10: Building Customer Success and Support For Your SaaS
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FULL SHOW NOTES
[intro music]
00:10 Aaron Weiche: Episode 10: Building Customer Success and Support for your SaaS.
00:16 INTRO: Welcome to The Saas Venture podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins, and losses shared in each episode, from Aaron Weiche of Gather Up and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.
[music]
00:44 Aaron: Welcome to The SaaS Venture podcast; I'm Aaron.
00:47 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.
00:49 Aaron: And we have hit double digits, my friend.
00:52 Darren: This is it. We've finally made it, big time.
00:55 Aaron: Let's just shut it down.
[chuckle]
00:58 Darren: 10 episodes; this is our final episode.
01:01 Aaron: But somebody that's just listening thought we maybe meant 10 years, but no, we just mean 10 episodes, but that feels good for five months into doing this.
01:12 Darren: Yeah, we're gaining some traction. I think we're building a following, and I'm having a great time; it's been good.
01:18 Aaron: Absolutely; I agree. So, hey, what's been going on with you since we last talked on the last episode?
01:26 Darren: What's been going on? Let's see... Well, I have a fun story to tell. Just the other day I was waiting for Violet and Jill to arrive at the gym, at the gym that I work out, and so that's also where Violet does her jiu jitsu class. So I'm on the treadmill and I'm running, just waiting for them to show up. And I never ride the treadmill, it's just that it was right by the door so I could watch. So I pressed the Stop button on the treadmill when they pull up and I go to get off. But because I don't ride the treadmill I didn't realize that it has, like, a slow down process. [chuckle] So I turn around to get off the treadmill, I realize it's still going as fast as it was when I was basically running full steam, and I was, like, full... Like arms, legs in the air, and landed hard on my back. [chuckle] And there were like three people come running over to see if I'm okay; I'm totally fine. I go to the car, and Jill is, like, in tears; she can't even speak because she saw the whole thing happening.
[laughter]
02:27 Aaron: Oh, perfect.
02:28 Darren: And she's laughing non-stop. Thankfully I didn't really hurt myself, I just kinda got like a rug burn-type injury on my elbow, but I wish I could get the security camera video for it 'cause I would love to see it.
02:44 Aaron: It would likely be a YouTube sensation, or make it into one of those compilations that you see on Facebook of exercise fails.
02:52 Darren: I think it was worthy of that, for sure, yeah.
02:55 Aaron: Well, I'm glad that your elbow is the only injury because, man, I've seen people... It looks like they... You can get knocked out if you fall on your head.
03:05 Darren: I think so, yeah. So I was fine, just my biggest injury was my pride. I felt like a bit of an idiot at the gym there. But yeah. [chuckle]
03:13 Aaron: Now, have you ever seen people who will walk on the treadmill, and it's set up where they can work... They're on a laptop while they're walking?
03:20 Darren: Yes, I have seen that before, and in fact, one of my employees, a developer that used to work with us, he had a setup like that in his office. And he would walk something like 15,000 steps a day. [chuckle] He was just, like, walk all day long while he was on his laptop.
03:34 Aaron: Oh my gosh, I don't think I could pull that off. I would probably make it five or ten minutes; my focus would go elsewhere, and I would be like you. And then even at a walking speed I would end up down on the ground somehow.
03:46 Darren: Yeah. You gotta really train and get used to that whole thing about working while walking. It would just be awkward, really, trying to type, I think.
03:54 Aaron: Yep.
03:54 Darren: Yeah.
03:55 Aaron: Well, we gotta keep you upright, so let's leave the treadmill alone for a while.
04:00 Darren: So we launched our new service, that Google My Business service that we were talking about last episode, and so I'm pumped about that. We were a little bit... We sent the email out to our mailing list on July 3rd, where I think most people were like, "Yeah, I'm gonna be gone", 'cause most of our customer base is in the US, and so maybe it wasn't the best time for a promotional email, so we're going to circle back on that in a couple of weeks. And we're trying to just do more promotion and build up the service; I'm excited about that.
I'm also very excited about how our new account system is coming together, so with the Stripe integration and rebuilding all of our order forms, and just that whole user flow of signing up for our software or our services. So all that's being rebuilt in Stripe; that's awesome. And then of course, getting ready for MozCon which is next week. Can't wait to see you in person there. I should get my presentation finalized and all done here.
04:56 Aaron: Yeah. By the time this episode airs we'll both be in Seattle and at MozCon; you speaking, GatherUp's there as a sponsor, but we'll get some time to hang out in person, and we're gonna try to record episode 11, in-person as well while we're in Seattle.
05:16 Darren: Yeah, I can't wait; it's gonna be fun. We have to figure out where we're gonna do that recording.
05:20 Aaron: It's gonna be a very top-secret location so that we don't, all of our fans aren't trying to break down the door to talk to us.
[chuckle]
05:27 Darren: Maybe we should at least have a window where the fans can watch.
[chuckle]
05:30 Aaron: Totally. Like some morning news show where they're just, like, screaming and holding signs.
[chuckle]
05:38 Darren: Yeah, totally.
05:38 Aaron: We could pay somebody to do that; that would be the only way that would happen.
05:42 Darren: I think, yeah, we would have to pay, definitely. How about you? What's up with you?
05:46 Aaron: On my side, I'm catching up after enjoying an awesome Fourth of July week where I was out of the office the entire week, just probably spent an hour to two hours each day on email and keeping some things moving, but it was a lot of time off, a lot of time with the kids. Time on the lake, which was awesome. But it always makes... The week you get back and all the things you kind of put off or said, "Schedule the call next week", now I'm basically living with the headset on the last few days, but all good.
06:21 Darren: I was gonna say, it's like you get punished for taking that time off.
06:24 Aaron: It is. It's double the work before you leave, and double the work when you get back, and that's right. You gotta make it count when you're gonna be out. It's like if you're gonna take all that punishment, then make sure you enjoy it.
06:34 Darren: Totally.
06:36 Aaron: Amazingly, we've talked a lot about my need and the work; we've had a specific episode on sales, but we have hired two outbound sales positions that start for us in the next couple of weeks.
06:50 Darren: Amazing.
06:50 Aaron: Yes.
06:50 Darren: Yeah, I'm very curious to hear how this goes. Outbound sales, it's a whole new world.
06:55 Aaron: Yes. So I'm incredibl...
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