Most Popular
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Hi Scott, thanks for taking the time to do this. Do you have any rule of thumb to calculate support overhead per customer? As a newly funded startup growing rapidly I'm wondering how much time/resources I should be ready to spend on customer support and how successful it could be to try to offload this to the user community itself. Do you have any recommendation? Thanks.
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So, I don’t know that there is a specific rule of thumb. It all depends on the complexity of your application. However, I have always liked to take the approach that every support ticket is, in essence, a bug. Something about the experience is wrong. If you look at it that way then you should have reducing support overhead as the product progresses and your market fit improves. Combine that with a decent FAQ and after a while your support should be fairly trivial (or at least predictable). I don’t buy into the ‘Social CRM’ thing really. I think that support in the early stages of a product is vital to the product roadmap and should be treated as a first class citizen. You can miss a lot of vital feedback by treating support as a secondary consideration as opposed to a fantastic source of product iteration information.
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as a small business owner, how do i know if cloud computing is right for my business?
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Well, I suspect that might be a bit of a red herring really. It’s obviously not a business that is dependent on highly scalable computer power (otherwise I figure you’d be an expert in cloud computing!!) so I assume all you mean is for hosting your site. If that’s the case, then sure, its cheaper and more scalable than dedicated boxes. TBH its all cloud computing really, I mean its not like you have your servers in your front room…. I hope :)
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I need to improve the usability of my website but I don't want to spend a fortune hiring a designer or agency. Do you have any recommendations?
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Start out by simplifying is usually a good idea. In the immortal words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery – “Perfection is achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”. You can also try asking your users, so use something like UserVoice to crowd source their impressions of what is wrong. You could also check out Cathy Sierra’s stuff and also Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think. To be honest this is a big big area, but simple always seems to win through!
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I have a website with a database of people that customers search through to find the perfect person to work with. If I was to develop a smartphone app that worked like the website with a simple search filter that people can use, would this cost a lot to be produced? And do you think it would be benificial to the website?
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Why not just make the website mobile friendly? You can have a separate stylesheet and everything. That would be cheaper, more future proofed and not require any new programming skill set.
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We are in the process of customer development for our concept. Would you recommend Unbounce for building a simple landing page to obtain email addresses for further customer questioning and interviews? What other methods do you recommend?
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Hey, I think unbounce is a great service and yes that sounds like a good way to test some keywords, the general space and possibly A/B test some concepts by having a few landing pages. Depending on the concept, building a simple and seriously minimally viable product is probably the best way to engage people and to be honest I would run in parallel with anything else. Unless, of course, this is still in the should we do this at all stage.
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With Facebook and Twitter it dosent take much for me to get distracted. And procastonation sets in afterwards. What are the best way to stay focused on your start up if your setting up/developing online?
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Will power unfortunately, there are a million ways to not start a company…… But, as a start to that write out a series of small objectives you need to achieve and make sure to get them done, treat FB and Twitter as a reward for achievement.
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Who is responsible for defining customer service? customer or the company? We have seen situations where customer service is defined on the pages of Newspapers to mean the same as Public Relations or branding as it were, but you know what? It is only the customer/client that can actually say if the service so received is pleasant or otherwise. So let organizations stop enhancing service level via print media.
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The company defines the process, the customer defines its success. Hopefully one leads to the other, but, I think we have all experienced situations where that isn’t the case!
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I am a recently graduated business major looking to start a tech company based off the business concept I was working on in college, but I lack any tech experience. How to I know what type of programmers I will need for my website (the site has to do with streaming videos like hulu or youtube)? How do I know whether I need someone with experience in CSS, Java, Ruby, C++ etc.?
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Well, its a website so you will definitely need HTML5, CSS3, Javascript (in fact you could probably do it with just those using Mongo and Node.js) then for the backend its just preference really, Ruby or Python would be my recommendations. I would start looking for a good UX / UI person and backfill from there.
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How important would you say it is to give users the option for quick and simple feedback with a new web startup? Will people actually provide feedback or will they just assume the site is useless and move on?
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Very important, in the early stages of a web startup you are going to have (for the sake of argument) 90% of the people kicking the tires and 10% of people actually interested. Those 10% are going to be early adopters, people who love to be engaged and around new products and businesses, this is your chance to make them evangalists and to build in a sense of product ownership. Peer judgement and word of mouth are very powerful marketing tools!!!!
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How many languages does a developer should know??
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Always good to know at least a couple. A web developer should know at least some HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL and whichever main language they are coding in (unless they are using Node.js in which case that is JS…)
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Hi, I am interested in connecting with a web developer for an e-commerce startup
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You could try things like www.elance.com and www.odesk.com if you just want to hire a web dev
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Being in sales - I have always enjoyed and thrive on one aspect: cold-calling! I love it and adore it and have helped many in overcoming this obstacle and in developing this in themselves. As a business owner - if I were to approach you about providing such services - how receptive would you be? Do you think there is a need for this at all?
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Yes, I think if you can create good calling scripts (and help iterate them) then many companies would be interested in using a service like that to do their cold calling – I mean let’s face it, most people hate it!!!
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If you don't have development skills, how can I find people to help get my idea to become a product (get a developer to hop onboard the team), without spending money (as I am 17 I have very limited budget)?
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Sure you can’t learn to code? If you see yourself pursuing a life of messing around on the web it might be a good idea! If not, what about your friends? That is the best place to start. After that you are going to have to have a very good story. What about something like Kickstarter, you could put your idea up there and try and get enough cash to fund the build?
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i can really perform in the business aspect but i will like to at least bring something technical to the start up,which skills do i need to learn to achieve this
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That’s kind of a broad question, but I would start with basic web stack architecture. What is MVC, what languages are there and why are some more appropriate for you than others and the same for databases. That would provide a broad technical base without actually learning to code!
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Located in a Europe, I'm struggling to get feedback trough my Uservoice account. I assume it's a cultural thing. But do you have any tips to push less open-minded European folks to click on the tab and start sharing?
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Well, its a good idea to add some ideas of your own. A blank page is the hardest thing to write on!! Also you can try blogging a bit about some of your feature plans and point people to the forum to discuss. Depending on the site you can also install something like the top 5 ideas widget, or one of hte blog widgets to show ideas to people as they are browsing without them having to click on the tab. I hope that helps and let us know how it goes!
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I just joined a startup which is fully funded by my partner ($300K+). Solid business plan, pre-launch (1 year) worth of work and developed site which will be launched in 2 wks. I will lead all biz dev and mktg. I was offered an ok monthly salary + 5% of the biz in 6 months. Additional 1% every 6 months up to 10% of the company. Does this sound fair? Any ideas and or suggestions for other ways to structure this partnership?
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That sounds very fair. All the employment contracts I have seen have a 12 month cliff before you would receive anything. The remaining 5% of yours is then vested over a 2.5 year period which is a year shorter than the standard contracts I’ve seen
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need help on Final Cut Pro.
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You could try the free courses in the Mac store?
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Hi Scott, I have a polished design concept for a new SaaS product that appeals to the same type of market as UserVoice (it addresses a different problem however). How can I get potential users to help fund the development?
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Well you can try KickStarter? Or you release it as open source and a please donate button? Or you get a MVP up and running and charge :)
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What are some fun unique benefits a startup can offer its first employees?
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Well not sure these are all fun but they are all good! Multiple hats, insight into the whole business process, equity, genuine involvement, pizza and beer :)
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I filed for bankruptcy in 2009. My company was hit by the economy shift and it was a hard choice to make. I am now a start up and it is difficult to find funding because of the bankruptcy. I have products ready for market. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Well, it sounds like you will need to demonstrate a bit of traction to give people belief in the products. Although depending on where you are people are currently a bit risk adverse so you may find it an uphill struggle. Beg, steal and borrow whatever it takes to get something out there and gain a bit of traction
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I am launching a new creation this week and I am wondering what the best practice is for getting early feedback. Any advice is much appreciated.
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Well, obviously I’m biased but I would say UserVoice!!! Other alternatives are Get Satisfaction, Tender (sort of) and something like KissInsights.
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how can i find a website designer/programmer to work for equity?
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Honestly, there is no magic answer to this! If you want someone to work for equity (i.e nothing) then you are going to have to convince them to believe in the idea, you and probably be offering a significant percentage of the company.
To clarify, do you just want them to build it and go away or are you looking for a co-founder / potential CTO?
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I need a small investment for my start up, eg. $18K for a year of SMS shortcode. However, I also don't want to give away a 50% share of my company.
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I would have to ask why if you only need $18k you don’t try and get a bank loan, use credit cards or just keep working. Then you don’t give up anything. Also NEVER EVER EVER give someone 50% of your company for investment. The average rate for a round is 20-25%. Anyone asking for more is a charlaton anyway as they have just killed your cap table. If you want to raise an angel round make it $50k for 25%, if you can’t find people to do that perhaps the idea is one that is best for organic growth, or needs rethinking a bit.
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For user generated content, is there an advisable limit for how many pieces of data (fields) you should ask for to equal one submission?
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As few as possible! If you want a comment then I would suggest the body, a display name and email (not even a capture, do the spam filtering using akismet after allowing the user to enter it). What sort of data are your customers going to be entering?
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Does Twitter allow other platforms to source feeds from different hashtags? I.e. #Sprouter Does Facebook allow this for posts to their FB-Pages? Conversely, can I relay posts in our micro blogging platform to twitter? Thx!
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All the Twitter stuff is moving to DataSift which allows you to create streams of whatever you like. As for FB, only if you do it via the api and provide your own filtering. relaying posts, yep absolutely – if you click on any Tweet button you will see the URL structure you can use.
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I'm working with 2 people that I have never met before on a startup. One being a co-founder/developer, and the other a developer. We want to sign some kind of contract indicating our specific roles, the percentage of the company we own (if we were to incorporate), what the procedure is if one of us decides to leave, and how revenue will be distributed. What is the best way to go on about this? Are there any free ways?
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Absolutely, you just use a basic founders agreement, this will be fleshed out when you incorporate. I don’t actually have a copy with me of a simple one I have used but feel free message me (or email scott [at] uservoice [dot] com) and I can send it to you.
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Where can I find proper iPhone developers? With proper I mean, developers who really know what they are doing!
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That is a tricky one for any language.I believe that checking out peoples side projects is a very good place to start. Go on GitHub, look for people who have released OpenSource code, go to Hackathons and see who is actually productive. Other than that, follow up on the developers of apps that you download and are high quality, some will be available.
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If you have confidence that your idea/concept is strong, do you always have to be the first to market with it?
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No, although depending on the idea there may be a pretty substantial first mover advantage. On the other hand if the market will take some education, then being the first mover may not be the best place to be. Just think about Philips and the cd player, they thought of it, Sony made it look pretty and sold loads. Similar concepts in many Apple devices. In fact Facebook was really following in the footsteps of Friendster and others, didn’t work out well for the first movers there!
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Any recommendations or considerations around selecting Android vs. Apple iOS for a core mobile application? Although I am familiar with and prefer the iPhone user experience, I am hearing that Android will eventually beat Apple in penetration. Thoughts?
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I would agree, Android has (will have) a far greater reach. Depending on the complexity of your app though you might not have to make that choice. Check out http://cabanaapp.com and some of the other cross platform compilers
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Hey does any fellow-sprouter know of a really good sitebuilder template software for service providers? Something similar to sitegalore but without the crazy pricing? I Am looking specifically for an intutive interface- easy like MSWord, WSIWYG html editor, templates in many categories at a reasonable cost? Web based and available for end users, Thanks
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I don’t really have a lot of experience with these. I don’t know if there is a more general space to post this question in on Sprouter, you might get a better reply. Sorry.
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What are your thoughts on site cloning I have seen many clones of example Groupon popping up all over the place in other countries. Are their any laws against these companies having the site,idea, concept cloned by others?
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No, ideas are free!! Execution is everything. There are few sites that have a fundamental and protectable IP. What they do have is the ability to protect their trademarks and design. But, then you do need the country the clone is hosted in to care…..
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