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We replaced Zendesk

tradecore.com

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Re: We replaced Zendesk

#11

Post by AndrewKemendo »

This is precisely the future of consumer software engineering (no I’m not saying anything here about building robots rockets medicine etc. at least for the next decade probably)

This idea that software developer productivity being the goal for AI companies is just not it - every piece of code you put into an LLM is a you giving these giant companies your expertise

People need to remember where the bulk of engineering money goes: consumer advertising and consumer facing applications, and don’t forget most of them have tragically bad user experiences and dark patterns because they’re trying to make the software as a service model work for investors

if I can spend a week replicating your software that has all these bullshit dark pattern features and I can replicate that for my own why why wouldn’t I?

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#12

Post by [deleted] »

catigula wrote: post #6

>The honest answer is the boring one. We pulled an ultrahackathon. The team who built this did not sleep much for two days. They worked through Wednesday night, through Thursday, through Thursday night, through Friday. They ate at their desks. They wrote the spec late Wednesday evening and they wrote the cutover commit on Friday afternoon, and in between they did the work that the time between those two moments requi…

[deleted]

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#13

Post by notatoad »

petcat wrote: post #2

For real. Does stuff like Zen desk even have any moat at all? It's an easy framework crud app with a million features that you don't need. Just get an AI bot to make one for you

i've gone down this route before, we're back on freshdesk now. it's easy to build a prototype in two days, but the long tail of making it actually meet _all_ the requirements is hell.

the value platforms provide is that _you_ didn't make the software, somebody else did, so somebody else defines the functionality and workflow of the software. it can be treated as fixed, and a thing that people learn how to use. they have support docs and training resources for your staff to access. when somebody has a problem, you can tell them to make a ticket with freshdesk not with you.

if you make the software in-house, you have to also make all those training resources yourself. you have to make all the ui decisions. and you have to defend those ui decisions, even when each of your support staff wants something different, and knows there's nothing preventing you from changing it to exactly what they want. even when exactly what they want contradicts with what the person sitting next to them wants.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#14

Post by coderintherye »

Since their private equity buyout in 2022, Zendesk will absolutely attempt to get you to sign agregious terms. They will attempt to hoodwink you. They will pretend they never received your cancellations and charge you for another year of contract. Legal counsel should be leveraged when dealing with them to ensure you don't get screwed.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#15

Post by fontain »

petcat wrote: post #2

For real. Does stuff like Zen desk even have any moat at all? It's an easy framework crud app with a million features that you don't need. Just get an AI bot to make one for you

or, as you have been able to do for decades, use an existing open source solution? Zendesk’s value isn’t in the CRUD operations. If a company doesn’t want to pay for Zendesk, don’t ask Claude to build a replacement… use a good free solution, that has years of domain expertise built into it.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#16

Post by stnikolauswagne »

petcat wrote: post #2

For real. Does stuff like Zen desk even have any moat at all? It's an easy framework crud app with a million features that you don't need. Just get an AI bot to make one for you

As someone who is currently in the process of integrating Zendesk: It seems to have a moat, however directed in the wrong direction. This integration might be my first project failure in the last decade which included two SAP integrations.

There is just so much clunk and developer hostile stuff going on that I would rather just not deal with it anymore.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#17

Post by john_strinlai »

dominotw wrote: post #9
catigula wrote: post #6

>The honest answer is the boring one. We pulled an ultrahackathon. The team who built this did not sleep much for two days. They worked through Wednesday night, through Thursday, through Thursday night, through Friday. They ate at their desks. They wrote the spec late Wednesday evening and they wrote the cutover commit on Friday afternoon, and in between they did the work that the time between those two moments requi…

> Man, they must have gotten paid crazy overtime. Kudos! lol first time?

its not a US-based company, so its not unlikely

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#18

Post by pirsquare »

Hahaha totally relatable. Love Zendesk but they kept charging and adding more features I don't need.

I built https://pointanswer.com/ for myself to host 3 of my own SaaS instead of paying more than $100/mo for simple helpcenter. I'm the only one using it with no customers but it's still way better than paying for Zendesk.

But did spent too much time on it as I built in pre-Claude era.

My personal experience: For many years I used Zendesk to manage support and host my documentation. It's a powerful platform with help center structure that I liked liked the most. I was paying about US$30/mo for OnVoard.

When I use Zendesk for my second SaaS business, RenderKu, it costs me $70/mo. This amount is more than 3 Hetzner servers I'm paying to host the whole infrastructure. And I'm only choosing Zendesk mainly for hosting documentation.

At this point, when I was planning to start my 3rd app business, the thought of forking another $70/mo for hosting documentation made me rethink my options. I've eventually come to the conclusion it would be better for me to start PointAnswer and use it as helpcenter for myself since I only needed simple and affordable helpcenter.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#19

Post by prima-facie »

> We pulled an ultrahackathon. The team who built this did not sleep much for two days. They worked through Wednesday night, through Thursday, through Thursday night, through Friday. They ate at their desks. They wrote the spec late Wednesday evening and they wrote the cutover commit on Friday afternoon, and in between they did the work that the time between those two moments required.

Cool story but I would not want to be in their shoes. Treating your employees poorly only to justify overnight changes in business needs creates a highly toxic work environment.

Re: We replaced Zendesk

#20

Post by fellowniusmonk »

My successful startups had their own internal CRM as distinguishing factor to their success, it's not hard.

One started out as an acquisition of a group on sales force, we wrote migrated to our brand new crm the first month and integrated our PBX and several other functions within the first 3 months.

It's not hard, most CRMs don't need "webscale", you can whip up a highly targeted and integrated CRM in rails in the blink of any eye.

That's why I'm pretty sure in 2001/02 I had the earliest real customer, real time, audio reviews published online in the world.

Like any decision during a startup buy/build is a situation specific decision you have to make at every point and 3rd party CRMs are fine to launch with... but, I mean, come on.

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