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The Value of Customer Testimonials

Everyone knows that word-of-mouth marketing represents a significant competitive & business value. Such is this value that word-of-mouth & viral marketing has almost become an exact science in recent years. Customer testimonials forms a big part of such a marketing strategy and this evidenced by almost every online product / service's homepage where

Companies & Bullshit Excuses

If there's one thing that I've been tolerating less & less in recent years, it's the bullshit excuses that companies sometimes offer up, disguised as customer service. Let me explain with a recent experience: > Two days ago, I quickly stop at the little shopping center on my way home after work

Failing Fast & Failing Publicly

On Monday we launched a brand-new user dashboard at WooThemes [http://www.woothemes.com/2011/08/this-is-the-new-woo/] (which felt like suicide [http://adii.me/2011/08/committing-startup-suicide/] at the time) and it's not been without the expected launch bugs [http://www.woothemes.com/2011/08/the-new-dashboard-growing-pains/]. I've learnt in the

Avoid Customer Feedback Before Version 1.0

The Lean Startup [http://theleanstartup.com/] approach to creating new business has become massively popular amongst online entrepreneurs for one reason: it works. The Lean Startup methodology with regards to customer development (broadly) dictates that we can create better products (and thus business) through continuous learning via being in constant

Am I being irrational?

I'd like to share a recent exchange I had with a customer: 1. Customer notes to us that he is struggling to achieve something with our product. 2. We explain that this is currently a limitation, but immediately update & release a new version of the product to help the customer

Solving Problems the WooThemes Way

I was a guest on the WordPress Community Podcast [http://wp-community.org/2010/07/07/adii-pienaar-solving-problems-woothemes-way/] last night and had a lot of fun with the show’s hosts, Joost de Valk & Frederick Townes. We discussed a lot of the strategies & “policies” that we have implemented with WooThemes; especially with