC is hugely subsidized by the state.  So really, if a private company can do it profitably is that so wrong when a state can only do it by losing money?  Remember that CA just struggled to figure out a 44 billion dollar deficit.  Maybe outsourcing these courses to Straighterline  (instead of subsidizing them) could have saved some time, effort and money.

Related posts:

Ben Franklin sucked at advertising

For being a pioneer in printed news papers (creating one of the first papers in PA and infamously publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac), Ben Franklin, in all modern measurements, sucked at ad-copy.  I might go so far as to say that he would have been canned by any current magazine, newspaper or even blog for the wordy ads he put out.

Of course, back in the day (circa 1755) his long winded “advertisements” were the norm (perhaps even cutting edge) but these days any reader would probably just stop reading after the first line…see if you can make sense of this ad he ran in 1755 seeking to hire horses and carriages for General Braddock (who was “stateside” to protect the colonies from the belligerent French–obviously before they became the war-dodging country they are today.  Brush up on the French-Indian War here).

ADVERTISEMENT. — LANCASTER, April 26, 1755.

Whereas, one hundred and fifty waggons, with four horses to each waggon, and fifteen hundred saddle or pack horses, are wanted for the service of his majesty’s forces now about to rendezvous at Will’s Creek, and his excellency General Braddock having been pleased to empower me to contract for the hire of the same, I hereby give notice that I shall attend for that purpose at Lancaster from this day to next Wednesday evening, and at York from next Thursday morning till Friday evening, where I shall be ready to agree for waggons and teams, or single horses, on the following terms, viz.:

1. That there shall be paid for each waggon, with four good horses and a driver, fifteen shillings per diem; and for each able horse with a pack-saddle, or other saddle and furniture, two shillings per diem; and for each able horse without a saddle, eighteen pence per diem.

2.  That the pay commence from the time of their joining the forces at Will’s Creek, which must be on or before the 20th of May ensuing, and that a reasonable allowance be paid over and above for the time necessary for their travelling to Will’s Creek and home again after their discharge.

3. Each waggon and team, and every saddle or pack horse, is to be valued by indifferent persons chosen between me and the owner; and in case of the loss of any waggon, team, or other horse in the service, the price according to such valuation is to be allowed and paid.

4. Seven days’ pay is to be advanced and paid in hand by me to the owner of each waggon and team, or horse, at the time of contracting, if required, and the remainder to be paid by General Braddock, or by the paymaster of the army, at the time of their discharge, or from time to time, as it shall be demanded.

5.  No drivers of waggons, or persons taking care of the hired horses, are on any account to be called upon to do the duty of soldiers, or be otherwise employed than in conducting or taking care of their carriages or horses.

6.  All oats, Indian corn, or other forage that waggons or horses bring to the camp, more than is necessary for the subsistence of the horses, is to be taken for the use of the army, and a reasonable price paid for the same.

Note.–My son, William Franklin, is empowered to enter into like contracts with any person in Cumberland county.
B. FRANKLIN. (From the Dailylit.com version of Ben Franklin’s Autobiography)

No way that could be a Google Ad.  The 425 words/2300 characters are a far cry from meeting Google or Twitter standards, but if Ben had asked, I could have helped him trim it down.  Here’s the same ad as it might have been formatted for the internet-age.

Google Search Ad:

franklingoogle

Twitter Post:

franklintwitter

And finally Facebook:

franklinfacebookFair?  Not really.  Fun?  Certainly.  Franklin probably would have been a media powerhouse today (he was in his own time, amassing a fortune by 40 just through smart printing and by staying sharp).  Perhaps we can take a hint from his eloquent, flowing writing style.  Sure it’s formal, but it’s cordial and personal at the same time.  Which says a lot more than the ad samples above.

That being said, I don’t think many people answered his original ads.  After that “ad” appears in his book he talks about how he had to publish a warning to the people of PA after letting them know that the Brits would take their horses and wagons by force (since they had already asked so nicely and offered to pay).

Craigslist for all mankind.

Newly Ancient (a web idol of mine) posted recently about a WIRED article concerned with Craigslist. I tried to comment over there but it seems the form is not working properly.

Here’s Morgante’s original post:

Wired has published an in-depth article about Craigslist that exposes the peculiar personality of the site, and its founder. I have never been a fan of Craigslist — its usability is terrible. The Craiglist management has a somewhat hypocritical stance. Supposedly, the site is simple because business growth isn’t a priority; it’s all about the users. Yet those same users (or potential ones) complain about how backwards the site is, with extremely poor technology running it. Worst yet, Craigslist actively discourages innovation by not offering any kind of API to external clients. Hopefully, just as newspaper classifieds were defeated by newer media, Craiglist will eventually fall to companies willing to innovate.

Here’s what I wanted to say:

I gotta disagree. In the current state of our economy I think it’s great that a little company with lots of users and specific ideals doesn’t just want to squeeze it’s users for money.

The draw of CL is that it’s free and it’s owners consider it a public/community asset, not an ATM for planes and cars and houses. Instead of innovating their focusing on providing consistent, quality service (so what if the site looks dumpy, I’ve found and sold many a material good, roommate, apartment–and the same can be said for any level of user).

I don’t think another company will come and knock CL off, and I think that’s a positive. Newmark will go down as one of the most influential web-men of the 20th and 21st centuries because of these little quirks that people misconstrue as weaknesses. I think it’s great that he is content with what he’s created and applies his waking hours to help it grow, interact with it’s users and, in his opinion, make the world a better place.

It flies in the face of conventional business thinking, that’s for sure.  But the CL mantra and way of doing business, perhaps, is an important lesson in this day and age of government bailouts.