Food For Founders #47
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Founder Education
This section is meant to help you grow as a leader, manager, or entrepreneur.
9 Secrets to Having World-Class Customer Service
Something that companies are notoriously bad at (and some have turned it into an art form *cough Comcast cough*) is customer service.
To me, there is a distinction between reactive customer service (customer support) and proactive customer service (customer success). Both enhance the experience of your end-user and yet they have just now become a key component of building a startup. For me, it wasn’t until I read the statistics on retention and upselling that I realized how important both reactive & proactive customer service was.
Did you know that, per an HBS report, that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% increase profits 25-95%? How crazy is that? Everyone knows it’s more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an old one, but did you know how that trickles down to your profit margin?
To me, this piece is both actionable, funny, and important for early-stage startups. You need to be building a culture of serving the customer as best you can, as early as you can. If you haven’t had a chance, you should definitely read “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hseih. It covers how being customer-obsessed led Zappos to become a multi-billion dollar online shoe retailer.
Favorite quote: "There are three primary reasons you need customer service: your product or service sucks, you didn’t deliver on expectations, or your systems weren’t thorough” Lin Sun (TinyDevotions)
Business Strategy
This section is designed to help you improve your skills as a strategist and tactician.
Narrative-driven Product Development
I’ve posted this link before. Now I’m posting this because we are developing a product at KnowCap over the past two weeks and it’s now more relevant than ever.
FYI: We are building a payments app that will allow idea-stage entrepreneurs who don’t know how to code, or design, offer a polished payments experience for their early customers. Nowadays everyone is being judged on near perfection when it comes to the checkout process and we wanted to allow founders a different option than the default interfaces of PayPal or Square.
Mental Snacks
This section was created to introduce ideas that may not related to starting a company, yet is important to your success as a founder.
Bet on people prematurely
I simply love this post. I have lots of experience thinking, and saying out loud if only someone would bet on me.
We had someone interview with us on the team and they said those exact words and that really resonated with me. People are very protective of their time and their reputation. When it comes to risking either they are more prudent then with their most prized material possessions. That’s why whenever someone does take a bet on me, I know exactly how much they risked.
When you are faced with giving someone unproven a chance, don’t think about whether or not they can give you the ROI you need. Do what I do, see if the ROI expectation was too high, to begin with.
"Betting on people prematurely can also be a great hiring strategy. Find the superstar who’s just a bit less experienced than your job req suggests and give them the chance to step up."
Around The Startup Ecosystem
This section was built to update you on important events, opinions, or pieces happening in the world of startups.
Startup Growth in 2020s Will Be In Middle America - Not Silicon Valley
You know I had to include this piece. This is basically the whole reason why KnowCap Interactive exists because I believe that 80% of VC funding going to only four states means that people are leaving money on the table.
When I read articles like this, I get excited. There are so many people with ideas out there that it will be amazing when there’s a shift in the way they are supported. From a prove-it-first model to a try-it-first model. Right now you have to scrape to get to the point where you can garner venture capital attention (unless you know the right people), what happened if you could just throw your idea into the mix of things and receive a team that can help you build this crazy idea? They don’t do everything for you, but they definitely help you do the things you aren’t good at. They also help introduce you to the right people if you don’t already have the right genetics or academic background.
This is what KnowCap does and from the feedback, we’re gathering from founders…it’s going to be huge.