
How my third email reminder from HR motivated me to launch my startup - shihabmdp
https://surveysparrow.com/blog/surveysparrow-startup-story
======
DonHopkins
At Sun, during the dark days of Solaris, when everyone was depressed and
wanted to quit, our manager sat down with each of us and asked: "I want to
know your happiness index, a number from 1 to 10. You can use any algorithm
you want to come up with it, just use the same algorithm each time so we can
track how it changes over time."

I had a BS degree in Computer Science, but I was never taught an algorithm for
calculating my happiness index, not even in my Artificial Intelligence class.
So I had to wing it.

To protest, one of my cow-orkers made "rpc.happyd", a Sun RPC server whose
function it was to track the happiness index of the team members over the
network, and "HappyTool", a graphical user interface to rpc.happyd which drew
a face for each team member, with a slider under your own face for adjusting
the face from happy to sad.

Here's a demo of the HyperNeWS version of HappyTool, which I wrote in NeWS
PostScript, and which lets you copy an encapsulated PostScript happy face to
the clipboard that you can paste into other HyperNeWS applications (like
pasting into the customizable clock face to make happy and sad clocks):

[https://youtu.be/avJnpDKHxPY?t=13m24s](https://youtu.be/avJnpDKHxPY?t=13m24s)

~~~
mercer
I might just try this 'use the same algorithm' approach for my short- to
midterm happiness. Very interesting idea, and it seems to fit within the
zen/CBT approach I've been working on. Thanks!

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dreamcompiler
The main reason I never liked filling out surveys is not because their
websites didn't work well (but of course that was true too). It was because
they were usually pointless. Surveys are always gamed by management. Positive
results were used by management to pat themselves on the back, and would
affirm that nothing needed to be changed. Negative results would be ignored by
management, and therefore nothing needed to be changed. Maybe I'm just old and
cynical.

~~~
chrisbennet
On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you approve of the current CEO? (Pick one.)

\- 9

\- 10

\- 11

~~~
DonHopkins
Reminds me of one of Microsoft's original dynamic HTML demos: It had two
buttons, one labeled "Our Web Site", the other labeled "Our Competitor's Web
Site".

When you moved the cursor into the "Our Competitor's Web Site" button, it
would quickly slide out from under your cursor so you couldn't press it!

Then when you stopped moving the cursor around, the "Our Web Site" button
would sneakily slide in right underneath your cursor.

------
fogetti
I congratulate to the startup idea! And I wish all the best!

BUT! And excuse my critical note, but I absolutely loathe the idea that my
company would intrude my personal private life on whatsapp! You know what's
the first thing I do when I leave the office? I turn off each and every
channel which is connected in any way to my company. Complete radio silence.
No email, no hangout, no slack, no nothing. Zero, zilch, zip, nada.

Seriously? You want to answer company surveys in whatsapp? Seriously? I doubt
it. I sincerely doubt it.

~~~
another-dave
Exactly this, I get enough 'urgent' stuff coming through, invading my
work/life balance already.

The idea of doing HR admin stuff in my free time seems a bit fanciful:

> I have no option of taking the survey at my favourite cafe

If I'm at my favourite café, the _last_ thing I'll be doing is a work survey,
unless I'm there during my working day.

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mannykannot
I am often willing to participate in surveys, as I realize that, when well-
done, they can be useful, but I am often turned off by questions (and answer
choices) that are irrelevant, simplistic, based on flawed assumptions, or
pushing an agenda. I would urge any organization performing surveys to ask
themselves the question, 'does this make us look out-of-touch, self-absorbed
or incompetent?' I was half-expecting the article to be along the lines of
'these HR surveys helped me realize that I was wasting my time at this
company.'

~~~
sametmax
But an "out-of-touch, self-absorbed or incompetent" entity would never ask
itself that. And even if it did, would not recognize it.

A french singer, Brassens, used to sing something that can be translated that
"to admit your are not intelligent, you need to be".

And of course you have the famous simpson episode:

[http://i0.kym-
cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/645/713/888...](http://i0.kym-
cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/645/713/888.jpg)

~~~
mannykannot
In the limit, I agree, but we probably all have these characteristics to a
degree, and can sometimes recognize that we do.

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thisisit
Congrats on your startup.

I had a question - From my personal experience the difference between a normal
feedback (someone asking you directly) vs an employee survey are framing and
scope.

For example, questions asking feedback on "leadership". Most people, specially
freshman, care about feedback on the guys they are reporting to - it can be a
lead, manager, director etc.

But the surveys tend to gauge all levels - project leads, managers and then
company executives. So they put in questions like -

do you feel you get timely feedback? do you feel people are held accountable?
do you feel you understand company vision?

etc.

Everyone attributes these to different people in management but then the HR
tells them otherwise. This causes a lot of people to be disillusioned by the
surveys from the time they start the careers.

How do you tackle this issue in your product?

~~~
shihabmdp
Thank you so much. I do agree with asking a different kind of questions to get
feedback on different insight

Another way to handle this issue is to segment your employees to multiple
lists. Create different surveys for each level and you can be little more
accurate. Say for freshmen you can have a list, while for your directors
another list. Automate the different surveys. Finally, analyse the result from
different perspective

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Theodores
I am actually going to recommend this to my friends in HR right away. Very
impressive user experience.

I have not played with the product beyond the onboarding demo but I have to
say the sign up was very impressive too and much to learn there for my own
work.

Having worked with surveys over the years the problem I find is that testing
takes longer and longer. Sometimes you are filling in a form and sometimes you
will have an optional page, e.g. in a custom job application form you may have
a page on education that only the person with a degree has to fill in, this
implies two testing paths through the form and therefore doubles the time to
test. So testing time goes up by the cube of form complexity, or so it seems.

Years ago it would take a whole evening to make a C90 compilation cassette of
songs for someone. Just the interface of the cassette deck, turntable and
other cassettes would mean that it would take 5-6-7 hours to put it together,
even if you knew all the songs and knew what you were doing.

Nowadays if I want to put together a playlist for 90 minutes of music I could
do that and think what I was doing to get it done in ten minutes, not hours. I
wouldn't be using cassettes or record players or even CDs. Just tick boxes in
a UI.

So the key thing for me is that how-long-does-it-take question and much like
how with compilation cassettes you still had to play it back to test it, with
a survey you need to do some testing, ideally with that test time not going up
'by the cube' of form complexity.

~~~
sherlock38
Nice analogy and a valid point.

Being the creator of many surveys myself, what I would suggest to workaround
this problem is, survey creators have to put themselves on the shoes of survey
takers and create the survey. Survey takers are giving the feedback for free,
spending their valuable time. Survey should be very precise and directly into
the point. I guess it is hard for the survey platform to solve this problem.
This problem should be addressed by the one who creates the survey.

TL; DR I will stop answering the survey if it takes more of my time. Keep on
asking questions. It should be short.

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cobbzilla
Very cool story. I found it humorous that your first office was a tiny 100sf
(for apparently 2 people), and now you have 9 people and a 400sf office. Truly
an admirable startup workspace :)

~~~
shihabmdp
Thank you so much. we just moved to an 1132 sqft little bigger office last
week :)

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flukus
So it's a survey in a chat window? I don't see how this is any more or less
annoying for either side. If anything it sounds like this one is more
invasive.

~~~
shihabmdp
Now people are used to "WhatsApp" or messaging kind of UI than a normal form
filling experience. The reason is those experiences provides by WhatsApp and
FB messenger are more engaging. If we engage the survey takers, the completion
rate will improve, that the whole funda behind a conversational experience

~~~
netsharc
I can't help but think that after the third WhatsApp survey people will no
longer think "what a novel experience", they'll be used to it and think "Yet
another survey...".

~~~
jodrellblank
Would you like to take a survey?

Do you eat beans?

Would you like to see a new movie starring George Wendt*?

Do you eat beans with George Wendt?

Would you like to see George Wendt eating beans in a movie?

Do you eat beans at George Wendt movies?

Would you like to see George Wendt in a bean-eating movie?

How many beans do you eat in a George Wendt bean-eating movie?

How many bean-eating movies have you seen with George Wendt?

Can we have a survey-filling app bot as well, so we don't have to see it?

------
sogen
tip: The landing page could be more clear about using Whatsapp for surveys.

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5ilv3r
Constructive criticism: Your site looks like crap on a small display. Please
anchor the info bars to the top and bottom of the page, not the screen.

[https://i.imgur.com/AKiIIL0.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/AKiIIL0.jpg)

~~~
shihabmdp
Good catch. Hope you are using an iPad or iPhone. Will get it fixed! Thanks
again!

~~~
5ilv3r
> Hope you are using an iPad or iPhone

Why would you hope that? Most mere working folk are struggling to get by. Keep
your audience in mind. Make it small, tight, and fast.

~~~
shihabmdp
Sure will get it right! Thanks again

~~~
5ilv3r
Thanks for listening. :)

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nrjmdv
The reason behind your motivation to start off things looks super-motivational
to every aspiring entrepreneurs. BTW it seems like you got pissed off by the
HR executive. :P

One fun question, is that HR guy still surviving at your previous organization
for provoking you to start your own? :D

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Chuparustam
Congratulations Shihab, and all the best for future endeavours.

~~~
shihabmdp
Thank you!

------
lkpap
Congrats! Looks like Typeform meets SurveyMonkey :) .

~~~
shihabmdp
I believe the future of surveys are conversations! With 68% of emails opening
in Mobile devices the surveys should give more messaging kind of experience

------
whyagaindavid
Are you located in India or at 340 S Lemon Ave #9091 Walnut, CA 91789

BTW, using Whatspp is no go for many.

~~~
shihabmdp
Using WhatsApp is just an option only. We built a conversational Surveys
Platform. Messaging experience is the core.

Our HQ is in US, while we have a development center in India

