The Life of an Entrepreneur, Software Engineer
One of the strongest assets that this country has is our freedom of speach. It allows us to be an innovative, diverse culture capable of adapting and meeting chalenges of today. I'm all about protecting IP (as I make a living off IP), but SOPA has gone way too far and is completely open ended. It's a law designed to let those in power to decide who speaks.
Here is an overview of WHY SOPA IS REALLY BAD.
Write your congress person. Tell a friend.
My wife and I buy a LOT of stuff from Amazon. When I say a LOT, I mean almost everything we buy (besides groceries) is purchased through their website. We buy everything.. diapers, books, electronics, hair products. If it be sell'n on Amazon, the wife be buy'n.
That said, I've been a Nook user for a while now, but when the new line of kindles came out I thought about upgrading. We are Amazon Prime members so i loved the idea of getting free books. And my nook's battery was now lasting not more than a few hours so I figured it was time for a new e-reader.
That was the beginning of my troubles.
My new kindle touch was delivered a few days after I "one-click" purchased it. It even came in it's own branded box. Cool. Well, not really. Right out of the box, I realized something was not right. The device was not responsive to touches. It wasn't a little unresponsive, it down right didn't work. Turning pages required several hard finger presses on the screen. It was a chore and reading became laborous. I drove to Best Buy to test another device just to confirm my kindle was defective. Sure enough, when I played with the one at the store, it was snappier and responded correctly. The virtual keyboard worked. The menu button worked. Back home, I finally called support in a last ditch effort before returning the device for a new one.
That's where things got worse.
The person helping me could not communicate well nor understand anything I said. She read off a script and didn't listen to anything I was saying about the device. After a 20 minute, one-way conversation, I was very frustrated. I had done the support checklist. I had done the "hard reset". At one point, she said well you can do a factory reset which will take some time. I should go do that and then if it doesn't fix the problem call back later.
I thought, "Really? Do you honestly think that will solve the problem? It's a hardware problem and you know it. You are just trying to get me off the phone."
She was about to hang up when I said I wanted a new device and that the factory reset option was NOT an option.
Breakthrough
She finally got the message, but she didn't just send a replacement which is actually WHAT I wanted. She simply sent me an email with a link to a return sticker for a full refund return. But whatever, I was going to get this resolved.
BTW, I tried to do this online and it told me to call support first for kindle products.
I got the sticker so I can return the device, but here is the kicker, it takes 10-15 days to get a refund. Really? They did explain that I could get my money back sooner if I called when they received the device, but that's extra work for me.
I have a 5 month year old who needs babysitting. My amazon return should not.
Dénouement
After resolving the issue, I requested to speak with a manager. I really wanted to give some constructive feedback. I got some strage, unintelligble response from the rep, and then was then promptly put on hold. And then enventually my call was dropped shortly their after.
Nice.
This was a terrible customer experience. If Amazon expects my family to continue to spend ungodly amounts of money with the online empire, they need to learn a few things from Apple and get their customer service organization in order.
Two tips to better customer service:
This experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm questioning whether purchasing from an online giant like Amazon is worth it. I would rather buy from a company that has a decent customer service experience.
Sean Kiewiet (CIO) founded Priority Payment Systems in Atlanta, GA with John Priore (CEO), Richard Harris (COO) in 2006. Today, they are a very successful merchant services company providing bank card services to restaurants and retail stores across the country. This year they will do about 6 billion in transactions (that's 4x what square does) with over 50,000 merchants in their portfolio.
For the past 6 years, they have been quitely building a solid, very profitable business and, in a terrible economy, managed to double growth every year. I've been working with them on an iphone project for the past 6 months and have had a chance to get a deep look into how a company like this is successful.
What I've learned is that the success of this company has everything to do with the management team.
Sean has been teaching me about business strategy as well as setting life goals in general. I consider him a mentor in many ways. I've learned a lot about how to run a business. But beyond the business strategy, one of his most insightful ideas is what he calls his number. This number is the dollar amount that he needs to have aquired to feel successful. Everything beyond that number is just gravy. At this point he has reached that goal. But what that frees him up to do is either donate the rest, invest in the people in his community, or spend the money however he feels will make the most impact. His choices at this point may or may not have a financial gain in mind.
This is such a powerful idea. Most of America is driven by a desire to aquire more assets and money. That's fine to a point, but if that's the only thing driving you in the long term, you'll never reach a higher plane of existance. You'll always be desparate to "make it" and never truly fulfill your true purpose.
We all should "pick a number" and live by this model. Yes, to reach that goal you may need to sacrafice and work very hard, but once you reach it, your mode should switch from "I'm going to hit that number" to "I'm going to make the world around me better". If more people lived by this, our world would be a completely different place.
It's wisdom like this that helps Sean to be generous, thoughtful, and strong for those around him. In an insecure world, he works to make it better. It's people like him that make companies successful.
Ty Amel is the founder and CEO of StackMob. They are a startup in San Francisco that builds backend services for mobile applications. He's a smart, talented guy, but I like him not for his talents, but because he believes in a bigger world outside of himself. He believes in making a commitment to serving those around him. Great leaders know this. He is selfless in his pursuit of success.
As with anything worth having, it takes takes uber commitment. It's a serious drain of time and requires great sacrifice from people. Ty is wise enough to realize the costs and takes great effort to lead a balanced life. He is lucky to have a wonderful girlfriend who is supports him, but it's tough because Ty spends a lot of time working and can't be with her as much they would like. There is definitely tension at times, but he takes great effort to give her quality time when they are together. She also keeps him in check :).
I too am a driven person and sacrifice time that I could other wise spend with friends and family. It's extremely important to keep things in perspective. In the end, your family and those you love are who matter. I can take a lesson from him on this.
Ty is a person I like.
I think it's important for the community to know who the game changers are because it's important to support them in their work. Their wins are our wins.
I don't want to come off fake with this or seem like I'm seeking approval from them. I'm doing this because I believe that what they are do is important to the community, and I want to promote thier success. Because of their station in life, their success will lead to many others' success. They are the people that will put others to work and help us all move forward.
I've got a few people in mind to start with. I'll post in a few days.
Steve was relentless in his pursuit of building amazing products that just "worked". They were magical in that anyone could just pick them up and start playing with them without any prior knowledge. It was about quality without compromise.
One of the secrets to his success, as described in the book, was "his ability to focus" and it let him "say no" to many distractions. In 1997, when Apple was on the verge of collapse, Steve stepped into the role as interim CEO. His first order of business was to jettison all projects that were not "central" to the core business of Apple. He cut hundreds of jobs and killed several major projects. He made apple pick only 4 products for four different market segments: Personal Home, Personal Mobile, Business, Business Mobile. Forget everything else.
This got me thinking about building great mobile applications and what it takes to do that.
I've recently discovered a company called StackMob. They allow anyone to quickly build out a "restful service". For non-technical people, that simply means the backend computer system which makes "connected mobile" applications possible. Their pitch is that they handle all of the "backend" so developers can focus on the "font-end".
This lets people "focus" on a specific part of the application so that they can excel. The bar is set so high when it comes to user experience. It takes 110% focus to compete. By specializing, developers can build better apps which reach a wider audience.
I started a new Node JS meetup group for the Atlanta area. Node JS is an amazing new server side javascript framework for building FAST and SCALABLE web applications. You can build world class, web scale without being an expert.
If you are interested, please check out the first meeting!
http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Node-JS-Developers/
I'm in the process of being acquired by Snapfinger. It's a big change for me, but I'm very excited about this opportunity. Kudzu Interactive, the parent company of Snapfinger.com, just announced a 7 million dollar round B funding with Norwest. I'll be coming in as a VP of Innovation (which is simply our name for the B2C side of things). I'll be in charge of Snapfinger.com, Snapfinger Mobile, and all other things "Snapfinger". We recently were mentioned in New York Times, TechCrunch.com, WSJ, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle! Pretty exciting days right now. New York Times TechCrunch.com Atlanta Business Chronicle
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the release of Pac-Man, Google created a logo on may 21st, 2010. Totally awesome and original. Best logo ever.
