IntenseDebate - Casey Schorr

10 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Free Your Teams from B... · 0 replies · +1 points

Bill, this sparked a great discussion amongst the team. I quoted this section to the team – we are facing the exact same issue at our weekly meeting and our customers and prospects are asking similar, basic questions that could be answered by FAQs and other online resources we haven't found the time to write.

"This month at SurveyGizmo, SnapEngage, and PosterBrain we added something new to discuss at our weekly all-company meetings... "What are the most common questions our prospects and customers have asked us in the past week?" We started doing this because we realized that our weekly meetings were focusing on US (revenue, customer count, expenses, profit) and not enough on our CUSTOMERS.

At PosterBrain today, the most common questions customers asked in the past week were.... How will my picture look?, Where are you located/shipping from?, Do you dry mount?, etc.. I suggested rather than making people contact us to get those answers, how about we put a FAQ on our homepage? Our customer service superstar laughed and said "Then what will I do with all my time?!" :-) I said how about those outreach emails you've been wanting to make for weeks to attract new customers!"

10 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Let Your Customers Fun... · 0 replies · +1 points

Bill, I've been fascinated with Ramen since Ryan told me about it. When I heard Niel was involved, I was excited as his experience is invaluable. Now that you're involved too, this is going to become big on Colorado's tech radar. Congrats. I'll be following along.

10 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Minimum Viable Partner... · 1 reply · +1 points

Great article Bill. I haven't spun up any huge partnerships, but the more experienced I become in business, the more I believe in MVE... Minimum Viable Everything. Walk before run is almost always a good idea!

That said, I'd love to know why you think you haven't found a profitable partnership yet. You're a smart guy. If you've tried so many and have failed, why are you still holding out hope? Could it be that 99% of partnerships are a waste of time and most businesses shouldn't even attempt a Minimum Viable Partnership? Or is there something elusive worth holding out for?

12 years ago @ SendGrid - SendGrid Expands to De... · 1 reply · +1 points

Congrats, really excited to have you guys down here in Denver! The Denver startup scene is really starting to take off. And when you run out of SendGrid t-shirts, now you don't even have to drive to get new ones!

12 years ago @ Daily Camera.com: - Sean Maher: Does Bould... · 1 reply · +22 points

So true. I lived in Boulder for a year (last year), the hypocrisy is ridiculous. Save the earth, one range rover at a time. Let's raise taxes, because I can afford it and I don't work. Shop local, at our new SuperWholeFoods. Couldn't take it, moved back to Denver. I'm a yuppie too. I'm not poor. But I don't pretend to actually care about buying local. I'm going to buy from whomever has the best price/ quality/ value local or not. I love John Mackey and I love how he's a hardcore, atlas-shrugged-reading libertarian. Maybe all this new corporatism in Boulder will make it a bit less liberal, a bit more libertarian. Welcome Trader Joe's! Wish you would have setup shop down here in Denver.

12 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Built for Life · 0 replies · +1 points

John I agree with you about not being passionate about the "stickers". I'm also not passionate about t-shirts all that much. Which is okay, because this is akin to being passionate abou the "what". You also have a "how" and a "why" (the most important). Have you seen this TED talk? http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_le...

Basically what you're saying is you are passionate about the "why" of helping others, and helping yourself, build a great business. And I think stickers (your "what") do that too. So your product and your purpose are aligned, which is great.

I believe more entrepreneurs need to think about their why. It's the first step to realizing your passion and being able to communicate it. And if you understand your purpose, you're less likely to want to sell out in the first place.

12 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Expansiveness · 0 replies · +1 points

Wow, great article! Thanks!!

12 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Expansiveness · 2 replies · +1 points

I'm a huge fan of Whole Foods and especially John Mackey. It's awesome you got to meet him and ask a question, that's on my bucket list!

One thing I respect most about you Bill is the fact your role models and the companies you follow in the spirit of building greatness are all over the map. While you've mostly focused on tech companies yourself, your inspiration comes from every corner of the business world. This is something I think more tech CEOs and leaders need to learn, especially in the "startup" scene. Too many people are too focused on the latest greatest within their industry and don't look outside their industry to find the great ideas and great leaders to follow.

Going on these "growth" trips are a great way to cull this knowledge into your brain. Once again, you've picked trips from all walks of entrepreneurship, which is why you're so qualified to build great companies.

Let's keep evangelizing this throughout Colorado and get more of these tech-nerds to realize Warren Buffet and John Mackey are probably better role models than Mark Zuckerberg or Drew Houston!

13 years ago @ Bill Flagg - Own it · 0 replies · +1 points

Great post! We do the same thing when someone new registers on our site. They get a "welcome" email right away, and then the next day an automatic email from "rachel" who is their account rep, introducing herself and asking if there's anything she can help with.

But we dont' currently do the same thing for purchases -- I love the PosterBrain example, we'll have to implement something like this.

It's amazing the replies we get to that "rachel" e-mail though, just showing the human touch really differentiates yourself from the pack!

Would love to have a guest post from you sometime for our blog, this content is awesome!

13 years ago @ Online Aspect - Goodbye Boulder. Hello... · 0 replies · +2 points

Good luck Josh - we'll miss you back here in Colorado - excited for you and I'll take you up on that extra bedroom sometime!

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