Early Bootstrapping Lessons Jun 27 Jason Moore

Dr. Jeff Cornwall from the Entrepreneurial Mind blog posted a series on creating and maintaining a bootstrapping culture in your business.  This is a topic that is near and dear to the bigWebApps' heart.

It just so happened that I learned bootstrapping at an early age and from an unlikely source.  I attended a small private school through the 8th grade.  Small and private, contrary to initial thoughts, usually means very low budgets.  And our track team was the epitome of a bootstrapping culture.

I ran hurdles... otherwise know as "hurdle" during practice.  OK. OK.  We had TWO hurdles that we set up in the back alley behind the school.  The only time anyone on our team actually saw a full series of hurdles was at a track meet against schools who most definitely had more than two!

Our pole-vaulter (just so happens to be bigWebApps' CEO, Patrick Clements) was the biggest champion of the bootstrapping efforts, though.  Our pole had as much flexibility as lead and the very safe landing mat was (not kidding) a mesh net with some not-so-foamy objects stuffed in.  It appeared to me that someone had visited the dumpster of a local carpeting store and selected the finest (but under-appreciated) scraps of carpet padding available.

In the 7+ years since we founded bigWebApps, we have created some great products, formed and cultivated some amazing relationships with clients, and improved our overall business intelligence.  But there really is one primary reason why bigWebApps was able to survive those dreaded first 5 years for new businesses: Our CEO, Patrick, was diligent (read "downright stubborn" at times) about keeping costs low whenever and wherever possible.  --I'll save our early hotel and rental car accommodations for a later date!

The bootstrapping culture has been set.  Dr. Cornwall's posts will give you ideas for other areas (such as how to hire other bootstrappers) where you can cultivate the bootstrapping culture.

And thanks to the Holy Name Cardinals' non-existent budget for teaching us early lessons!

Other posts in Dr. Cornwall's series: Recruiting Bootstrappers, Rewarding Bootstrappers, and Bootstrapping Top Down

We are Creatures of Habit Jun 09 Patrick Clements

Depending on who you ask, habits take anywhere from 21-30 days to form and only take 2 days to break. 

This is pretty interesting insight into the human psyche especially when you are talking about product development.  It amazes me how Microsoft (NOTE: I am a Microsoft fan, but like most companies they do have their less then stellar moments) spends massive resources to build habits on how users interact with their applications and then with a new version they instantly change how we are used to locating things (I.e Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007).  I personally like the new upgrade and understand there is almost always a retro 'classic' view available, but I have spoken with quite a few folks who just feel lost and frustrated with the new layout.  The point is it worked great before and most people really don't like to change.

In product development I think it is essential in order for early adoption to take place you need to integrate your product into your customers existing beliefs, perceptions, and daily habits.  Creating a solution that breaks outside of this is extremely risky unless you are taking away a serious pain point.  The optimal solution is understanding your client's behaviors and then building your product around their needs.    For example, bigWebApps understood some users are used to sending support requests via email.  It didn't really make sense for us to try and force these new users to go to the web, fill out a support ticket, and then click submit.  This was against what they we were comfortable with doing and adoption would have been low.  We instead developed the system to accommodate their practices and allowed tickets to be created via email into their our HelpDesk solution.  This created high adoption and we were able to successfully help the client with creating a structured support process with these users.

This is just an example of what is available by keeping the end user's habits and needs in mind during product development.  No matter how much easier you think your product is going to make people's lives better, without understanding their habits you are looking at an upstream paddle.

The Minimalist Approach Apr 28 Patrick Clements

I was inspired by a recent article by the 37 Signals guys about the minimalist approach.  Less is More and More of Less is even better!  bigWebApps is currently going through a restructuring phase and taking a step back from the mounds of development we have done over the past few years.  We are looking at what we have in our solutions and instead of continuing to add development we are seeing how we can make these feature sets better for our existing customers.  We have been feature chasers for a long time and to large degree we will always forward engineer our solutions based on client feedback.  Now it's time for us to take in requests, sit on them for a few months and really see if there is a true need.

Too often companies continue to concentrate on growth and revenue and lose sight of what it is their true customers want.  Quality of product begins to suffer and you begin to see loyal customers finding alternate choices (because there is always going to be alternate choices!).  It is our job to evaluate new feature additions with what is ultimately best in line with our solutions. Design is about being able to accomplish most of what you want with the least amount of distractions.  Focusing on creating simple, clean, and functional software is our passion and we will continue to keep the minimalist approach in mind for future development.

The Last Detail Apr 23 Jason Moore

“It turns out that until you reach the last detail, consumers are just satisfied.  When you actually nail the last detail they become loyal.  Loyalty is your goal."

David Vinjamuri, Accidental Branding

This is a fantastic quote on many levels.  There is the obvious interpretation where your customer service reps should work very hard to make sure that the customer's needs are met efficiently (and preferably proactively).

But digging deeper is where the real meat and potatoes are with this one.  Your customer service reps obviously should be focused on the customer.  But what about your bookkeeper? or marketing director? or warehouse manager?

This is the real final detail. 

Have you as the CEO/manager/team leader ingrained the idea of ultimate client fulfillment to a point where providing a caller with your Fed ID number for billing purposes is recognized as a great opportunity to provide a fantastic customer experience?  If not, have you rounded out that final detail?

The final detail could be looked at as an unattainable goal.  I prefer to look at it as the journey (and the reason to travel in the first place).

Where can you find opportunities to polish a final detail in your organization?

Are You Making Meatball Sundaes? Apr 11 Jason Moore

Seth Godin's latest book, Meatball Sundae, is another quick read that will make your brain churn at warp speed during and after reading.

You can find plenty of "reviews" on the book, so I'll spare you mine.  BUT don't stop reading, yet! :)

This book has really caused a riff in my brain because we, as bigWebApps, do a few of the things so correctly by nature that it makes me feel great!  On the other hand, we do some of the items so poorly that I get minor pangs of discouragement.

The thing that we do most correctly, fortunately, is what lies at the base of doing everything else properly.  This "thing" is the understanding that your client is not just your client anymore.  Your client  now serves as your co-worker, employer, partner, reseller...basically any role with substantial power and influence for your company.

The fortunate thing about what we do poorly is that it is most likely the easiest to correct.  Make no mistake, it is not SELF-correctable.  If we do not put full focus on making the proper changes, we will not reach our desired goals.

I can feel the tide a-turning, though.  And I like the direction that the breeze is starting to blow.

Making the Switch Apr 10 Jason Moore

 

Last night, I took the few steps that I knew that are needed to completely transition to Firefox as my default browser.

Welcome to the new world...

The main reason I switched is to see how our applications are performing in Firefox on a proactive instead of reactive basis.  The applications get tested in the most of the main browsers, but I don't know if anyone here uses FF exclusively... until now.

The Best Way to Spread Your Message Apr 09 Jason Moore

Seth Godin, once again, nails it!

A few of the companies that I am passionate about made my list solely on the fact of how they answer the phone.  One of them is GoDaddy.  Each time I have called them with a question, the service rep who answered was amazingly well versed on all topics discussed.  It was clearly evident that there were no call scripts (outside of the greeting) or canned answers about why something was not their fault.

This is something that we strive for as well here at bigWebApps.  We are currently working with early conceptions on how to improve our support and training for our clients.  One of our clients asked how she could know what we know which has led us to think about our help material in a different light.

Our goal for our help and training material is that if someone utilizes the tools that we give them, they could easily strap on a headset and start answering support calls for us.

The challenges to this outlook are flooding my brain right now, but the overall concept has me extremely excited.

There are two main points at play here as well:

• Make our applications as simple and easy to understand as possible
• When complex tasks are necessary, supply the person with the necessary "training" to become an expert if they are willing to dedicate the time (keeping in mind that time is a precious resource)

Do you know of a company whose training and help materials exceed all of your expectations?  Share those with us!

Missing Expectations Apr 08 Jason Moore

I am a huge of Samuel Adams Brewery.  Not just their beer, but the whole culture that the company portrays.  And, from as far as I can tell, their passion for the product is real.  Because of this, I have gone as far as subscribing to their newsletter.  This is an oddity for me, so they are doing something correctly.

But the newsletter they sent out today about the possibility of dangerous bottles being in circulation was a complete and utter disappointment.  My disappointment does not lie in the fact that there is a possibility of the bottles getting through their quality assurance measures.  My disappointment lays squarely on the fact that the tone of their email was focused on passing the buck.

This is a very small snippet of the full email, but it underlines the overall tone.

We are disappointed that because of these bottles supplied to us, we didn't live up to your expectations as a loyal Sam Adams drinker.

I may be over-analyzing, but a defective product did not get to the consumer because of a supplier.  100% of the blame should be hoisted on your company's shoulders when mistakes happen.  As in this case, if you have provided a great product that people enjoy being a consumer of, they will forgive you.  But this email does not convince me that they recognize where they made a mistake.

Growth vs. Greed Apr 08 Patrick Clements

A guy that is quickly becoming somewhat of a Internet icon for new businesses is Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco.  In order to be brief, Semler has revolutionized not only the structure of the workforce, but has also pulled out what is truly the bottom line of his company.  Here is a quote from his book "Maverick: The Success Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace"

A few years ago, I struggled with an opportunity to acquire a company with five plants and 2,000 employees. “Why do we want to grow more?” I asked myself. Are we going to be better for it?”...

It’s all about persistence, isn’t it? But where does persistence end and obsession begin? How high is too high? How big is too big? Of course, some growth is necessary for any business to keep up with competitors and provide new opportunities for its people. But so often it is power and greed and plain stubbornness that make bigger automatically seem better…

Semco has learned that to want to grow big just to be big is a catch…Much about growth is really about ego and greed, not business strategy.

This is a an ideology that resonates very closely with bigWebApps.  It is definitely our goal to provide our applications to as many interested customers and prospects in an effort to grow our revenue.  However, increasing the bottom line is not just to have more dollars in the bank.  It is to ensure we are;

• Constantly providing advancing cool technologies
• Maintaining reliable services for customers
• Hiring and retaining fun people to be around

If we take care of these core principles then the company will take care of itself.  Being aggressive in the marketplace is one thing (in fact it's a must if you want to keep the lights on), but to grow for greed will never win. [Insert Enron]

Who Isn't Saving Money On Car Insurance? Apr 06 Jason Moore

Who out there is one of the poor souls in this day and age who is NOT saving hundreds of dollars on their car insurance.  Geico has absolutely shaken up the auto insurance industry due to their business model being built around new technology.

The evidence of the end of the end is that the two stalwarts of the industry are now proclaiming to save you money on insurance.  Being friends with several State Farm representatives this would have NEVER happened without real distress about the future.

With bigWebDesk, we try to never sell on price.  We also don't shy away from discussions on pricing because we feel it is priced fairly.  It's our job to express how our product can help our prospects and clients.  Once we have done our job, we hope that the prospect feels the same about our pricing.  One piece of proof that we are not afraid of pricing is that we have it on our website (updated calculator coming soon for easier estimates) for anyone to see.  No gatekeepers, magic voodoo spells, or tricky opt-out newsletter games.

Personally, I feel Allstate and State Farm are devaluing their service by getting in the price war game.  Especially one that I feel they don't stand a chance in.  Their organization is simply not set up to compete with Geico's efficiencies.