Sam On Software

No doubt the observation below is well known to customer support veterans but for new MISVs taking customer support emails for the first time it’s worth knowing, meaning I wish someone had told me

Often (but not always) the first email I receive from a customer with a problem or question seems a little rude.

At first I was a little taken aback, offended even. But time and time again their second email, their response to my reply, is much more polite and friendly.

In fact, the less friendly the first email the more friendly the customer is once they realize that you, a real person, will respond and care about their problem or question.

Obviously the customer isn’t trying to be rude it’s just they expect to get the run around, they expect to not be considered important. Once you show that you do care life gets much easier.

So i guess the lesson is to always keep your cool, be polite and assume the best of that person on the other side of the interwebs, a cranky email probably isn’t an attack on you and your product, it’s just someone who wants your help.

Working for other people is like being part of a rowing team inside a ship.

You know you are contributing to the ships motion but you can’t control the ship, you can only control your oar.

Working for yourself is like standing on the bow of the ship looking out at the ocean.  You can make the ship go whereever you want but sometimes you scan the horizon and see nothing at all.  No land, no other boats.  Nothing to tell you which direction to take.

You wonder “am I going in the wrong direction, or am I going in the right direction I just haven’t gone far enough yet”.

I’ve been working full time on my software business for 9 months now.

So in theory I could have made a baby by now.*

Sales growth has been slow but steady.

Here is everything that I have learned from first hand experience in that time.

3rd party endorsements can be much more powerful than advertising

Getting a nice review had an immediate impact on sales, in fact it did more than $1000 worth of advertising did.

The power of tools

For too long I didn’t have a calendar and task-list tool that I used every day.  Now I do and it has really upped my productivity.

I use CuteReminder for appointments and tudumo for my task lists.  I find tudumo is shockingly elegant, literally, I was shocked at how well designed it is.  I’m not really pimping these two tools though, just saying that it’s really important that you don’t have to remember things.  It was for me anyway.

Partnering (discount not commission)

I talked to some bookkeepers and accountants about partnering with me to sell my software to their clients.  I was thinking in terms of a “commission percentage”  but they were all talking in terms of  “discount pricing”.  Is there a difference ? I think there is, a commission is money the middleman keeps, his payola. A discounted pricing system means that the middleman is able to offer his clients access to a discount, he is providing value to his clients by being in your software’s partner program.  Many middle men can’t keep commissions due to ethical considerations.

Users are more understanding than your insecurity might make you fear. Self explanatory.

Affiliates can work if they are targeted to your software niche. General “software directories” affiliates don’t work unless you’re selling something with mass appeal  (virus scanner, an mp3 player).

Success is indeed a series of failures without loss of enthusiasm.

“No one is going to buy it!”  “I only sold one this month!”  “Two a month wouldn’t pay for a trip to the supermarket!”  “One a week!! what am I doing wrong!!”  “I can’t live off one a day…

I bet if you were able to ask Steve Jobs or some other mega success guy “How’s work going ?”, if they were open an honest they would give you a list of complaints.  “Damn suppliers can only get us enough parts for 7 million IPads !  Google is busting my balls with this Android crap, geez it never ends”.

It’s kind of cool i guess to realize “maybe this _is_  success”.

You can combine testing and content creation

People, mentioning no names, people who sell bingo software, those people, have said how important it is to have lots of content on your website, so people can find you.

Well if you combine testing and generating web content it kind of fools you into thinking it’s not a testing drudge, and at the end your series of tests you have produced a nice web tutorial or a new section for you manual.  So when testing think, can I document this and make it good content.

5 email addresses are more useful that 1000 ip addresses of downloaders you can’t contact

Got this one from Jason Cohen.  If the software ain’t selling you have to talk to the people who looked at it but didn’t buy.  And one great way to do that is to ask for their email address when they download a trial.  Yes it might reduce the number who download, but if your software ain’t selling, who cares.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

* if the girlfriend had had her way I probably would have!

I’m a big fan of the site and forum.

( Flowchart made with FlowBreeze )

Take a look at A and B.  Two different styles of getting the user to agree they have seen your terms and conditions.

In A there is a scrollable text area displaying the boiler plate that no one is going to read.  In B there is a link to the boiler plate that no one is going to read.

A

B

There is an argument that B is the more honest approach.

“We know you aren’t going to read this, you know we know you aren’t going to read this, lets keep the lawyers happy but not waste any screen space, here, have a link you wont click on”.

A in reality is like a private joke.  “Hey, you aren’t going to read this, we know you aren’t.  But maybe if we sort of kind of put it where you maybe should have read it maybe later we can say we reasonably expected you to read it.  But we never read it, what does it say ?”

A is still however more reassuring, It gives the impression that the authors would like you to read the Terms and Conditions, that they are trying to make it easy for you to read them.

Sure normal people like us don’t bother with reading that sort of junk, but they have their house in order, they care about the details, they actually crafted their Terms and Conditions by hand, with a fountain pen, on an oak desk.  You can trust these guys.

It’s ironic, the least honest approach is the most reassuring.

Of course displaying text or small print that no one reads is insane and a symptom of a problem with our legal system.  The real solution is to have agreements that people are willing to read, but when faced with a choice between reforming the legal system and agreeing to play pretend…. lets just continue pretending.