1,863 karma · joined March 24, 2009
The core problem is really letting that "fame" go to your head.
I can't tell you how much you having Olark on IndexTank has helped me implement IndexTank. I've had a few issues, and have spoken to two of your developers through Olark. Seriously, you have me on as a loyal customer tweeting(http://twitter.com/itsemil/status/34410618584825857) about how badass IndexTank is.
Businesses are consisted of people, money doesn't really make the business go round, the people running it do. A business making just money is pretty "soulless." I understand that I might sound like a little weird when I say that, but when they only focus on making $$(which again, is good to a point) they really won't be remembered. A good product is one part of the pie, good support is another and money is the the the oven; That's the mantra I like to follow
I've tried Zendesk and while they're great in parts like ticketing and assigning tasks to individual support members, I think they fail at recognizing at the bases of customer support. THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAT I HATE when I have to register twice. I already have an account at xyz.com, why do I have to create one to fill out a support request? It's very confusing, especially when they tune the design to be pretty similar.
LiveChat rocks, the guys at Olark are doing it really well..snapengage is pretty badass for that automatic messaging(sending a msg like: Hey, hwo are you liking the site? <-- typo put on purpose) can really start engagements as I don't really want to send the same message every time a new visitor comes to my site.
Btw, I'm building a support system which is targeted at sites which have customers, which is really meant to cut down support(VisaulWebsiteOptimizer is expecting to cut theirs down by more than 50%), and provide a natural interface(both for your startup and customers) which basically creates a powerful help page(and no, unlike zendesk, you dont have to rehire your designer to spend a week triming it to fit your company's brand). In case you're interested send me an email at hajrice@gmail.com and I'll make sure to include you in the private beta.
I remember when I would ask for $50/hour for design work, people would without hesitation go for it, some startups even asked why I charge so low....eh, I didn't know better. While I don't have much experience with rails consulting, from what I've heard, people who can do both rails and ui design can EASILY go for $100/hour. Then again, I have a friend who just landed an ~$80/hour work doing some simple joomla/php work. To be honest, it sorta made more sense to me(even though I'm both a designer and rubyist) that designers made more. My belief is that it's more common for designers to be much more unique than a rubyist.
What do I mean? My theory is that it's easier to become another kick-ass designer who has a lot of people digging his work than it is to become a "popular" rubyist(I'd consider the guy who created will_paginate to be popular in the ruby world).
Am I the only one thinking in this way? ... it might sound a little ridiculous to some people. :)
That being said, please look at my response to StavrosK for a quick overview of a simple user story ... just in case you're wondering.
- goes to your website
- Search's your help page, if cant find it, email you
- You get an email, you respond to it, customer is notified
- IF you forward that email to a special cool email which we give you, it's published on your support page(which is embeddable to your website).
- Next person searching for this question doeesnt have to email you as they're problem's solved!
I was planing on emailing you with a demo, but you don't have your email in your profile. Email me at hajrice@gmail.com if you want a demo.
It works simply: You cc/forward any support you'd like to be published on your help page to post@pilarhq.com and we update your support page. If people come to your support/help page, search for an answer via our instant search and dont find an answer, they just have to leave their email and your entire support team is notified.
PilarHQ is lightweight because all you do is pretty much embed an iFrame to your site at pilar and you're set. Thats really all there is to it. You later on recieve emails from us and your customers, if you forward the ones you want to publish, we publish it to your cool support page.
The design of this website isn't really that cool, it's more (like you said) a standard SaaS website, as we're still validating our assumptions regarding our solution to the problem with an MVP.
Chalkboard is a project my partner Abi and I started several months ago. Chalkboard is a collaborative tool for laying out software features, user stories, and screens in a way that is organized and communicative. Abi worked in web consulting with remote teams and wanted a tool that let him easily define project requirements with clients then hand the project off to designers/developers.
Chalkboard lets you quickly define software features / user stories and then create step-by-step user flows for them. User flows are linked up to application screens that you specify and can upload mockups for.
A lot of people have suggested we integrate/tie into Balsamiq. We have been talking about this since day one but have hesitated reaching out to them until we are 100% sure that this app can become a useful product.
Am I the only one who finds this ironic?
All these are nice "sufix/prefix naming conventions." For my startup, I use HQ(ChalkboardHQ.com).
Here are some possible names for you:
- RunRateHQ.com - GetRunrate.com(I really like the sound of this one) - Runratenow.com(This one sounds like decisive and makes me sorta want to hop into it and try it)
Good luck with the naming, if you'd like, we can chat(hajrice@gmail - gtalk), I have a lot of ideas and could maybe help you more.
Cheers and good luck with the project, you're on a great track
But of course, I wouldn't mind charging 10k, believe me ;)