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Really bad attitude from both the founder, and the Scoutzie employee badmouthing 99 designs. If there's something to learn from this thread, it's how not to rep

by MortenK 14y ago

Really bad attitude from both the founder, and the Scoutzie employee badmouthing 99 designs. If there's something to learn from this thread, it's how not to reply to criticism.

benrequena 14y ago
I was just going to post something similar. It's jaw-dropping to see the kinds of retorts that kirillzubovsky is giving. Even if the original comments are snarky in their own right, to quip back with "Maybe you could get lost", and "A little jealous, perhaps?", is absolutely brand killing not to mention disrespectful. If I were a mobile developer I would not want to be associated with this startup in any capacity.
- mnicole 14y ago
  I was pretty stoked to wake up to the jealousy comment this morning. "Why would we make a mobile site for a site about mobile?" got me good too. What wonderful ways to respond to people you're trying to profit off of.
- kirillzubovsky 14y ago
  Ben, you're spot on. I shouldn't be responding like that. As I explained to Nicole (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262188 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262188), I saw the original comment as an offense on the quality of Scoutzie-listed designers and I take any such offense very personally. We spend a lot of time talking to the designers, getting to know them, looking to understand how they work and what they want to get out of their design careers. When I see a negative comment about the site or about our user base , I see it as a negative comment about each one of our users. It hurts me because I see these users as real people, not just user ids. Now, I can see that 'mnicole' wasn't out to get us, and it was wrong of me to engage in a hostile manner myself. Unfortunately, as one comments irritates your skin, it's really easy to quickly overreact with others. I will get better at this. Lastly, thank you for giving the feedback.
kirillzubovsky 14y ago
Some comments were indeed uncalled for and I apologize for that. Please see below those comments for the followups. As per the 99designs, we are not badmouthing them at all. There are designers who are willing to do design at a chance they will not get paid and let's face it, most designers on 99designs don't get paid because only the winner takes the money. This is terrible for designers who put in the hours of work and then don't get reimbursed of it. This isn't always good for clients either. Given that each designer can only spend limited time (knowing they might (most likely won't) get paid). As a result, most designers end up with no $ in the pockets and clients end up with work that could be improved upon. All said, there are clients who use 99designs and there are designers who work on these projects. 99Designs as a company is doing well and we are happy for them. But, we don't have to support them because we prefer to encourage great design and to encourage great designers to be paid for their work.

by MortenK 14y ago

Really bad attitude from both the founder, and the Scoutzie employee badmouthing 99 designs. If there's something to learn from this thread, it's how not to reply to criticism.

benrequena 14y ago

I was just going to post something similar. It's jaw-dropping to see the kinds of retorts that kirillzubovsky is giving. Even if the original comments are snarky in their own right, to quip back with "Maybe you could get lost", and "A little jealous, perhaps?", is absolutely brand killing not to mention disrespectful. If I were a mobile developer I would not want to be associated with this startup in any capacity.

mnicole 14y ago
I was pretty stoked to wake up to the jealousy comment this morning. "Why would we make a mobile site for a site about mobile?" got me good too. What wonderful ways to respond to people you're trying to profit off of.
kirillzubovsky 14y ago
Ben, you're spot on. I shouldn't be responding like that. As I explained to Nicole (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262188 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262188), I saw the original comment as an offense on the quality of Scoutzie-listed designers and I take any such offense very personally. We spend a lot of time talking to the designers, getting to know them, looking to understand how they work and what they want to get out of their design careers. When I see a negative comment about the site or about our user base , I see it as a negative comment about each one of our users. It hurts me because I see these users as real people, not just user ids. Now, I can see that 'mnicole' wasn't out to get us, and it was wrong of me to engage in a hostile manner myself. Unfortunately, as one comments irritates your skin, it's really easy to quickly overreact with others. I will get better at this. Lastly, thank you for giving the feedback.

kirillzubovsky 14y ago

Some comments were indeed uncalled for and I apologize for that. Please see below those comments for the followups. As per the 99designs, we are not badmouthing them at all. There are designers who are willing to do design at a chance they will not get paid and let's face it, most designers on 99designs don't get paid because only the winner takes the money. This is terrible for designers who put in the hours of work and then don't get reimbursed of it. This isn't always good for clients either. Given that each designer can only spend limited time (knowing they might (most likely won't) get paid). As a result, most designers end up with no $ in the pockets and clients end up with work that could be improved upon. All said, there are clients who use 99designs and there are designers who work on these projects. 99Designs as a company is doing well and we are happy for them. But, we don't have to support them because we prefer to encourage great design and to encourage great designers to be paid for their work.