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2 | phyllis | 2006-10-09T18:30:28 | A Student's Guide to Startups | null | http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html | 16 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
3 | phyllis | 2006-10-09T18:40:33 | Woz Interview: the early days of Apple | null | http://www.foundersatwork.com/stevewozniak.html | 7 | 0 | [
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Error - Page Not Found
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| 2024-11-08T00:09:58 | null | train |
4 | onebeerdave | 2006-10-09T18:47:42 | NYC Developer Dilemma | null | http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/10/the_nyc_develop.html | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
5 | perler | 2006-10-09T18:51:04 | Google, YouTube acquisition announcement could come tonight | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/09/google-youtube-sign-more-separate-deals/ | 7 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
6 | perler | 2006-10-09T18:56:40 | Business Intelligence the Inkling Way: cool prediction markets software | null | http://360techblog.com/2006/10/02/business-intelligence-the-inkling-way/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
7 | phyllis | 2006-10-09T19:00:55 | Sevin Rosen Unfunds - why? | null | http://featured.gigaom.com/2006/10/09/sevin-rosen-unfunds-why/ | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
8 | frobnicate | 2006-10-09T19:17:39 | LikeBetter featured by BBC | null | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/5412216.stm | 10 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
9 | askjigga | 2006-10-09T19:19:02 | weekendr: social network for the weekend | null | http://www.weekendr.com/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
10 | frobnicate | 2006-10-09T19:21:14 | PhotoShow: Broadcast Photos to Cable TV | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/09/broadcast-photos-to-cable-tv/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
11 | frobnicate | 2006-10-09T19:24:44 | Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute | null | http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
12 | farmer | 2006-10-09T19:28:32 | Wired: The Desktop is Dead | null | http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/cloudware.html | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
13 | phyllis | 2006-10-09T19:36:12 | The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn | null | http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
14 | pg | 2006-10-09T19:50:20 | Small is Beautiful: Building a Successful Company with Less Capital | null | http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3738 | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
16 | pg | 2006-10-09T19:51:43 | Feld: Question Regarding NDAs | null | http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/001979.html | 11 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
18 | farmer | 2006-10-09T19:55:46 | Voddler Raises $2.2M For Virtual Cable TV | null | http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/archives/2006/10/stockholmnfounded_vo.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
19 | pg | 2006-10-09T19:59:03 | Will Silicon Light Illuminate the Future? | null | http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17588&ch=energy | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
20 | pg | 2006-10-09T20:00:38 | Salaries at VC-backed companies | null | http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/10/search_by_salar.html | 8 | 1 | [
23
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
21 | sama | 2006-10-10T01:21:11 | Best IRR ever? YouTube 1.65B... | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/09/google-has-acquired-youtube/ | 6 | 1 | [
22
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
25 | starklysnarky | 2006-10-10T05:33:32 | A Story About Not Going IPO During The Bubble | null | http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-04-21-sas-culture_x.htm | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
26 | zak | 2006-10-10T06:12:13 | null | null | null | 1 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
27 | spez | 2006-10-10T14:04:03 | Google Acquires YouTube For $1.6B | null | http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_youtube.html | 12 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
28 | spez | 2006-10-10T14:35:10 | google! | null | http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/google_youtube.html | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
29 | spez | 2006-10-10T15:34:50 | null | null | null | 2 | null | [
30
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32 | eshear | 2006-10-10T15:43:00 | Scratchtop - notepad for the web | null | http://scratchtop.com | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
37 | gaborcselle | 2006-10-10T20:13:54 | Woah, Scrybe! - A new kind of online organiser. | null | http://marcusfoster.com/blog/2006/10/09/woah-scrybe/ | 4 | 1 | [
41
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38 | farmer | 2006-10-10T20:44:53 | Dot-Com Boom Echoed in Deal to Buy YouTube - New York Times | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/technology/10deal.html?ex=1318132800&en=d8a82aacfcbbe1ee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
39 | frobnicate | 2006-10-10T20:55:50 | Competitio.us: track your competitors online | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/04/competitous-track-your-competition-online/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
40 | pg | 2006-10-10T20:59:01 | Scoble: Google web apps "will sneak in the back door" | null | http://www.cioinsight.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=190067,00.asp | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
42 | sergei | 2006-10-11T02:10:01 | An alternative to VC: "Selling In" | null | http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2006/10/10/an-alternative-to-vc-selling-in/ | 5 | 0 | [
28355,
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43 | farmer | 2006-10-11T14:45:01 | Yahoo's Growth Being Eroded by New Rivals - New York Times | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/technology/11yahoo.html?ex=1318219200&en=538f73d9faa9d263&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 3 | 1 | [
44
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46 | goldfish | 2006-10-11T15:39:28 | Rentometer: Check How Your Rent Compares to Others in Your Area | null | http://www.rentometer.com/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
47 | onebeerdave | 2006-10-11T21:47:48 | Another audience-driven news site that thinks it will win by paying users | null | http://business2.blogs.com/business2blog/2006/10/startup_watch_c.html | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
49 | pg | 2006-10-12T13:30:14 | Preezo Enters Online Office Race | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/11/preezo-enters-online-office-race/ | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
50 | pg | 2006-10-12T13:59:30 | Boston VCs invest in fewer consumer Internet startups than Silicon Valley firms | null | http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2006/09/25/story8.html | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | timeout | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T17:19:01 | null | train |
51 | phyllis | 2006-10-12T19:13:26 | How Much Money Do You Make? | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/12/how-much-money-do-you-make/ | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
52 | onebeerdave | 2006-10-12T19:19:00 | Winners and Losers in the Google YouTube deal | null | http://polls.gigaom.com/2006/10/09/goobed/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
53 | gaborcselle | 2006-10-12T22:38:42 | Top ten geek business myths | null | http://rondam.blogspot.com/2006/10/top-ten-geek-business-myths.html | 7 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
55 | perler | 2006-10-13T14:46:50 | RealTravel Trip Planner: Cut, Paste & Share Travel Tips | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/13/realtravel-trip-planner-cut-paste-share-travel-tips/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
56 | pg | 2006-10-14T15:43:45 | Cyberface: New technology that "captures the soul" | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/movies/15waxm.html?ex=1318564800&en=e5fbcfe899f7c41d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
57 | adamsmith | 2006-10-14T22:55:41 | Black triangle: a useful shorthand and metaphor | null | http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/2004/10/black-triangle.html | 12 | 1 | [
439383
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The requested URL was not found on this server.
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| 2024-11-08T10:26:35 | null | train |
58 | frobnicate | 2006-10-15T22:48:30 | NYT: How Friendster Blew It | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/business/yourmoney/15friend.html?ex=1318564800&en=3e9438ed349f7ce7&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 7 | 0 | null | null | null | bot_blocked | nytimes.com | null | null | Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker | 2024-11-08T07:50:05 | null | train |
59 | gaborcselle | 2006-10-17T08:32:33 | NYT on the network of ex-PayPal employees in Silicon Valley | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/technology/17paypal.html?ex=1318737600&en=6fcef6809e87f6fc&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
60 | zak | 2006-10-21T04:56:50 | null | null | null | 2 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
61 | goldfish | 2006-10-22T18:29:55 | VCs Prefer to Fund Nearby Firms - New York Times | null | http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/business/yourmoney/22digi.html?ex=1319169600&en=fc0cc8346b8b9382&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
63 | kul | 2007-02-19T02:30:24 | From Oxford to Silicon Valley | null | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6355289.stm | 25 | 2 | [
2686,
554
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
64 | pg | 2007-02-19T02:30:26 | From Oxford to Silicon Valley | null | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6355289.stm | 6 | 0 | [
917
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
65 | perler | 2007-02-19T02:38:20 | Y Europe can seed growth of its new stars | null | http://localglobe.blogspot.com/2007/02/y-europe-can-seed-growth-of-its-new.html | 13 | 0 | null | null | null | Failed after 3 attempts. Last error: Quota exceeded for quota metric 'Generate Content API requests per minute' and limit 'GenerateContent request limit per minute for a region' of service 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' for consumer 'project_number:854396441450'. | Y Europe can seed growth of its new stars | null | null |
Y Europe can seed growth of its new stars
Europe has so far under-delivered in terms of globally successful technology startups.But we're starting to turn a corner in Europe as we start to leverage some of our emerging assets. We've always had great talent (especially in academia & research institutions), but now we also successful entrepreneurial role models, sophisticated early-stage financing and the ability to start and test businesses at low-cost as well.We should stop worrying about why we're not Silicon Valley and start thinking about what we can do with the great advantages we have. So this is really a call to arms: for first-time European entrepreneurs to let us know what they need to improve their chances of global success and for serial entrepreneurs and investors to figure out how we can better support the best ideas and talent.We have a real chance to improve how we find, develop and accelerate the growth of our best European ideas - we need to work together to figure it out.London's emerging young entrepreneurial sceneThis issue has really come into focus for me as I've started to spend time with some of the rare people who are coming straight out of university to start Internet businesses. Some are staying in the UK and some have headed off to Silicon Valley - but I've been really impressed by the appetite for building startups by this group drawn primarily from Oxford and Imperial universities.For the London startup community, Imperial and its talent pool must be one of our best hidden secrets. It's rated 1st in Europe and 4th in the world for technology by the Times Higher Education Supplement. Imperial's Computer Science department has around 600 undergrads and 400 PhDs, so it's great to see some of these people begin to start companies. In fact the student body has created Imperial Entrepreneurs (disclosure: I'm one of the founding patrons) to help potential student entrepreneurs reach out to London's established entrepreneurial and venture community to kick start opportunities.How they've been doing it in the New WorldHere in the old world, this is new news but in the US of course this is an old story. Schools like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley have long been known for producing great teams who come straight out of school and start significant businesses.In fact in the last five years, this phenomenon has spread beyond this technical trio to encompass even liberal arts schools like Harvard (Facebook) and the amazing alumni like Scott Banister and Max Levchin of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who have been behind great businesses in the last 10 years (LinkExchange, Ironport, Overture, PayPal and Slide).Stanford with Google and Yahoo! to its name is the benchmark by which all other schools are measured. At Stanford, talented students not only have a faculty that encourages innovation, but of course they have Sand Hill Rd (and developed angel networks) on their doorstep for funding plus an MBA program and hundreds of technology businesses in the area to draw from for hiring.These networks become self-perpetuating and are replicate anywhere. Silicon Valley is unlikely to ever be equaled as a magnet for innovation unless something very fundamental changes, but there is no reason why London in particular and Europe in general can't start to really compete in the creation of global success stories.So how can Europe start to compete?Availability of TalentEurope has incredible depth and breadth of talent. Skype is perhaps one of Europe's first global Internet success stories and it has exposed me to some of the most amazing developers and product people working in technology today -- these are people who are from Estonia, Denmark, Russia and Sweden.We think of these markets (like India) as being a source of cheap talent, but this misses the point entirely - this talent is world-class. Check out the stats on Topcoder and you'll see that Russia, Poland not just holding their own with the US but ahead in competitions - and Ukraine and Slovakia not far behind. Given the web was developed at CERN and some of the great successes of the open source market like Linux and mySQL were both born in Europe we shouldn't be surprised.Somehow we have persuaded ourselves in Europe that the US has all the talent, but if you look at the chart from Eurostat below you'll see that in 10 European countries including Lithuania, Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland have more science & technology graduates per head of population than in the US.Now of course you need more than just great engineers, mathematicians or biologists to make great disruptive companies but this mix and diversity of talent is actually something where London and many other major European cities are blessed. There are plenty of experienced commercial marketers, product managers and financial types around to help build out a business once it starts to take hold.Critically, we still don't have a deep pool of experienced startup talent in Europe, but one positive from the bubble of the late 90s is that it bloodied a generation of employees who know what it's like to ride the roller coaster of success and failure in a startup. Of course Silicon Valley and Boston has several generations of this kind of employee but tasting and learning from startup failure (as well as success) is something which Europe needs more time and experience to compete.Many would argue Europe also needs a major change of attitude (and possibly legislation) here. Failure or bankruptcy is not culturally accepted in Europe, but if we want to encourage the abundance of talent to start and join early-stage companies trying to change the world, we need to accept there will be many many more flops than hits.If we want European talent to stop feeling disheartened and start saying "I don't have to go to Silicon Valley to do this", we need to support failure and encourage people to take the risks you need to think and succeed big.Sophisticated FundingA major part of supporting success or failure is funding. Library House have just conducted some very interesting research which breaks down venture capital investment into geographic clusters which takes an analysis of the US market beyond the national level. In this view, California and Boston are way ahead of the game but the UK is #3 worldwide in terms of investment.Funding is only one piece of the jigsaw. It's not just the access to capital, but it's access to investors who have ambitions to build big global businesses, not just local players.Ambitious entrepreneurs have been educated to believe that you need to have a US investor to build a global business, but there is certainly a much more developed and competitive market for backing European entrepreneurs today than there was even 5 years ago. When I started Video Island (now Lovefilm International) in 2002, there were very few Silicon Valley style, top-tier VCs ( Index and Benchmark) willing to back consumer Internet businesses but now there are several in the game (including Accel and Atlas). These established firms and very strong local players like Mangrove, Northzone (Scandinavia), Gemini (Israel), Wellington (Germany) and others, are all looking for and prepared to back teams that want to take on and change the world.There are also now a significant network of serial seed-investors and entrepreneurs - who are lending both their capital and experience to build and back European start-ups. These include Niklas Zennstrom (FON), Martin Varvasky (Netvibes), Stefan Glanzer (Last.fm), Pierre Chappaz (Netvibes, Wikio), the Samwers (Hitflip, Wunderloop), Simon Murdoch (Lovefilm, Viagogo), Klaus Hommels (Stardoll, OpenBC) and Brent Hoberman (WAYN, Moveme). At TAG alone, we have invested in around 10 European start-ups in the last four years.There has been quite an active discussion recently about the funding gap for European start-ups, but in funding terms, I don't think there has been a better time to get a start-up funded in Europe. Index has just closed a €350m fund.Role Models & EcosystemThe same can be said for the availability of both companies and people are can provide role models to first time entrepreneurs about what can be done.Larry & Sergey at Google and Jerry & David at Yahoo! needed there to have been Jobs & Wozniak at Apple or Gates & Allen at Microsoft. In Europe, we are only just beginning to recognize that if Niklas & Janus can do it with Skype, then why not others?Why not indeed. There is nowhere near as many examples of people creating global technology businesses in Europe as in the US, but you just need a few examples. Skype was a watershed moment in how European entrepreneurs can think about their potential, both in terms of exit and global footprint (only around 20% of the business comes from the US).We now have several businesses born in Europe that have the potential to make a global impact and they are spread across the Continent: including last.fm (London), Netvibes (Paris), Habbo (Helsinki), FON (Madrid), Skype (Tallin & London) and Rebtel & Stardoll (Stockholm). We also have a generation of second and third time entrepreneurs who are not only helping to seed the next generation but are also now focussed on building their own new businesses.There is also now a growing ecosystem of support services -- lawyers, communication agencies and recruiters -- that have experience working with startups and helping them scale.GlobalizationPerhaps one of the key factors that is swinging into Europe's favour is the changing dynamics of the Internet and globalization. Ten years ago, in fact even five, you could not consider building a global technology business without starting in the US but that is not true today.The Internet outside the US is bigger than the inside and that trend is only accelerating. Google, eBay and Yahoo all know this and the fact that YouTube is already over 65% international in less than two years from launch shows that the US in no longer an island.Against many important measures -- broadband penetration, % online advertising spend and mobile phone adoption -- the US is no longer the world's most important market. This is not for one minute to say that the US shouldn't part a major part of every ambitious startup's plans but if for example you want to be in the market with the largest share of online advertising as part of the marketing mix, you want to be in the UK.Skype again is a great case study of a business that did well to look East before it looked West. Today Asia is a major part of its community and several developing country markets like Poland, Brazil and Turkey are very significant as well. European companies are ideally placed to take advantages of these globalizing trends and not just because of their location.Location is important, but in this case, an attitude which is attuned to being open to other cultures is actually more important. No European market is big enough to sustain a single-market player, so no ambitious European technology business thinks either single geography or language. Where Netflix could create a major player by thinking US only, that is not an option for Lovefilm. If you start your business in Tel Aviv, Stockholm or Tallin you can bet you're thinking from day 1 about how you can take your products to a global market - if you start your business in Palo Alto, international is probably an after thought.Start Up CostsOpen source technologies have evolved to a level of maturity and popularity that if you are a talented developer with a great idea for an Internet application your only really significant costs are your time. Amazon's web services have even started to push bandwidth and storage into an area of affordability.The barriers are now incredibly low for creating software applications which you can get out onto the Web, expose to a global audience, get feedback and iterate.Starting small doesn't mean that you're not going to need funding to hire and scale up if you have a real business to pursue, but what it does mean is that you can find out very quickly and cheaply if your idea has traction. There is a big difference between an idea (which is easy to discard) and a business that has taken on people, costs and commitments (which is very hard to discard both rationally and emotionally).We have a great opportunity today to test more ideas, which we can do very quickly and cheaply, and start businesses which have a better chance of succeeding.So what can we do about it?Well, not surprisingly there are already some models looking to help encourage young talent to start businesses in the US like YCombinator startup schools in Boston & San Francisco and the new Techstar summer program in Boulder.Both these models are similar in terms of their approach:invite smart first-time entrepreneurs to apply for an intensive course on developing their idea into a business surround them with experienced entrepreneurs and investors who have been their beforeinvest small amounts of capital ($5-15K) to take small equity stakes (5-10%) in a limited number of the entrepreneurssupport these entrepreneurs for a limited period (say 3 months) on site in SF, Boston or Bouldergive the successful teams the chance to pitch to VCs and experienced investorsIf you agree with some of the success factors above, there is a lot to like about these approaches: they are open to anyone, they give people access to experienced role models and an ecosystem of support from entrepreneurs and investors.What I really like about YCombinator though is the focus they have on the developer, especially young developers. Paul Graham writes really eloquently about today's hackers being like the Renaissance artists of our generation. The democratization of the tools needed to create great software means that anyone with the talent and an idea can try to start a business. The same will become true for the creative arts and is to some extent already the case on YouTube and Amie Street but for now the focus should be on the hacker and the giving talented software developers the chance to turn their ideas into businesses.I think Paul Graham has it right. Not every great hacker will be able to create a business, but today's world gives them a better than average chance and giving them access to the right support networks, advice and capital is the right way to do it.The jury is still out in terms of the commercial payback of the YCombinator crop but I think regardless of how many businesses come out and get funded, acquired or become sustainable - the educational benefit that accrues to talent from the support they receive and the networks they form is the biggest payoff. It's basically a cheap and very compressed MBA, because anyone who has done a startup knows, you only learn by doing and making mistakes.We can do this. We should take this model (perhaps with Paul Graham to help!) and make it work for Europe -- I suspect it needs significant tweaking and I've seen some interesting riffs on the model starting to emerge, but it's really a service for the entrepreneurs - so you should let us know.Seeding Europe's PotentialWe compete with the rest of the world in being able to leverage open source and the growing ubiquity of the Internet.But in Europe we now have some advantages of our own:world-class talent within the EU and in our orbit including Israel, Russia and South Africaproportionally more 20-29 year old science & technology graduates in 10 European countries than the USavailable startup capital like never before and experienced investors keen to back daring ideas to create global businesses a generation of experienced European entrepreneurs ready to offer a support network successful role model companies in capitals across Europe cultures that are attuned to thinking global and acting localSo what next? This summer we will aim to bring together some of Europe's best entrepreneurs and investors to start supporting and seeding talented developers who have ideas that they think they can turn into world beating businesses.Right now, I've love your feedback.Let me know;what you think, who you'd want to be involved,how we should go about finding the right talent,who should we be telling about it, how should the model work best, if your an entrepreneur what you would need,You might feel it's a bit of a cop out having this be a conversation, rather than locked down and launched but I think that the conversation in Europe is maybe as important and getting a seed-camp off the ground.(Note: thanks to everyone who gave great comments on this tirade and to Sam Sethi for a great title)Labels: entrepreneur, funding, innovation, startups, vcs, venture capital
| 2024-11-08T03:08:51 | null | train |
66 | pg | 2007-02-19T02:42:31 | Adobe gives new flash tools only to Photobucket | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/16/newest-flash-tools-on-display-at-photobucket/ | 12 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
67 | zak | 2007-02-19T03:01:38 | null | null | null | 14 | null | [
166
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
68 | zak | 2007-02-19T03:04:21 | null | null | null | 3 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
69 | zak | 2007-02-19T03:07:36 | null | null | null | 7 | null | [
76
] | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
71 | zak | 2007-02-19T03:12:10 | null | null | null | 2 | null | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
73 | onebeerdave | 2007-02-19T03:29:57 | New Revenue Stream For Bloggers: TextMark SMS Alerts | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/18/new-revenue-stream-for-bloggers-textmark-sms-alerts/ | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
74 | phyllis | 2007-02-19T03:57:19 | Startup School 2007: 3/24 at Stanford | null | http://startupschool.org/ | 37 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
75 | phyllis | 2007-02-19T04:07:20 | Learning from Founders | null | http://www.paulgraham.com/foundersatwork.html | 13 | 1 | [
200
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
77 | phyllis | 2007-02-19T04:13:45 | Tech's younger generation leans on Web 2.0 for love | null | http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/14/MNGEVO4DOV1.DTL&hw=jessica+guynn&sn=001&sc=1000 | 9 | 2 | [
79
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
78 | matt | 2007-02-19T04:21:56 | Alexa's Inaccurate Traffic Stats Become More Detailed | null | http://mashable.com/2007/02/16/alexas-inaccurate-traffic-stats-become-more-detailed/ | 8 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
81 | justin | 2007-02-19T07:12:10 | allfreecalls.com shut down by AT&T | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/16/allfreecalls-shut-down/ | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
83 | gaborcselle | 2007-02-19T09:42:28 | Why Startups Don't Condense in Europe | null | http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2006/12/why-startups-dont-condense-in-europe.html | 12 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
84 | nate | 2007-02-19T17:36:02 | Sell more of your product by throwing out some of its features? | null | http://code.inklingmarkets.com/journal/2007/2/16/sell-more-of-your-product-by-throwing-out-some-of-its-features.html | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | http_404 | The page you were looking for doesn't exist (404) | null | null |
You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved.
If you are the application owner check the logs for more information.
| 2024-11-08T01:36:04 | null | train |
85 | nate | 2007-02-19T17:38:58 | Hack your desk to remove the clutter | null | http://lifehacker.com/software/diy/diy-underdesk-gadget-mount-237789.php | 5 | 0 | [
85945
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
86 | adam_inkling | 2007-02-19T17:45:54 | Project management alternative to basecamp - ticketing and version control too :) | null | http://unfuddle.com | 10 | 1 | [
130
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
87 | adam_inkling | 2007-02-19T17:46:48 | Project management alternative to basecamp - ticketing and version control too :) | null | http://unfuddle.com | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
88 | adam_inkling | 2007-02-19T17:47:04 | Project management alternative to basecamp - ticketing and version control too :) | null | http://unfuddle.com | 1 | -1 | null | null | true | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
89 | nate | 2007-02-19T17:47:26 | Win A Copy Of Yojimbo - a pretty good organizer for the Mac. | null | http://macapper.com/2007/02/19/win-a-copy-of-yojimbo/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
90 | adam_inkling | 2007-02-19T17:50:35 | Where all the cool kids get their icons | null | http://famfamfam.com | 11 | 0 | null | null | null | missing_parsing | famfamfam.com is almost here! | null | null |
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| 2024-11-08T21:04:16 | null | train |
91 | pc | 2007-02-19T18:01:03 | SunRocket cofounders up and leave | null | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/11/AR2007021101198.html?nav=rss_technology | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
92 | greg | 2007-02-19T18:09:20 | Track users' mouse movements on your webpages | null | http://www.clicktale.com/ | 10 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | Clicktale Is Now Contentsquare - Explore Our Combined Platform | null | null | We've joined forces to create the global leader in digital experience analytics.
Whether you're analyzing a website or mobile app or troubleshooting performance, our combined technologies will help you bring online customer behavior to life.More than 750 enterprise brands use Contentsquare x Clicktale to understand and optimize their digital experiencesContentsquare unlocks customer insights for your entire digital teamIt’s one platform that’s powerful enough for every digital role, from marketers to product managers to IT.Bring customer behavior to lifeDo you understand the why behind your digital analytics?Contentsquare connects metrics to actual customer behavior, combining the power of rich data, machine and human intelligence to deliver better outcomes.Effortless, intuitive heatmapsOur software takes out all the manual work: No more tagging different zones on your page.Powerful yet intuitive heatmaps measure clicks, scroll-depth, engagement, and much more.Identify friction and falloff pointsContentsquare's uniquely visual analysis capabilities make it easy to pinpoint friction in your user journeys.Find and fix performance errorsZero in on and quantify improvements that matter most to your business and to your customers’ happiness. Understand how to improve every step in the customer journey, and use attribution to quantify and prioritize potential improvements.Built for the world's most sophisticated and secure digital brandsContentsquare is trusted by more than 30% of Fortune 500 companies, meeting the world’s most stringent security and performance requirements. Our robust architecture can automatically and cost-effectively handle large, unpredictable workloads, seasonal traffic growth and immense surges.Our solutions are GDPR and CCPA compliant, and we have a privacy-first philosophy that informs everything we do. | 2024-11-07T18:14:40 | en | train |
93 | pc | 2007-02-19T18:19:02 | Google's Searchmash adds inline video | null | http://www.searchmash.com/search/star+wars+kid | 6 | 0 | [
151
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
94 | thecurve | 2007-02-19T18:19:41 | Premium GMail Coming Soon - $25/yr for 6 Gigs | null | http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4552107.html | 11 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
95 | pc | 2007-02-19T18:21:46 | YouTube: "identifying copyrighted material can't be an automated process." Startup disagrees. | null | http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/19/business/piracy.php | 8 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
96 | thecurve | 2007-02-19T18:24:20 | Google's Build Your Campus in 3D Competition | null | http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/show-us-your-university-campus-in-3d.html | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
97 | emmett | 2007-02-19T18:29:22 | An Overview of the Five Gazillion Video Startups | null | http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/online_video_index.php | 11 | 0 | null | null | null | no_article | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-07T22:36:09 | null | train |
98 | farmer | 2007-02-19T18:35:19 | 25 Most Interesting VoIP Startups | null | http://www.voip-news.com/feature/25-most-interesting-voip-startups-021207/ | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
99 | pg | 2007-02-19T18:37:29 | The Google-Powered Business | null | http://blog.radioactiveyak.com/2006/07/googleoffice-beta-google-powered.html | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | no_error | GoogleOffice (Beta): The Google Powered Business | null | null |
[ Google Office Tools Homepage Google Powered Office Articles ]I loved Philipp Lessen's '55 Ways to Have Fun with Google', but I couldn't help thinking, 'What about when I'm not avoiding work?'. Google's great as a distraction, but it's also vital for getting my work done. As a playful response to Philipp's book, I'm going to show you the best ways to Get Work Done with a Google powered office.BackgroundOver the last 12 months, Google has released an astounding array of business related applications -- including a calendar, spreadsheet, word processor, and hosted email. Few are Enterprise ready -- in fact none of them are entirely mature (all are still in Beta or Labs) -- but importantly all of them are available gratis, and I'm not Sony or Nestle, so my QA standards are a little lower.It's not just these 'Office Suite' style products that you can use for your company. Services like Alerts, Notebook, Maps, Co-op, and Google Groups (to name a few) can become invaluable tools for your business.The PlanEach week fortnight I'll post a new article on either how to:Replace an existing business function with a Google alternativeGet the most out of a particular Google service in the workplace environment.To focus my attention (and 'eat my own dog food'), these articles will be based on my experiences as I transform Intervention Engineering into a Google Powered company.Hopefully the end result will be a useful guide for those contemplating a switch to a non traditional office IT setup, or for those simply looking to get the most from Google's many services. What to ExpectMy approach will be fairly haphazard, but I'll try to cover a wide selection of services rather than focusing too heavily in one area at a time. Requests are welcome and feedback gratefully received. For a list of articles, updated as they're completed, check out Google Office Tools.In addition to the weekly fortnightly post, I'll also be maintaining a collection of Google Notebooks to summarize my findings. They'll be dynamic, and I'll update them regularly with new ideas, changes to Google's services, plus suggestions and feedback from you guys. Each article will link to applicable notebooks -- plus I'll keep a GoogleOffice index notebook here.Along the way I expect to make reference to non-Google products which adhere to the same philosophy -- products like FireFox and OpenOffice -- but Google will be the primary focus.At the end of each post I'll announce the subject for the next week, if you have specific questions regarding the topic, send me an email or leave a comment and I'll make sure to address it in the article.Next Week's PreviewBusiness emailEvery business needs a powerful and robust email solution. Many of you have probably used GMail before, but some of you may not be aware of Google's hosted GMail for your domain. A service that lets you use GMail for your business email domain.I'll be looking at using a hosted GMail account for my business, and will look specifically at:The business case for switching to a Google hosted email solution.How to set up hosted GMail for your business.Using email alias, labels, filters, and mailing lists to optimize your email experienceGoogle Alerts and Google Groups with GMailGoogleBerry -- Mobile GMail for email on the road
| 2024-11-08T05:11:41 | en | train |
100 | pc | 2007-02-19T18:38:08 | SpikeSource, CA-based startup, becomes Ubuntu commercial support provider for US | null | http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7616991195.html | 6 | 0 | [
152
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
101 | pg | 2007-02-19T18:40:49 | Dutch Sharewire Taking Mobile Content Off Deck | null | http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/archives/2007/02/dutch_sharewire_taki.html#Permalink | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
102 | pc | 2007-02-19T18:43:09 | Screencast of DabbleDB -- web-based DBMS coded in Smalltalk | null | http://dabbledb.com/explore/7minutedemo/ | 19 | 3 | [
328,
283026,
155
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
103 | emmett | 2007-02-19T18:47:28 | Google acquires advertising startup | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/16/google-to-buy-adscape-for-23-million/ | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
104 | farmer | 2007-02-19T18:51:02 | Founders: The involved vs. the committed | null | http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1204/Startup-Founders-The-Involved-vs-The-Committed.aspx | 22 | 3 | [
440,
602,
491,
150
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105 | justin | 2007-02-19T19:33:42 | new fantasy movie league startup | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/16/amazon-funds-fantasy-movies-league/ | 4 | 0 | [
106657,
106661,
106671,
106664,
106668,
106654
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107 | gautam | 2007-02-19T19:49:47 | How much control should our users have? | null | http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/02/how_much_contro.html | 5 | 1 | [
141
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
108 | casey | 2007-02-19T19:54:01 | Social-Networking Sites Open Up | null | http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2007/tc20070213_172619.htm | 9 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
110 | matt | 2007-02-19T20:04:27 | On Having Balls, Part II: Staying Hungry | null | http://james.hotornot.com/2007/02/on-having-balls-part-ii-staying-hungry.html | 67 | 1 | [
132
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
111 | matt | 2007-02-19T20:06:43 | Add a little more random to your product | null | http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/01/add_a_little_mo.html | 9 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
112 | eric | 2007-02-19T20:12:41 | unusual business: multiethnic wedding cake figurines | null | http://uncommonbusiness.blogspot.com/2007/02/wacky-business-idea-multiethnic-wedding.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
113 | casey | 2007-02-19T20:16:10 | Isolating Causality: Bad Market or Bad Company | null | http://willprice.blogspot.com/2007/02/isolating-causality-bad-market-or-bad.html | 3 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
114 | eric | 2007-02-19T20:16:13 | startup lessons for 2007 | null | http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_startup_lessons_2007.php | 10 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
115 | eric | 2007-02-19T20:25:25 | maps mashups just got easier: GeoKit | null | http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2007/2/16/google-maps-with-rails-and-ajax | 4 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
116 | mwseibel | 2007-02-19T20:26:51 | What's good for users is what is good for the business... who knew? | null | http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/02/test.html | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
117 | mwseibel | 2007-02-19T20:42:43 | The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint | null | http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html | 6 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
119 | mwseibel | 2007-02-19T20:51:43 | The Web 2.0 Video | null | http://battellemedia.com/archives/003342.php | 5 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
120 | mwseibel | 2007-02-19T20:55:35 | Finally mobile flash video | null | http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16680147.htm | 7 | 0 | null | null | null | http_404 | Page not found – The Mercury News | null | null |
Oops! That page can’t be found.
| 2024-11-08T02:08:21 | null | train |
121 | pg | 2007-02-19T22:05:40 | Hard disc test surprises Google | null | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6376021.stm | 24 | 7 | [
206,
136,
6030
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
122 | beau | 2007-02-19T22:19:36 | Seven steps to remarkable customer service | null | http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html | 83 | 8 | [
321,
127,
174,
8675,
435
] | null | null | Failed after 3 attempts. Last error: Quota exceeded for quota metric 'Generate Content API requests per minute' and limit 'GenerateContent request limit per minute for a region' of service 'generativelanguage.googleapis.com' for consumer 'project_number:854396441450'. | Seven steps to remarkable customer service | 2007-02-19T00:15:42+00:00 | About the author. |
As a bootstrapped software company, Fog Creek couldn’t afford to hire customer service people for the first couple of years, so Michael and I did it ourselves. The time we spent helping customers took away from improving our software, but we learned a lot and now we have a much better customer service operation.
Here are seven things we learned about providing remarkable customer service. I’m using the word remarkable literally—the goal is to provide customer service so good that people remark.
1. Fix everything two ways
Almost every tech support problem has two solutions. The superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution: a way to prevent this particular problem from ever happening again.
Sometimes that means adding more intelligence to the software or the SETUP program; by now, our SETUP program is loaded with special case checks. Sometimes you just need to improve the wording of an error message. Sometimes the best you can come up with is a knowledge base article.
We treat each tech support call like the NTSB treats airliner crashes. Every time a plane crashes, they send out investigators, figure out what happened, and then figure out a new policy to prevent that particular problem from ever happening again. It’s worked so well for aviation safety that the very, very rare airliner crashes we still get in the US are always very unusual, one-off situations.
This has two implications.
One: it’s crucial that tech support have access to the development team. This means that you can’t outsource tech support: they have to be right there at the same street address as the developers, with a way to get things fixed. Many software companies still think that it’s “economical” to run tech support in Bangalore or the Philippines, or to outsource it to another company altogether. Yes, the cost of a single incident might be $10 instead of $50, but you’re going to have to pay $10 again and again.
When we handle a tech support incident with a well-qualified person here in New York, chances are that’s the last time we’re ever going to see that particular incident. So with one $50 incident we’ve eliminated an entire class of problems.
Somehow, the phone companies and the cable companies and the ISPs just don’t understand this equation. They outsource their tech support to the cheapest possible provider and end up paying $10 again and again and again fixing the same problem again and again and again instead of fixing it once and for all in the source code. The cheap call centers have no mechanism for getting problems fixed; indeed, they have no incentive to get problems fixed because their income depends on repeat business, and there’s nothing they like better than being able to give the same answer to the same question again and again.
The second implication of fixing everything two ways is that eventually, all the common and simple problems are solved, and what you’re left with is very weird uncommon problems. That’s fine, because there are far fewer of them, and you’re saving a fortune not doing any rote tech support, but the downside is that there’s no rote tech support left: only serious debugging and problem solving. You can’t just teach new support people ten common solutions: you have to teach them to debug.
For us, the “fix everything two ways” religion has really paid off. We were able to increase our sales tenfold while only doubling the cost of providing tech support.
2. Suggest blowing out the dust
Microsoft’s Raymond Chen tells the story of a customer who complains that the keyboard isn’t working. Of course, it’s unplugged. If you try asking them if it’s plugged in, “they will get all insulted and say indignantly, ‘Of course it is! Do I look like an idiot?’ without actually checking.”
“Instead,” Chen suggests, “say ‘Okay, sometimes the connection gets a little dusty and the connection gets weak. Could you unplug the connector, blow into it to get the dust out, then plug it back in?’
“They will then crawl under the desk, find that they forgot to plug it in (or plugged it into the wrong port), blow out the dust, plug it in, and reply, ‘Um, yeah, that fixed it, thanks.’”
Many requests for a customer to check something can be phrased this way. Instead of telling them to check a setting, tell them to change the setting and then change it back “just to make sure that the software writes out its settings.”
3. Make customers into fans
Every time we need to buy logo gear here at Fog Creek, I get it from Lands’ End.
Why?
Let me tell you a story. We needed some shirts for a trade show. I called up Lands’ End and ordered two dozen, using the same logo design we had used for some knapsacks we bought earlier.
When the shirts arrived, to our dismay, you couldn’t read the logo.
It turns out that the knapsacks were brighter than the polo shirts. The thread color that looked good on the knapsacks was too dark to read on the shirts.
I called up Lands’ End. As usual, a human answered the phone even before it started ringing. I’m pretty sure that they have a system where the next agent in the queue is told to standby, so customers don’t even have to wait one ringy-dingy before they’re talking to a human.
I explained that I screwed up.
They said, “Don’t worry. You can return those for a full credit, and we’ll redo the shirts with a different color thread.”
I said, “The trade show is in two days.”
They said they would Fedex me a new box of shirts and I’d have it tomorrow. I could return the old shirts at my convenience.
They paid shipping both ways. I wasn’t out a cent. Even though they had no possible use for a bunch of Fog Creek logo shirts with an illegible logo, they ate the cost.
And now I tell this story to everyone who needs swag. In fact I tell this story every time we’re talking about telephone menu systems. Or customer service. By providing remarkable customer service, they’ve gotten me to remark about it.
When customers have a problem and you fix it, they’re actually going to be even more satisfied than if they never had a problem in the first place.
It has to do with expectations. Most people’s experience with tech support and customer service comes from airlines, telephone companies, cable companies, and ISPs, all of whom provide generally awful customer service. It’s so bad you don’t even bother calling any more, do you? So when someone calls Fog Creek, and immediately gets through to a human, with no voice mail or phone menus, and that person turns out to be nice and friendly and actually solves their problem, they’re apt to think even more highly of us than someone who never had the opportunity to interact with us and just assumes that we’re average.
Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to actually make something go wrong, just so we have a chance to demonstrate our superior customer service. Many customers just won’t call; they’ll fume quietly.
But when someone does call, look at it as a great opportunity to create fanatically devoted customer, one who will prattle on and on about what a great job you did.
4. Take the blame
One morning I needed an extra set of keys to my apartment, so on the way to work, I went to the locksmith around the corner.
13 years living in an apartment in New York City has taught me never to trust a locksmith; half of the time their copies don’t work. So I went home to test the new keys, and, lo and behold, one didn’t work.
I took it back to the locksmith.
He made it again.
I went back home and tested the new copy.
It still didn’t work.
Now I was fuming. Squiggly lines were coming up out of my head. I was a half hour late to work and had to go to the locksmith for a third time. I was tempted just to give up on him. But I decided to give this loser one more chance.
I stomped into the store, ready to unleash my fury.
“It still doesn’t work?” he asked. “Let me see.”
He looked at it.
I was sputtering, trying to figure out how best to express my rage at being forced to spend the morning going back and forth.
“Ah. It’s my fault,” he said.
And suddenly, I wasn’t mad at all.
Mysteriously, the words “it’s my fault” completely defused me. That was all it took.
He made the key a third time. I wasn’t mad any more. The key worked.
And, here I was, on this planet for forty years, and I couldn’t believe how much the three words “it’s my fault” had completely changed my emotions in a matter of seconds.
Most locksmiths in New York are not the kinds of guys to admit that they’re wrong. Saying “it’s my fault” was completely out of character. But he did it anyway.
5. Memorize awkward phrases
I figured, OK, since the morning is shot anyway, I might as well go to the diner for some breakfast.
It’s one of those classic New York diners, like the one on Seinfeld. There’s a thirty page menu and a kitchen the size of a phone booth. It doesn’t make sense. They must have Star Trek technology to get all those ingredients into such a small space. Maybe they rearrange atoms on the spot.
I was sitting by the cash register.
An older woman came up to pay her check. As she was paying, she said to the owner, “you know, I’ve been coming here for years and years, and that waiter was really rather rude to me.”
The owner was furious.
“What do you mean? No he wasn’t! He’s a good waiter! I never had a complaint!’
The customer couldn’t believe it. Here she was, a loyal customer, and she wanted to help out the owner by letting him know that one of his waiters needed a little bit of help in the manners department, but the owner was arguing with her!
“Well, that’s fine, but I’ve been coming here for years, and everybody is always very nice to me, but that guy was rude to me,” she explained, patiently.
“I don’t care if you’ve been coming here forever. My waiters are not rude.” The owner proceeded to yell at her. “I never had no problems. Why are you making problems?”
“Look, if you’re going to treat me this way I won’t come back.”
“I don’t care!” said the owner. One of the great things about owning a diner in New York is that there are so many people in the city that you can offend every single customer who ever comes into your diner and you’ll still have a lot of customers. “Don’t come back! I don’t want you as a customer!”
Good for you, I thought. Here’s a 60-something year old man, owner of a diner, and you won some big moral victory against a little old lady. Are you proud of yourself? How macho do you have to be? Does the moral victory make you feel better? Did you really have to lose a repeat customer?
Would it have made you feel totally emasculated to say, “I’m so sorry. I’ll have a word with him?”
It’s easy to get caught up in the emotional heat of the moment when someone is complaining.
The solution is to memorize some key phrases, and practice saying them, so that when you need to say them, you can forget your testosterone and make a customer happy.
“I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t accept your money. The meal’s on me.”
“That’s terrible, please tell me what happened so I can make sure it never happens again.”
It’s completely natural to have trouble saying “It’s my fault.” That’s human. But those three words are going to make your angry customers much happier. So you’re going to have to say them. And you’re going to have to sound like you mean it.
So start practicing.
Say “It’s my fault” a hundred times one morning in the shower, until it starts to sound like syllabic nonsense. Then you’ll be able to say it on demand.
One more point. You may think that admitting fault is a strict no-no that can get you sued. This is nonsense. The way to avoid getting sued is not to have people who are mad at you. The best way to do this is to admit fault and fix the damn problem.
6. Practice puppetry
The angry diner owner clearly took things very personally, in a way that the locksmith didn’t. When an irate customer is complaining, or venting, it’s easy to get defensive.
You can never win these arguments, and if you take them personally, it’s going to be a million times worse. This is when you start to hear business owners saying, “I don’t want an asshole like you for a customer!” They get excited about their Pyrrhic victory. Wow, isn’t it great? When you’re a small business owner you get to fire your customers. Charming.
The bottom line is that this is not good for business, and it’s not even good for your emotional well-being. When you win a victory with a customer by firing them, you still end up feeling riled up and angry, they’ll get their money back from the credit card company anyway, and they’ll tell a dozen friends. As Patrick McKenzie writes, “You will never win an argument with your customer.”
There is only one way to survive angry customers emotionally: you have to realize that they’re not angry at you; they’re angry at your business, and you just happen to be a convenient representative of that business.
And since they’re treating you like a puppet, an iconic stand-in for the real business, you need to treat yourself as a puppet, too.
Pretend you’re a puppeteer. The customer is yelling at the puppet. They’re not yelling at you. They’re angry with the puppet.
Your job is to figure out, “gosh, what can I make the puppet say that will make this person a happy customer?”
You’re just a puppeteer. You’re not a party to the argument. When the customer says, “what the hell is wrong with you people,” they’re just playing a role (in this case, they’re quoting Tom Smykowski in the movie Office Space). You, too, get to play a role. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” Figure out what to make the puppet do that will make them happy and stop taking it so dang personally.
7. Greed will get you nowhere
Recently I was talking with the people who have been doing most of the customer service for Fog Creek over the last year, and I asked what methods they found most effective for dealing with angry customers.
“Frankly,” they said, “we have pretty nice customers. We haven’t really had any angry customers.”
Well, OK, we do have nice customers, but it seems rather unusual that in a year of answering the phones, nobody was angry. I thought the nature of working at a call center was dealing with angry people all day long.
“Nope. Our customers are nice.”
Here’s what I think. I think that our customers are nice because they’re not worried. They’re not worried because we have a ridiculously liberal return policy: “We don’t want your money if you’re not amazingly happy.”
Customers know that they have nothing to fear. They have the power in the relationship. So they don’t get abusive.
The no-questions-asked 90-day money back guarantee was one of the best decisions we ever made at Fog Creek. Try this: use Fog Creek Copilot for a full 24 hours, call up three months later and say, “hey guys, I need $5 for a cup of coffee. Give me back my money from that Copilot day pass,” and we’ll give it back to you. Try calling on the 91st or 92nd or 203rd day. You’ll still get it back. We really don’t want your money if you’re not satisfied. I’m pretty sure we’re running the only job listing service around that will refund your money just because your ad didn’t work. This is unheard of, but it means we get a lot more ad listings, because there’s nothing to lose.
Over the last six years or so, letting people return software has cost us 2%.
2%.
And you know what? Most customers pay with credit cards, and if we didn’t refund their money, a bunch of them would have called their bank. This is called a chargeback. They get their money back, we pay a chargeback fee, and if this happens too often, our processing fees go up.
Know what our chargeback rate is at Fog Creek?
0%.
I’m not kidding.
If we were tougher about offering refunds, the only thing we would possibly have done is pissed a few customers off, customers who would have ranted and whined on their blogs. We wouldn’t even have kept more of their money.
I know of software companies who are very explicit on their web site that you are not entitled to a refund under any circumstances, but the truth is, if you call them up, they will eventually return your money because they know that if they don’t, your credit card company will. This is the worst of both worlds. You end up refunding the money anyway, and you don’t get to give potential customers the warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, so they hesitate before buying. Or they don’t buy at all.
8. (Bonus!) Give customer service people a career path
The last important lesson we learned here at Fog Creek is that you need very highly qualified people talking to customers. A salesperson at Fog Creek needs to have significant experience with the software development process and needs to be able to explain why FogBugz works the way it does, and why it makes software development teams function better. A tech support person at Fog Creek can’t get by on canned answers to common questions, because we’ve eliminated the common questions by fixing the software, so tech support here has to actually troubleshoot which often means debugging.
Many qualified people get bored with front line customer service, and I’m OK with that. To compensate for this, I don’t hire people into those positions without an explicit career path. Here at Fog Creek, customer support is just the first year of a three-year management training program that includes a master’s degree in technology management at Columbia University. This allows us to get ambitious, smart geeks on a terrific career path talking to customers and solving their problems. We end up paying quite a bit more than average for these positions (especially when you consider $25,000 a year in tuition), but we get far more value out of them, too.
| 2024-11-08T17:32:18 | null | train |
123 | beau | 2007-02-19T22:21:13 | Design Quotations: "And if in fact you do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the technology is obsolete." | null | http://design.caltech.edu/erik/Misc/design_quotes.html | 8 | 0 | [
22449649,
33749
] | null | null | fetch failed | null | null | null | null | 2024-11-08T01:18:47 | null | train |
124 | herdrick | 2007-02-19T22:44:06 | Startup news link submission site. | null | http://news.ycombinator.com/ | 58 | 19 | [
133,
139,
142,
156,
164,
125,
211,
197,
218215
] | null | null | no_error | Hacker News | null | null |
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| 2024-11-08T03:12:42 | en | train |
126 | farmer | 2007-02-19T23:32:16 | Make a claim with OpenID on Jyte | null | http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/02/19/make-a-claim-with-openid-on-jyte/ | 2 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
128 | danny | 2007-02-20T00:17:11 | User Interface Design For Programmers | null | http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/fog0000000249.html | 15 | 0 | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
129 | perler | 2007-02-20T00:38:21 | Snipshot "the best" online photo editor | null | http://pulse2.com/2007/02/19/snipshot-steals-online-photo-pic-a-nik-baskets/ | 21 | 3 | [
216,
196,
1046
] | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | null | train |
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