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After seeing more and more of these "we failed" pieces pop up here, I commend the authors for sharing something so intimate. However, these are starting to stri

After seeing more and more of these "we failed" pieces pop up here, I commend the authors for sharing something so intimate. However, these are starting to strike me as those "everyone gets a trophy" competitions where the goal is sharing the best failure stories and getting a reaffirming pat on the back for things going wrong. I'm of the supposed generation that is labeled with this "we're all winners regardless of what place we finish in the race" mentality, but I don't get it. This is where that stereotype comes from. This is perfectly exemplified by the "if Keen busts...we'll move on" wording that is pervasive in this. Nevermind the amounts of time, effort and (other people's) money that went into building something, and the jobs and families that count on a paycheck. The whole "we'll just pat ourselves on the back and move on" way of doing business forgets that there are victims and potentially long-reaching impacts for every failure. It can't be that simple and easy to walk away, it really shouldn't be. People fail, startups fail, etc. all the time. But it's starting to sound like a competition to see who failed the best the more of these I read. It just seems like attention-seeking behavior sometimes, or maybe just slick marketing perhaps to try and boost that falling revenue. Who knows. I mean, it made it to the top of HN, right? Probably got a few thousand eyeballs out of that at the very least for free. On the other hand, posting about failure and turmoil for a going business concern can't be good for customer retention. If I were a competitor, I'd jump all over this opportunity to lure some of those lucrative clients away by leveraging the fear of investing their time, money and effort into a potentially problem-riddled organization that by-and-large accepts, even embraces, a high rate of failure. Large enterprises don't like hearing about these types of problems with their vendors as they are inherently quite risk averse. Ultimately, I fear that this company, and others that have done the same, will soon realize this but it'll too late to save themselves from a flight of customers. Hey, who knows, prove me wrong. Anyway, just my opinion. I'm not trying to be negative, but just relaying a different perspective from someone who's been around the industry for some time.

paulddraper 11y ago
In hard times, there's a balance of concern between totally uninvested and stressed out of one's mind. In circumstances like the ones described, most people tend toward the latter. As an employee, this would be very welcome and probably very helpful in making the most of the situation. That said, it's crazy that they posted it for their customers to read. Hearing that my vendor has a "can fail" attitude isn't reassuring. I'd rather hear that my vendor is comprised of low-maintenance caffeine fueled super robots that keep their commitments with the stubbornness of a thousand donkeys. (I know they're probably not, but when choosing vendors, I'm usually working with limited info.) So...cool memo, weird post, nice thoughts.
- USNetizen 11y ago
  Thank for that. I was reading all of these "great job!" comments and thinking to myself that I couldn't be the only one that saw it that way. This can't be a winning move long-term when companies do this and embrace such wide-scale failure so effortlessly without any consideration for the repercussions of their actions.
- kaitai 11y ago
  One problem with hearing that your vendor is comprised of low-maintenance caffeine fueled super robots that keep their commitments with the stubbornness of a thousand donkeys is knowing that your vendor probably has some slick liar salesmen giving you that line. What else do you not know then?
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    That example is over the top, but yes any salesman will tell you that a good sales pitch is more likely to win customers then a list of red flags.
  - kyllo 11y ago
    Exactly the problem. When you make failure unacceptable, people will stil fail anyway, they will just try their damndest to hide it. If you punish people for giving you bad news, they will simply stop giving it to you, even when bad things do happen, and they always do.
    - paulddraper 11y ago
      There is probably some truth there, but I think you are missing reality. Next time you try to make a sale, express how reluctant you and your coworkers are to recommend the product to their friends.
      - kyllo 11y ago
        It's not black and white like you think. I used to work as an outside sales rep. Experienced people know that shit breaks in real life. They care more about how you deal with failure. I've actually heard rumors of companies purposefully fucking up little things with new customers in order to take the opportunity to demonstrate how good their customer service is when they fix the mistake. Because vendors are pretty equivalent when things go right, but they differentiate themselves by how they handle it when things go wrong, and that earns loyalty.
tedmiston 11y ago
> a potentially problem-riddled organization that by-and-large accepts, even embraces, a high rate of failure It seems like a huge leap to go from having one slow month of growth to "problem-riddled" organization that "embraces a high rate of failure". That's not something I took away from the blog post. Also, I've used Keen before. Their product and engineering is really great, and I've never had issues with the API itself, the dashboard widgets, reliability, quality, etc.
- USNetizen 11y ago
  I'd certainly consider a "major loss" of your customer data, not just once mind you, and on top of that admitting to having an "unstable" product certainly very "problem riddled" for a data analytics company that people put their trust into. Those are MAJOR issues that should not happen if you really cared about your work and were't so ready to give up at a moment's notice as this reads. I understand YOU may not have a problem taking a risk that the owner may just decide to "give themselves permission" to walk away at any time as if it were nothing, but do you work for a large enterprise looking to dedicate lots of money and effort into a platform like this? If I were, I'd definitely be heading to their competitors right now after reading something like this. If I were a competitor, I'd be marketing to this and headhunting their best talent using this to demonstrate how easily it could all fold up on them at any time. There are many others, especially current customers and even employees, that would almost certainly interpret this company's blog post as very disconcerting at the very least. Mostly because of the ease with which the owner seems to be able to just give up, walk away and accept complete failure along with rationalizing their selling of a self-admitted "unstable" product and justifying the "major" loss of customer data by saying they "give themselves permission" for these things to happen, apparently quite regularly. Using their own words, not mine, it seems to fit that "problem riddled" description quite well.
mwetzler 11y ago
Hi there - I wrote the piece and you pretty succinctly summed up some of my internal arguments for not sharing the story. I'll share some of my thoughts on those and why I ultimately decided to share anyway. While I knew some customers/prospects would appreciate and possibly admire the transparency, my main concern was that others might be deterred. First, they might be deterred by the issues I mentioned in the post. None of the challenges I mentioned in the piece were special. We lost a customer. We had an outage (a year ago). We were stressed. Every API company and competitor, not to mention our customers, have had a similar story. Of course we made it through those challenges, or we wouldn't be telling this story. They made us stronger. Plus, we love it when prospects ask about uptime because it's something we take seriously and where we have a great track record :) Second, they might be deterred at the idea of failure being ok. Perhaps the message in the piece is too subtle. It's not supposed to be that it's ok to be lazy and fail at stuff. It's about getting perspective and not letting your anxiety cripple you. I hoped what would come through in this piece is that we care very deeply about our work, so much so that sometimes we needed to be reminded that it's not life or death. Finally, I'll share some of my thoughts on why it might be beneficial to share. First, like I mentioned in the post, being a part of the tech community and contributing to it, sharing some of the lessons you've learned, is very rewarding. I've found that when you give, not only does it feel good, but the community gives back, often later on and in surprising ways you didn't expect. You reach like-minded customers, partners, candidates, investors, all kinds of things. Second, as a data company, trust is incredibly important to our brand. Some might disagree, but I think sharing the more human sides of the company helps to expand that trust. This is how we have always operated the company, and I think it is a large part of why we not only have a lot of customers (and growing), but many fans. We like knowing our customers and we like them to know us too.
- USNetizen 11y ago
  I think you fail to realize the implications of what you do when you go out and not only embrace but advertise your failures. It looks like attention-seeking behavior and it won't be good for your company. I understand why you may think it is a good idea. Heck, even I considered it before. But it's not. What is the net benefit to your employees worrying about their next paycheck or your customers worrying about their data when you post something like this? Not much, if any. But it sure got you a whole lot of personal advertising for free.

paulddraper 11y ago

In hard times, there's a balance of concern between totally uninvested and stressed out of one's mind. In circumstances like the ones described, most people tend toward the latter. As an employee, this would be very welcome and probably very helpful in making the most of the situation. That said, it's crazy that they posted it for their customers to read. Hearing that my vendor has a "can fail" attitude isn't reassuring. I'd rather hear that my vendor is comprised of low-maintenance caffeine fueled super robots that keep their commitments with the stubbornness of a thousand donkeys. (I know they're probably not, but when choosing vendors, I'm usually working with limited info.) So...cool memo, weird post, nice thoughts.

USNetizen 11y ago
Thank for that. I was reading all of these "great job!" comments and thinking to myself that I couldn't be the only one that saw it that way. This can't be a winning move long-term when companies do this and embrace such wide-scale failure so effortlessly without any consideration for the repercussions of their actions.
kaitai 11y ago
One problem with hearing that your vendor is comprised of low-maintenance caffeine fueled super robots that keep their commitments with the stubbornness of a thousand donkeys is knowing that your vendor probably has some slick liar salesmen giving you that line. What else do you not know then?
- paulddraper 11y ago
  That example is over the top, but yes any salesman will tell you that a good sales pitch is more likely to win customers then a list of red flags.
- kyllo 11y ago
  Exactly the problem. When you make failure unacceptable, people will stil fail anyway, they will just try their damndest to hide it. If you punish people for giving you bad news, they will simply stop giving it to you, even when bad things do happen, and they always do.
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    There is probably some truth there, but I think you are missing reality. Next time you try to make a sale, express how reluctant you and your coworkers are to recommend the product to their friends.
    - kyllo 11y ago
      It's not black and white like you think. I used to work as an outside sales rep. Experienced people know that shit breaks in real life. They care more about how you deal with failure. I've actually heard rumors of companies purposefully fucking up little things with new customers in order to take the opportunity to demonstrate how good their customer service is when they fix the mistake. Because vendors are pretty equivalent when things go right, but they differentiate themselves by how they handle it when things go wrong, and that earns loyalty.

tedmiston 11y ago

> a potentially problem-riddled organization that by-and-large accepts, even embraces, a high rate of failure It seems like a huge leap to go from having one slow month of growth to "problem-riddled" organization that "embraces a high rate of failure". That's not something I took away from the blog post. Also, I've used Keen before. Their product and engineering is really great, and I've never had issues with the API itself, the dashboard widgets, reliability, quality, etc.

USNetizen 11y ago
I'd certainly consider a "major loss" of your customer data, not just once mind you, and on top of that admitting to having an "unstable" product certainly very "problem riddled" for a data analytics company that people put their trust into. Those are MAJOR issues that should not happen if you really cared about your work and were't so ready to give up at a moment's notice as this reads. I understand YOU may not have a problem taking a risk that the owner may just decide to "give themselves permission" to walk away at any time as if it were nothing, but do you work for a large enterprise looking to dedicate lots of money and effort into a platform like this? If I were, I'd definitely be heading to their competitors right now after reading something like this. If I were a competitor, I'd be marketing to this and headhunting their best talent using this to demonstrate how easily it could all fold up on them at any time. There are many others, especially current customers and even employees, that would almost certainly interpret this company's blog post as very disconcerting at the very least. Mostly because of the ease with which the owner seems to be able to just give up, walk away and accept complete failure along with rationalizing their selling of a self-admitted "unstable" product and justifying the "major" loss of customer data by saying they "give themselves permission" for these things to happen, apparently quite regularly. Using their own words, not mine, it seems to fit that "problem riddled" description quite well.

mwetzler 11y ago

Hi there - I wrote the piece and you pretty succinctly summed up some of my internal arguments for not sharing the story. I'll share some of my thoughts on those and why I ultimately decided to share anyway. While I knew some customers/prospects would appreciate and possibly admire the transparency, my main concern was that others might be deterred. First, they might be deterred by the issues I mentioned in the post. None of the challenges I mentioned in the piece were special. We lost a customer. We had an outage (a year ago). We were stressed. Every API company and competitor, not to mention our customers, have had a similar story. Of course we made it through those challenges, or we wouldn't be telling this story. They made us stronger. Plus, we love it when prospects ask about uptime because it's something we take seriously and where we have a great track record :) Second, they might be deterred at the idea of failure being ok. Perhaps the message in the piece is too subtle. It's not supposed to be that it's ok to be lazy and fail at stuff. It's about getting perspective and not letting your anxiety cripple you. I hoped what would come through in this piece is that we care very deeply about our work, so much so that sometimes we needed to be reminded that it's not life or death. Finally, I'll share some of my thoughts on why it might be beneficial to share. First, like I mentioned in the post, being a part of the tech community and contributing to it, sharing some of the lessons you've learned, is very rewarding. I've found that when you give, not only does it feel good, but the community gives back, often later on and in surprising ways you didn't expect. You reach like-minded customers, partners, candidates, investors, all kinds of things. Second, as a data company, trust is incredibly important to our brand. Some might disagree, but I think sharing the more human sides of the company helps to expand that trust. This is how we have always operated the company, and I think it is a large part of why we not only have a lot of customers (and growing), but many fans. We like knowing our customers and we like them to know us too.

USNetizen 11y ago
I think you fail to realize the implications of what you do when you go out and not only embrace but advertise your failures. It looks like attention-seeking behavior and it won't be good for your company. I understand why you may think it is a good idea. Heck, even I considered it before. But it's not. What is the net benefit to your employees worrying about their next paycheck or your customers worrying about their data when you post something like this? Not much, if any. But it sure got you a whole lot of personal advertising for free.