191–198 of 198 posts
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Seems all the 'drama' came from Zendesk's paid blogger. If you don't want the other team to score with the ball, don't hand them the ball.
Oh FFS, and for the millionth time. I am NOT Zendesk's paid blogger" /out
HackerNews readers, watch and learn. I'm about deconstruct what is going on. Anybody who brushes off FreshDesk because of its Indian roots is doing FreshDesk a favour. This is a sharp mind at work and it is lethal. FreshDesk is executing the standard modus operandi of upstart against an incumbent. Jobs is a master at it (I'm Apple I'm Microsoft), Calacanis too (remember the SEO controversy, and then the Angel controv…
> Girish, if you are reading - I'm in Australia, if you could - please don't turn this into a wider "Australians enjoy India bashing meme". We already have a hard time here, and race doesn't factor much if at all in business. Aussie here. Australia has in the recent years acquired a bad reputation when it comes to its treatment of immigrant populations, for e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_Indians_…
I started the day off sympathizing with them because I thought Ben was not right in saying they ripped off the name. But now Freshdesk has proved that many of the commentators here are right. They are spammers and they even spam your Google Docs. See the screenshot here. http://twitpic.com/7p0m3o
Once all the dust settles, it will be clear that Freshbooks IS a complete rip-off of Zendesk. 'RipoffOrNot.org'... errrm yes. You could think of worse products to rip off, so in that sense they've done well.
I'm not going to point out the obvious stolen elements. Anyone can see the app is not just inspired, but clearly deliberately copied. They've also spent a lot of time reading all the feature requests on the Zendesk forums. There is also an import feature from only one competing helpdesk product. Guess which one.
At the end of the day, Freshdesk is built exactly like any Zoho product (Girish worked for Zoho). And based on how it feels it might as well be a Zoho product: feature wise it ticks a heap of boxes and it's low cost. But to live with it has many limitations that won't stand up in actual real life, as in this case, the running of a help desk. It's seriously lacking workflow, custom widgets, the 100+ 3rd party integrations, and plenty more settings and customizations that make Zendesk what it is.
Zendesk has many decent alternatives but Freshdesk isn't one of them. If you're actually considering Freshdesk there are a huge amount of alternatives including freemium ones. Mojo Helpdesk comes to mind but really the web is full of them.
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Last time I checked, having a feature list where you compare your product with theirs, complete with little green ticks and all, it probably means your software is playing in the same space as theirs. That's the real essence of the "rip off" portion of the accusation. Copying your competitors features... well, that happens a lot. Copying their name and their features, and then acting surprised when people call you on…
"The Indians themselves say that cheating is blatant and pervasive." - how does that give one a license to call someone a 'rip-off'. Aren't americans cribbing of 'lack of culture' in America? So shoudl the world start calling them names,. "In other words, if the shoe fits, wear it. If not, then throw it." - But DO NOT throw it on other's face.
Everything else is just smoke and mirrors, where the Freshdesk guys are trying to pretend that it is all about name calling, it isn't. Based only on what they themselves say, it is obvious that Freshdesk is a copy of Zendesk.
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Listen to Andrew Warner's interview. Peldi talked about approaching people on twitter due early days to try to do sales. He wasn't very successful with the approach, and then went on to try something else. I'm fairly certain that this is a company I don't want to ever do business with. That's the respectable side of you talking. If you have a house on the line in your own start up, you'll be crazy not to do everythin…
Oh interesting, hadn't heard that part of the story. I don't know about that - my thinking is that if blackhat is the only way to get something to succeed, It's probably not a very good idea anyway, and I'm probably better off spending my time doing something different.
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I wouldn't call emailing bloggers about reviewing your product (given that that's what many of them try to do) something a self respecting person should be reluctant to do. I assume that's what you're referring to with Balsamiq? That's the right way to do it - get the press to give your product some attention because it's really good! Putting up flyers in public places is also fine. It becomes spamming when you inser…
Listen to Andrew Warner's interview. Peldi talked about approaching people on twitter due early days to try to do sales. He wasn't very successful with the approach, and then went on to try something else. I'm fairly certain that this is a company I don't want to ever do business with. That's the respectable side of you talking. If you have a house on the line in your own start up, you'll be crazy not to do everythin…