Surfing the Waves of Complaint -The Start-up Files #2

"Many glitches", "The interface really needs work", "It's impossible to figure out".

These are all comments I recently received via inbound e-mail from subscribers to Tweet Jukebox. Boy, was I glad to hear from them. Enough with the compliments. Give me some old-fashioned bitching. The more pointed and specific, the better.

Want to learn to love your haters? Start a software company. There's no better place that negative feedback can provide the raw material for making your business awesome.

It's tricky though. The natural reaction? To dismiss unhappy users as people too mentally feeble to navigate your wonderful system. Actually, it's that sort of reaction that is just plain dumb.

Keep in mind, these people took the time to acknowledge your existence, come to your homepage, onboard your software, and attempt to navigate it. If they got that far, and then thought you sucked, maybe they have a point. It's sure worth looking into.

Frankly, we've had very mixed reactions from people about how they schedule their jukeboxes. So, I've spent the weekend tearing the entire system apart. Looking through user behavior, including my own, and drawing ideas out on paper. All with the idea that I want to bring my unhappy subscribers some joy.

Will it work? Probably not entirely. I'm sure to screw up part of the process. There will probably be some crappy unintended consequences. So, why do it? Right. I get more happy e-mails than I do complaints. Why not focus on the happy people?

Simple, because I know we can do better. I know we'll probably fall on our faces a couple times in the process, but that's an inevitable consequence of trying something new. It'll likely be a bit worse, before it gets much better.

Being great is rarely a linear process. It's a series of jumps forward, punctuated with disturbing setbacks. It's battling through the latter than separates the great from the mediocre.

So, if you want to be great, next time someone tells you that you or your product is screwy, listen long enough to see if they might have a point. If so, do something about it. That's how you'll learn to surf waves of complaint.

PS - If you enjoyed the story, please “like” it. Thanks!

("The Start-Up Files" is a series about the the beginning of my latest business,Tweet Jukebox. Don't worry about spoilers, I don't know how this thing turns out either. It seemed like an interesting idea to journal the ride, rather than veneer it for consumption later. Check back for Part #3. In the interim, I'll be living the story.)