4 ms·

I think his advice on outsourcing marketing, sales and support to an off-shore virtual personal assistant is profoundly dangerous. When you've just launched, y

I think his advice on outsourcing marketing, sales and support to an off-shore virtual personal assistant is profoundly dangerous. When you've just launched, you have no idea what parts of your product are truly helpful to your customers and which have been a waste of time to build. Before my company launched I was completely off-base as to what we should be directing attention to, and it was only through talking with early customers that we identified where the focus of effort should be directed. That direction wasn't obvious, either. It was only through speaking with many customers over many weeks that a vague idea of what just might be the best thing to focus upon emerged. The author states that: "If you do not outsource these tasks, they will get in the way of work that's truly productive for your business.". However, without talking directly with customers, you are unlikely to know which activities are 'truly productive for your business'. Outsource support at your peril.

smartbear 16y ago
You obviously didn't read the article. He never said to outsource customer development. You made that up. In one of the actual examples, he had the VA simply form a list of 100 potential people he could reach out to for market research. Then he did the research himself. This is exactly the opposite of what you think he said. The other example was doing simple data-entry with a back-end ordering system because it was easier (at first) than automating it.
- charleso 16y ago
  Yes, I did read the article. Then I re-read it before commenting since I found the advice in that section to be so surprisingly bad. I did not make up my quoted comments. I pulled them right from the posted article and used them in context. Right under "Point #2: After Your Product Launch", the author states: "Customers make it necessary to put processes in place for marketing, sales, support, and back-end admin tasks. Any ongoing work that can be described in a written process can be outsourced to a VA and save incredible amounts of time for the founders. "If you do not outsource these tasks, they will get in the way of work that's truly productive for your business." The author is stating that a startup should outsource their support and I still think that outsourcing customer support for a new product is an extremely bad idea, no matter how easily that support process can be documented. Feedback from customer support is one of the best ways for a business to identify where a product can be improved. Yes, you can easily describe support in a written process, but you cannot possibly anticipate what customers will tell you during those support calls. The information shared during those early support calls is absolute gold.

smartbear 16y ago

You obviously didn't read the article. He never said to outsource customer development. You made that up. In one of the actual examples, he had the VA simply form a list of 100 potential people he could reach out to for market research. Then he did the research himself. This is exactly the opposite of what you think he said. The other example was doing simple data-entry with a back-end ordering system because it was easier (at first) than automating it.

charleso 16y ago
Yes, I did read the article. Then I re-read it before commenting since I found the advice in that section to be so surprisingly bad. I did not make up my quoted comments. I pulled them right from the posted article and used them in context. Right under "Point #2: After Your Product Launch", the author states: "Customers make it necessary to put processes in place for marketing, sales, support, and back-end admin tasks. Any ongoing work that can be described in a written process can be outsourced to a VA and save incredible amounts of time for the founders. "If you do not outsource these tasks, they will get in the way of work that's truly productive for your business." The author is stating that a startup should outsource their support and I still think that outsourcing customer support for a new product is an extremely bad idea, no matter how easily that support process can be documented. Feedback from customer support is one of the best ways for a business to identify where a product can be improved. Yes, you can easily describe support in a written process, but you cannot possibly anticipate what customers will tell you during those support calls. The information shared during those early support calls is absolute gold.