Founders and Customers: Love and Service
multitudes.weisser.io
multitudes.weisser.io
1. Yes, call me jaded, but it's time we put a stake through the heart of this overused emotional terminology that is particularly prevalent in the tech startup world. "You need to have passion!" "Love your customers!" As if somehow we're pretending that the primary goal isn't to get rich. Don't get me wrong, I think emotional investment in a new business is inherent to the endeavor. But the startup founders I've witnessed that are most successful and that I most admire, while absolutely working their asses off because it's a topic they really care about, also have a healthy detachment. They are less afraid of failure than I am. They care deeply about their customers and their experience, but they also realize you can't please everyone, and at the end of the day they make the right business decisions even if it means making some people unhappy.
2. We've had small businesses in this country since its founding, and nearly every one I frequent treats its customers like this. I really care about my hair stylist, and she always makes me feel great. Sometimes I think my dog loves my dog walker more than he loves me. It took me ages to find a mechanic I trusted, but once I did I won't go anywhere else - I'm worried he'll retire before I stop driving. So I guess I get a little piqued when what we all used to think of as "good, committed, friendly customer service" needs raptuous blog posts about "loving your customer" because tech startups are special somehow. Yes, startups are pretty much defined by their strong growth trajectory, but they're all just small businesses at the beginning - we shouldn't pretend this is unique or special.
Grumpy old man signing out.
If your goal is to get rich by building a business I suspect you’ll have an easier time of it if you enjoy serving your customers.
And you’re right - startups caring about their customers in the early days does seem like the idealized version of a small business (though I’m sure we all know quite a few that treat their customers terribly and take no pride in their work).
But scaling should mean "scaling (up) everything", not "scaling (up) customers and income but do not scale (up) service and assistance".
In a small business, you sell (say) 1,000 items and serve 1,000 customers per year, of these 50 to 100 will need or want to talk to you about some aspect of the transaction.
This will take you half an hour every day.
When the items and the customers become 10,000, that will become 5-8 hours per day, and you hire a dedicated person for this assistance.
When you reach 100,000 you should hire another 9 people, but you don't and scale to 3 people that simply cannot manage the amount of requests.
When you reach 1,000,000 you fire all the 3 people that in the meantime became very competent on solving the problems and outsource the whole assistance to some firm that promises you 100 capable technicians but in reality provides 20-30 clueless people.
And you never check whether your customers are satisfied or not, but you pay a consultant firm to harass customers with meaningless newsletters and pointless polls on their satisfaction.
At a certain size the "love" for your customers vanishes, which makes me doubt if it ever existed.
> As if somehow we're pretending that the primary goal isn't to get rich.
I've been starting and running businesses for decades, but never once has my primary goal been to get rich. My business goal has always been to get a sustainable business going that generates reasonable profits.
100% agree with that, but I was referring to people who found startups, with "startup" defined as per http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html. If you're founding a startup, by that definition your goal is to get rich. If you just want to get a sustainable business going that generates reasonable profits (and, to be clear, that's the path that I'd prefer to take), I wouldn't call that a startup.
What is the currently accepted way of referring to a non-"startup" startup?
Some people are energized by serving a customer they share a strong affinity for, whereas others are energized by the process of making or discovering something. It’s ideal if that thing they are creating serves someone they care about, but that isn’t the primary source of their energy and motivation.
My point in bringing this up is that this essay seems to assume founders must be on the “service” part of the spectrum to stay motivated through the long-term slog of startups, but I don’t necessarily buy that idea.
It helps (and I would never recommend someone build for a customer they hate), but it isn’t a necessary pre-requisite if the founder(s) have enough passion for the “process” of creating something compelling for a group of people.
If I start a business I want a big fat paycheck. Fuck a customer