The backup tweet was a joke-- Of COURSE we do backups. I just thought it was funny that we were doing it on Friday the 13th. Good lord, man.
We probably should have set better expectations (maybe a beta label on every new feature)-- we're a release-early-release-often shop. Jump into a new feature on the DAY of the release, and you should expect bugs (potentially show-stopping ones, but hopefully not). Jump into it in the first WEEK, and we'll probably still be ironing out little wrinkles. Jump in next year and you could STILL run into a snag-- we're happy to help;
Thanks for the thoroughness-- some of the above stuff is helpful (though I tend to think that if that was your motivation you would've just emailed us). I'm certainly sorry for any delay in response. On a weekend after a big release we can sometimes fall behind a bit (the support team IS the dev team).
The challenge is that these new features drive a bill that your customer sends to their customer. I am a little surprised by this response to problems that could undermine your customer's business relationships.
I am also surprised that none of your current customers would give feedback or comments on how the release worked for them: why not just deploy it to current customers who want to use it (since it's appears to be free to them) and make this announcement after you have had more than a week's testing? Or was that also a joke?
You should consider appending the "jump" sentences (e.g. "jump into a new feature...") to your announcement blog post so that new visitors are aware of your approach to developing and delivering software.
Yaw, I agree in hindsight-- the language should have been more "beta-ey" to warn off the risk-averse. We did have a small collection of private beta users, FWIW. There are some scattered issues, but the release is pretty solid.
These new features CAN drive a bill (though most of the users were surveyed who were interested in this feature were NOT billable folks, interestingly enough). Given that the feature has existed for less than 1 business day, I think the chance of undermining business relationships is pretty darn slim.
Did I do something to offend you, Sean? I can't QUITE tell if your comment is snarky or not.
No snark, concern that your new application has more serious consequences of failure: sending a client an inaccurate bill is much less recoverable than a poor understanding of how I use my time.
> Sorry but I think it's ok to make jokes from your personal twitter account.
Look, I don't know you and my advice is 'free', so it's worth what you paid for it, but you can either take it serious or realize that with your responses you are literally only making it worse for yourself.
Your 'personal' twitter account is publicly visible, and you are publicly associated with your fledgling company.
If you think that you can play cowboy with the reputation of your company on your personal twitter account then you are really missing the point of what I'm trying to get across to you.
Ignore this and other feedback here at your peril.
There are lots of people here that wish you well, that is why you get this feedback, if we didn't care we'd just shut up and think 'let them stew, they'll find out soon enough'.
There are lots of people here that wish you well, that is why you get this feedback, if we didn't care we'd just shut up and think 'let them stew, they'll find out soon enough'
Thanks, I was going to write the same thing.
You know, I started wondering if I come across too defensive to my customers. The insidious part is that if this were to happen I wouldn't even know - no one would be compelled to tell me. There must be a systemic fix to this self-awareness problem. Maybe I could pay someone to read my forum and rate the perceived "sincerity and openness"? If they are getting paid just for that they would probably be more forthcoming...
Probably shoulda said "Just joking" in the tweet (I thought the fact that I linked to a Bill O'Reilly outtake might communicate the tone of the tweet). I should've made it extremely clear that I was joking.
Chalk it up to a long week, a late night, and a bad guess about whether people would get the joke. But DON'T chalk it up to me thinking that Twitter is somehow private or different than any of the other (very public) parts of the internet! :-)
Interesting. I've seen quite a few people launch their stuff on HN and invariably they knew how to take the feedback they got and use it constructively, you are doing an absolutely terrible job of it, that is why I added the 'at your peril' there.
If you are still of the opinion that you are doing this the right way I suggest you talk it over with some other founders of YC funded companies and see how they react.
If they all give you the green then you'll know you have nothing to fear from the impression you are making here.
And yes, I do take it serious, maybe you should too.
I apologize. It's been a hectic morning and I took a few things personally when I shouldn't have. I'm going to take a breather and stop commenting for a while. :)
We probably should have set better expectations (maybe a beta label on every new feature)-- we're a release-early-release-often shop. Jump into a new feature on the DAY of the release, and you should expect bugs (potentially show-stopping ones, but hopefully not). Jump into it in the first WEEK, and we'll probably still be ironing out little wrinkles. Jump in next year and you could STILL run into a snag-- we're happy to help;
Thanks for the thoroughness-- some of the above stuff is helpful (though I tend to think that if that was your motivation you would've just emailed us). I'm certainly sorry for any delay in response. On a weekend after a big release we can sometimes fall behind a bit (the support team IS the dev team).