Avi's Weblog

At some point, your company will have a PR crisis. Airbnb had its infamous home ransacking, Curebit was recently caught stealing web designs and background music for a product video, my kid’s daycare had a teacher quit and send vitriolic emails to the parent listserve. Even 37signals recently had a crisis when one of their developers publicly disclosed the name of a file that a user had uploaded to Basecamp.

What’s a company to do when it’s being publicly flayed? Here are a few ground rules from what I’ve observed and how I’ve handled such situations myself:

1. Move Fast

A million things come across your desk every day. It’s your job to identify which ones might blow up, not brush them under the rug, and confront your worst fears. Right now. Don’t send 8 emails relating to other things. For the time being, this is the only thing. Part and parcel of moving fast is mobilizing the necessary people within your organization. If need be, pull developers, marketers, and whomever else you need off the normally scheduled projects they’re working on. 

2. Say you’re sorry

David Heinemeier Hanson wrote a strong mea culpa after the privacy breach mentioned above. It worked well for a few reasons: it humanized 37signals by saying hey we make stupid mistakes, this was one of them, and this is what we’re doing to make sure it never happens again; it used strong, honest, non-legalese like “trust is fragile”; and it was open about an even worse hypothetical scenario in which a file name like “Downsizing-Plans-2012.pdf” was released. Saying you’re sorry is critical — even if the situation is somewhat out of your control. Airbnb should have apologized profusely to their host whose house got ransacked. And the director of our daycare should have said, “Look, there’s only so much I could do about this email being sent out, but I’m really sorry it happened.” Which leads us to the third point.

3. Own the narrative

Assume that the truth will find a way out. What “out” means can vary: Will all your customers learn about the situation? Is it going to show up on a bunch of prominent blogs? No matter what, you have to get in front of the curve and tell your side of the story. The way the crisis is represented by other outlets may be slanted or inaccurate. You need to have your version prominently available to contend with, if not crush, the other side of the story. Your narrative has to be truthful, because that’s the right thing to do and because the truth will find its way out — as it did on an obscure personal blog in the Airbnb saga.

Crises that are managed poorly spin out of control. You have to get in front of the curve quickly or it will only get worse.

I just crossed 100 followers on Twitter, a dubious honor that confirms my standing as one of the least cool people on the internet. But I have a secret. I’m even less cool than it seems. The two followers who put me over the top were both spammers, 

Did I report them? Heck no! If only there were 9,347,443 more like them, I’d be on par with Ashton Kutcher. My Klout score might not go up with these two new friends, but I’m feeling the love.

Yesterday, I read an article in TechCrunch about Curebit, which just raised $1.2 million. I clicked the link to their site and did a double take. Wait, what?! Their homepage looked exactly like the Highrise homepage from 37signals, which was the subject of a great blog post on A/B testing.

I dropped into gchat and hit up my friend Trevor who works for 37signals. He was perplexed. He sent me a screenshot, it was completely different from what I was seeing. I sent him a screenshot. Oho! The old A/B switcheroo. The Curebit test version that I was getting was a ripoff of Highrise, down to the actual images, which were still being served up by 37signals.

Our respective screenshots made their way into some 37signals Campfire room and then all hell broke loose on Hacker News and Twitter.

Initially, Curebit didn’t understand what a bad decision they’d made. They wondered aloud if it was okay to keep the “quick and dirty” test and just “give credit” to 37signals. This only exacerbated the problem by showing a lack of remorse or understanding of what they’d done. Instead, their defense was basically, “We’re just being lean, testing a minimum viable product to see what works.”

I’m a big fan of the MVP approach to figuring out what customers like and need. All the merrier if you can avoid building a big piece of technology altogether. One of my favorite Chicago success stories, Centro, is a massive online marketplace for buying and selling local advertising which was started on a bunch of spreadsheets. If you can, figure out the model and then wrap some sweet technology around it.

Cutting corners — i.e., features, development time, technology altogether if possible — is a good thing to do to understand what a market wants. But Curebit’s defense is a dangerous misunderstanding of minimum viable products — one in which “lean” and mvp” somehow come to justify stealing. 

Why does everything have to be an app these days? You’d think there were no businesses before web or mobile apps. 

App mania is actually pretty destructive. Here’s how the narrative usually goes. Someone comes to me and says, “I have this great idea for an app. It’s like this for that and it’s gonna be amazing!!” Next comes a question: “So where can I find a developer?” I encourage them to think of other ways to explore their idea that don’t require building an app. They nod and smile and then go off and find a developer on Craigslist or a consulting firm, spend $30,000, and launch something 9 months later that’s terrible. They get 5 users and fall into a deep depression.

Here’s the thing: many “app” businesses don’t need to build apps in the first place. Whatever happened to just providing good old services? For example, a dating company without an app?! Impossible? Nope. It’s Just Lunch is a match-making service that has grown massively without an app. Building technology in many (most?) cases is a means for scaling, which is the opposite problem companies have when they’re first born.

Alas, the appification of the startup ecosystem has created this luster around building your own technology, even if it’s totally unnecessary. Not to mention that building a piece of technology or managing its development is incredibly difficult for people who aren’t technical. Put simply, if you’re not technical, find a way to start your company that doesn’t involve building an app. Find a way to present your offering at first as a good old fashioned service. Figure out the model and then, waaaaaay down the line, think about appifying it. 

Detaching entrepreneurship from building apps is incredibly liberating for non-technical people. It could be an enabler for a completely new class of entrepreneurs: people who are capable and creative, but non-technical. Too many of those people aren’t even coming out to play now for fear of the fact that they can’t make apps. There’s lots of great, inexpensive, off-the-shelf technology out there for non-technical people. Use those tools to start a business and focus on the most important thing: making products and services that make customers happy. Your app with shiny gradients and rounded corners can wait.

Joel has a great, concise set of criteria for hiring: “Smart and gets things done.”

At its best, the education system does a good job teaching the “smart” part — english, math, science. But what about the “gets things done” part? I’ve never heard of a high school or college that teaches a course in time management or project management. It’s basically sink or swim: you finish your homework or you don’t. In college, this translates into all-nighters — which are unsustainable and unhealthy.

What should be taught as a skill ends up instead as something you either have or you don’t; or that you have to learn on your own, even though there’s no obvious source to turn to for lessons like this.

Learning to be organized, methodical, and effective might seem to belong in the self-help section at Barnes and Noble, but the implications are big. At stake on a micro level are issues of self-confidence, happiness and success. On a macro level, it’s about building a society where people entering the workforce know how to get things done. Imagine how much more productive we’d be.

Email is a scourge. Extreme email efficiency and inbox zero has helped keep me sane over the last few years. I bet most people would list their burgeoning inboxes as one of the biggest causes of stress. At the very least, it’s definitely one of the biggest productivity killers.

At CaptainU, we have long been practitioners of “conversational email.” No greetings, no signoff, and no fluff. Just 1-2 concise sentences. Length does not equal quality. It was awesome to see Facebook roll out their new direct messaging feature a while back because it was exactly in line with our thinking about what email should be.

To further wean ourselves off email, this past year, we started using Campfire for the entire company, not just the development team. As a result, there’s basically no email traffic within CaptainU. The other benefit is more transparency — everyone knows what’s going on at all times.

Here’s the next step in the demise of email: I’m going to try to get rid of email subjects. Most of the time, the subject is just a throw away or I end up writing the same thing in the first sentence. 

What other ways are there to crush our email dependency?

Why do we still use a payment technology that Elvis carried around in his wallet?

Last month, 17% of the credit cards CaptainU attempted to process on monthly web-app subscriptions failed. 

To be fair, we try to run cards for a few extra months after their first failure because some of them are debit cards that don’t have sufficient funds for a month or two. So 17% includes build up from a few previous months.

For most cards that fail, we got little more explanation than, “This transaction has been declined” or, “Contact card issuer for details.” Right, let me just call a zillion banks to find out why these cards are failing. I don’t even know who the card issuer is.

What’s particularly painful is that these are subscriptions we’ve earned because we have good product that people want to pay for. We follow all of the dunning best practices, but still — 17%.

There’s a land rush for payment processing — Square, FeeFighters, Stripe, Chargify, and Braintree, Recurly to name a few. Everyone wants a piece of the action, because it’s gigantic. I’ve talked with folks at a number of these companies, but no one seems to be paying attention to the biggest problem.

I really don’t care that I can get an average of .25% lower here. And I really don’t care that so and so has a slick UI with rounded corners and gradients that are easy on the eye. What I care about is that 17% of our transactions failed last month.

It’s been fascinating to watch the fallout over GoDaddy’s support of SOPA. The web community has rallied in an inspirational way to challenge their support of a law that would basically wreck the internet.

I’m afraid, though, that we’re missing the real point here: SOPA is a microcosm of the corruption that is destroying America.

I’m not much for histrionics like “destroying America.” But the intractable gridlock and ridiculous decision-making in Congress are rooted in the flood of corporate money that dominates policy.

SOPA is a perfect case in point. It’s a law that was dreamed up and fast-tracked to the forefront of the congressional agenda by corporate interests. This list of official SOPA supporters, posted by GoDaddy which is deep in damage control, is just so wrong. These are the companies that are buying the republic. Can you imagine what Benjamin Franklin would say if confronted with this? (After wondering “What is Beachbody LLC???”)

60 Plus Association

ABC

Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP)

American Bankers Association (ABA)

American Federation of Musicians (AFM)

American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

Americans for Tax Reform

Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States

Association of American Publishers (AAP)

Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies

Association of Talent Agents (ATA)

Beachbody, LLC

BMI

BMG Chrysalis

Building and Construction Trades Department

Capitol Records Nashville

CBS

Cengage Learning

Christian Music Trade Association

Church Music Publishers’ Association

Coalition Against Online Video Piracy (CAOVP)

Comcast/NBCUniversal

Concerned Women for America (CWA)

Congressional Fire Services Institute

Copyhype

Copyright Alliance

Coty, Inc.

Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)

Council of State Governments

Country Music Association

Country Music Television

Creative America

Deluxe

Directors Guild of America (DGA)

Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.

Elsevier

EMI Christian Music Group

EMI Music Publishing

Entertainment Software Association (ESA)

ESPN

Estée Lauder Companies

Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)

Gospel Music Association

Graphic Artists Guild

Hachette Book Group

HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Inc.

Hyperion

Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA)

International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE)

International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)

International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)

International Trademark Association (INTA)

International Union of Police Associations

L’Oreal

Lost Highway Records

Macmillan

Major County Sheriffs

Major League Baseball

Majority City Chiefs

Marvel Entertainment, LLC

MasterCard Worldwide

MCA Records

McGraw-Hill Education

Mercury Nashville

Minor League Baseball (MiLB)

Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC)

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

Moving Picture Technicians

MPA - The Association of Magazine Media

National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)

National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators

National Association of State Chief Information Officers

National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)

National Center for Victims of Crime

National Crime Justice Association

National District Attorneys Association

National Domestic Preparedness Coalition

National Football League

National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee

National League of Cities

National Narcotics Offers’ Associations’ Coalition

National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)

National Songwriters Association

National Troopers Coalition

News Corporation

Pearson Education

Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)

Pfizer, Inc.

Provident Music Group

Random House

Raulet Property Partners

Republic Nashville

Revlon

Scholastic, Inc.

Screen Actors Guild (SAG)

Showdog Universal Music

Sony/ATV Music Publishing

Sony Music Entertainment

Sony Music Nashville

State International Development Organization (SIDO)

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)

The Perseus Books Groups

The United States Conference of Mayors

Tiffany & Co.

Time Warner

True Religion Brand Jeans

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)

UMG Publishing Group Nashville

United States Chamber of Commerce

United States Olympic Committee

United States Tennis Association

Universal Music

Universal Music Publishing Group

Viacom

Visa Inc.

W.W. Norton & Company

Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, L.P.

Warner Music Group

Warner Music Nashville

Wolters Kluewer Health

Word Entertainment

Why do we allow corporations to distort policy decisions in their own favor? Why is it okay for a list like the one above to even exist — let alone be disseminated on the United States Congress’s website?

The default counterargument to the notion that businesses shouldn’t be allowed to craft laws that favor them is that you’re “being anti-business.” The SOPA standoff presents us with a unique opportunity to not only contrast the interests of the businesses listed above with people. It also allows us to look at how their interests conflict with other businesses. Because, should SOPA pass, it will destroy a generation of companies that have a much better chance of pulling America out of its economic malaise than Ultimate Fighting Championship, Viacom, the NFL, and everyone else listed above. 

For more on this topic, please check out Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig’s book Republic, Lost and his fascinating talk at Google.

I really want WPS to succeed and I’ve been thinking a lot about how a fresh approach to technology can save the league. The other day, I suggested that the league should blow up its existing website and start from scratch using a lean approach. This go around, I want to get more specific.

Goals of the new website

• Let the players’ compelling stories on and off the field sell the team 
• Build and nurture a community of supporters around each team and its players
• Engage the community with awesome, regularly updated, honest content (not canned marketing stuff)
• Sell tickets and merchandise and promote special events 
• Build, learn, and iterate quickly — the clock is ticking

Building from the ground up

Let’s just all delight for a moment in going into the old code, selecting all, and pressing delete. Aaaah, a fresh start; rid of the old ball and chain. Create directory: WPS 2.0.

Our new site is going to be all about the players: who they are, what they’re about, what they do off the field, etc. The theory is that making the players and teams accessible to young girls and their families, will help fans connect with the players and the team. The personal connection with the players will put butts in the seats and get the league on the right track. The philosophy that this is a professional sports league like the NFL or MLB with larger than life characters doesn’t fit the market. Fans need to be able to reach out and touch WPS players. And the way to keep people engaged en masse is through the web.

This is where I’d start

With a 1-2 week build using Rails and Heroku to speed up development and minimize sysadmin work, build a simple, elegant community site. Get rid of all the fancy background graphics in favor of sleek, subdued minimalism that helps users focus on what matters most, fresh new content about the players. The site should look and feel like a modern web-app, not like the mess of loud sports team websites out there.

For each player, there’s a player page, which is essentially a tumblog of Tweets, text updates, videos, and photos that the players take on their phones. Players can upload content directly to their pages. To maximize speed, it would make sense to wrap Tumblr or Wordpress. Their mobile apps would make it easy for players to post. For each post, there’s an “upvote” button. Posts that get the most upvotes appear on the team’s homepage, which is basically an aggregator of all the most popular posts from across the individual player pages. 

At the top of the individual page, there’s a nice headshot and a player bio written in the first person with a text field and the call to action “Subscribe to my personal newsletter by email or SMS.” Each player page also lists the date and time for the next game and a link to buy tickets. For Round 1, that’s it.

The coaches would each have pages — as would members of the front office. And to emphasize that this is a “community team,” there would also be a page for fans to post to as well. Fan posts would be submitted initially by email.

These 30 or so individual pages would roll up into one very active, exciting, continually fresh team page. This would create a steady stream of interesting, honest content. 

The result

Imagine you’re a 13-year old girl who’s a Tobin Heath superfan. Now you can learn about who Tobin is, interact with her, and get her newsletter the day before each game, reminding you to rally your parents and friends to go.

You also know that for Tobin Heath superfans, she’s going to be hanging out with her fans and signing autographs at the Mall at Short Hills on Sunday afternoon. You go, you meet her, and become even more passionate about supporting her. You buy her jersey, go home, and check her WPS page for the pictures she’s posted from the outing. You see that her next game is next Saturday. You share it on Facebook, telling your friends how awesome Tobin is and that they should join you at the next game. 

Online reinforces online reinforces online. It’s a virtuous circle.

“…And if you pledge in the next 10 minutes, you not only get David Sedaris’s new book about people with funny voices, you also get the NPR tote bag, a $5 gift certificate to Whole Foods, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing that you supported NPR.”

That’s the first thing that comes to mind when you visit ronpaul2012.com: apparently, Ron Paul’s Libertarian utopia begins with an NPR-esque pledge drive. The gigantic fundraising campaign in the middle of the homepage screams one thing loud and clear, “Ron Paul needs money.” 

That may be the case, but it’s done in a thoughtful way. There are three powerful features encouraging visitors to heed the Paul.

1. The scrolling list of donors is an interesting use of social proof. Disclosing the identities of individual supporters front and center on the home page is unique among the presidential candidates. Though Ron Paul has been the darling of some niche constituencies, he’s struggled to gain widespread acceptance. It’s almost as if this feature is there to drive home the fact that real humans actually support Ron Paul.

2. The thermometer progress bar sends the message that “we’re almost there — we just need your support.” To give the impression that progress has already been made, no self-respecting progress bar ever starts at zero, and at 3/4 full, this is no exception. The fill ‘er up animation when you load the page reinforces that.

3. Most campaign websites have a rotating set of images. The only things that move on Paul’s site are those that drive home the message that real people are contributing to the campaign. The clock is diminutive but interesting and sort of hilarious. It’s literally a clock. In the storied tradition of clocks, it tells you what time it is. But on a web page…of someone who’s running for President of the United States. Strange. Still, it contributes to a sense of urgency that something is going to happen. You don’t want to contemplate what could happen if we get to time X without Paul banking his $4 million.

More notable than the all-consuming give-me-money plea is what’s not the focal point on Paul’s site — namely a clear explanation of who this guy is, what he stands for, and why he’s different. Whether you agree with Paul’s politics, it’s hard to argue that this guy is unique. His website does him little credit in that respect.

The only unique design element is the white background, which is an interesting homage to austerity and minimalism, which are at the foundation of his politics. It could be cool if they had gone fully black and white on this site.

I applaud him for thumbing his nose at the requisite photoshopped background image, though it’s hard to tell if this minimalism is by design or only because they’re on a budget because IT’S 10 PM AND THEY STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN TO $4 MILLION!!

Another item that caught my eye are the two nearly identical stock photos of Paul with no context — he’s not wearing a barn jacket, not on the set of Atlas Shrugged, and not looking particularly presidential. Demerits to whoever made that call.

Overall grade: 2/5 stars for failing to convey Ron Paul’s message in a compelling way. Points awarded for interesting use of social proof.