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Users You Don’t Want

themacro.com

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Re: Users You Don’t Want

#121

Post by ImTalking »

ryandrake wrote: post #16

Been through this at medium sized companies struggling to sell. This kind of customer is alluring but poisonous. Company: We sell Product X! Toxic Customer: I don't want Product X, I want Product Y. If you're willing to bolt Product Y onto one of your menus I will pay you this stack of money for it! Company: $$$! Bam! The company just went from being a product company to a custom engineering service. You will have to…

Agreed. I was bought out by a company who charged high license fees but did not charge for customer development. So every customer wanted all these customisations to the point where most of the development was customer-initiated changes. Worse, is that due to this policy they had no idea whether an individual customer was profitable or not, since they had no idea the time/resources spent on that particular customer.

I advocated reducing the license fees but charging for customisations which would reduce this bespoke development considerably, but to no avail.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#122

Post by ImTalking »

amelius wrote: post #66
ryandrake wrote: post #16

Been through this at medium sized companies struggling to sell. This kind of customer is alluring but poisonous. Company: We sell Product X! Toxic Customer: I don't want Product X, I want Product Y. If you're willing to bolt Product Y onto one of your menus I will pay you this stack of money for it! Company: $$$! Bam! The company just went from being a product company to a custom engineering service. You will have to…

But what if selling Product Y allows you to become ramen-profitable?

Then you have to make a decision then. Do you want to make revenue from the product, or make revenue via customisations? Problem with the customisation approach is there is limited leverage.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#123

Post by __derek__ »

aianus wrote: post #95
afarrell wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure if Uber has the same requirement It doesn't. I've a friend (who might be popping on this thread here soon) who's been working with adapt.org on pressuring Uber on this issue. In theory, ridesharing should be much better for PWD than trying to hail a cab and cheaper than government services like the MBTA's The Ride. However it very much does not look like it is the case right now.

Uber has wheelchair vehicles at the same price as UberX: https://newsroom.uber.com/canada/uberwav/

Is that only in Canada, though?

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#124

Post by IanCal »

riboflava wrote: post #75
IanCal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about the US but in the UK what you're suggesting would I think be illegal. You shouldn't make things accessible just when you're a large company, that's a really disappointing approach.

This is just another reason why the US has a healthier startup culture. There are a lot of things that take effort to do that US companies can get away with not doing until forced to by law or the market, or when the opportunity costs diminish that they do it out of the goodness of the individuals' involved hearts.

> This is just another reason why the US has a healthier startup culture.

I think we would heavily disagree on the "healthier" status.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#125

Post by nostrademons »

rhizome wrote: post #117
nostrademons wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the comparison for a startup, though. It's "Would you rather have an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand website that does nothing useful, or an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand website that's full of security holes, or a hard-to-use, hard-to-understand website that basically does what it's supposed to?" It's pointless to make a website that nobody wants to use highly usable. There's an opportunity cost…

"Would you rather have an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand website that does nothing useful, or an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand website that's full of security holes, or a hard-to-use, hard-to-understand website that basically does what it's supposed to?" Why are these the only three options?

There are more options, but they all involve giving up something somewhere. Perhaps you have a secure, easy-to-use, useful site, but charge more money for it. Perhaps it means that people can't use it today but can in a year. Perhaps it means that you've hired gullible underpaid engineers on promises of future wealth and then work them to the bone, but then do you want to be the person who's underpaying your employees?

The point (of both my comment and the original article) is that there are trade-offs, and you get to choose which trade-off you're going to accept, but anything you do is likely to piss off someone, so choose who you piss off wisely. Do you want your top priority to be accessibility? It can be, and that could be a wise choice if you identify a task that really really sucks for disabled people. But if you're looking at that before you've even got the fundamentals of building a useful product down, you risk building something that does something nobody really wants to do but does it really well.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#126

Post by tywang »

Define your right target audiences is always a difficult challenge for startups. Totally agree with "Remember that being good at customer service doesn’t mean serving every potential customer."!

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#127

Post by beachy »

CPLX wrote: post #50

Posting an article called "users you don't want" and then using a developmentally challenged teenager as the example of a user that you don't want is so spectacularly tone-deaf that I am left somewhat speechless. I keep thinking this will be the year that the valley types wake up and realize this kind of mentality puts them in existential danger from mobs with pitchforks, but it keeps not happening.

"Tone-deaf"? Or "failing to adhere to PC norms"?

Its a great case because it makes instinctively want to cater for it. Who wouldn't want to help out the developmentally challenged person?

Which makes it all the harder to use our heads rather than our hearts, and make a good business decision.

I suspect the author chose it deliberately for this very reason.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#128

Post by blfr »

geofft wrote: post #114
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Why not the government? Or some charity? Or you? We don't expect anyone who meets a homeless person to offer them a place on their couch. That would be unfair. And an additional incentive to avoid homeless people. We have (well, not everywhere but at least we aim for) a systemic solution. There are homeless shelters for example, sometimes run a…

Why would that argument not apply to "It's 1960, and I don't want to seat black customers at my fancy restaurant because it's statistically likely to be less profitable than seating white customers"?

Because black customers pay the same prices and do not require additional accommodations. It would apply if the restaurateur was required to maintain separate dining rooms for whites and blacks or additional water fountains.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#129

Post by reinhardt »

geofft wrote: post #114
blfr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's not profitable then why should Airbnb be the one to subsidize it? Why not the government? Or some charity? Or you? We don't expect anyone who meets a homeless person to offer them a place on their couch. That would be unfair. And an additional incentive to avoid homeless people. We have (well, not everywhere but at least we aim for) a systemic solution. There are homeless shelters for example, sometimes run a…

Why would that argument not apply to "It's 1960, and I don't want to seat black customers at my fancy restaurant because it's statistically likely to be less profitable than seating white customers"?

It would apply just as well, hence the "Why not the government?". You probably don't want to be the first/only fancy restaurant to fight racism.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#130

Post by brazzledazzle »

GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

I don't disagree with your overall point but it's important to point out that the example translates to the real world just fine. There's no requirement that a childcare facility be able to accommodate children with special needs. They must be accessible for the disabled (parking, ramps, etc.) but caring for someone with developmental disabilities requires different training, staffing and accommodations.
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