The Seven Voyages Of SteveJul 10
The main advantage of being a small player has always been that you don't have to do what all the big companies are doing, because they have a desperate amount of FOMO about staying relevant / trendy / a hot stock. People like the personal touch, the developer they can talk to, the support service that actually takes the time to listen to them as individuals instead of only considering them a data point in a data set that they'll extract the worst conclusions from
Packwolf Lupestripe 🔜 Folsom + AnimalzJul 10
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of Steve
The inconvenient truth for scale-up capitalists with an AI boner is that people prefer dealing with other humans when anything gets a bit non-routine. Even people who grew up with technology. We may prefer messaging instead of phoning these days, but 10 minutes of attention from one real person who gets it is worth 10000 automated agents
Jul 10 at 10:04amWeb
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveJul 10
I guarantee you can beat out the big companies just by saying "when you have a question, we guarantee a real person will be there to answer you". Squeezing billionaire level profits requires getting rid of that, refusing to do so is a super power
Show threadFrank ReiffJul 10
@sinbad ..with consumer level stuff that’s possibly true, but for companies the big questions are always “is this supplier still going to be in business in 30 years time?”, “what do the outside consultants think?”, “could I get fired over this?”, “is it IBM?”, “can we pay a consultant to come and sort it out if it goes wrong?”.
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveJul 10
@frankreiff Usually that's the big companies on the other end too. Smaller companies can be smarter - they know big companies kill products all the time, or make them incompatible with what you're doing thus causing you time to adapt. It's better to buy from someone of similar scale to you and not just be a rounding error on their spreadsheet
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveJul 10
@frankreiff there are definitely small companies who always buy from the biggest vendors because they think that's an insurance policy (it's not), but usually the ones who haven't been burned enough by that yet, or for some reason refuse to learn from it
Show threadFrank ReiffJul 10
@sinbad You know saying “Google is constantly killing products with millions of users” in a management meeting is like saying “what’s wrong with satanism?” in a church 😀
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveJul 10
@frankreiff I guess this is why I haven't been in one of those for a long time
Show threadFrank ReiffJul 10

@sinbad True. I was heading some Big Finance software purchasing studies on the technical side while I was still at The 🏦 and the technical side really did not matter in the decision making.

Some excellent dinners paid for by IBM and some depressing deliverable writing ensued.

Show threadPatrick HogenboomJul 10
@sinbad Unshittification
Show threadQueen Calyo DelphiJul 10

@sinbad This this this this.

For many years, I've started saying "Operator" or dialing 0 when I get into a phone tree that doesn't have the *exact* options I need, just so I can get on the line with a PERSON who can fix the problem faster than navigating some stupid phone tree will be able to do.

Show threadLinebylineJul 11

@sinbad For routine things I don't want to bother a person with, give me the dumbest automated system that can reliably do the job, ideally a website form. For anything complex, skip straight to the real person who is both able and allowed to fix my problem.

Never, *ever* give me a chatbot, open-ended voice-recognition menus, or a human agent who gets fired if they go off script instead of *pretending* to be one of those. I don't have time for that kind of "help."