
It’s the founding CEO’s job to personally email the first 1000 users - robfitz
http://blog.thestartuptoolkit.com/2011/10/its-the-ceos-job-to-email-the-first-1000-signups/
======
OpenTrader
Definitely agree with the advice.

One objection that people often have is that "why should I do something that's
not ultimately scalable and that I'll have to stop doing anyway?". But what
they're missing is that when you're first starting a company that's when the
fragile young plant needs the greatest care and nurture. In my opinion you
should actually go out of your way to do things that you KNOW won't be
possible to do manually or personally later because this not only increases
the chances of getting off the ground successfully, but one day you're going
to miss the early days when it was just you and those precious few people that
valued your product enough to use it before it became a hit. So enjoy
connecting with them and don't think of it as a chore.

~~~
robfitz
Beautifully articulated. Couldn't agree more.

~~~
OpenTrader
Thanks. And also thank you for writing a spot-on post!

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freejack
This is a great recommendation for a startup looking to differentiate based on
customer service.

I don't buy the implication that this isn't a great use of "executive time".
I'm not the CEO, but I run a business unit and the buck definitely stops here.
I still make time to:

\- respond to random emails I pick out of our customer service email queue

\- read all customer feedback submitted from the "feedback" tab on our
website, and pick out any submissions that I think need special handling

\- put my email address on many, if not most of the automated emails that get
sent out, especially renewal notices and anything else we view as "really
important". This usually generates a few hundred inquiries that I need to
respond to, or route to another staffer

\- troll social media looking for opportunities to perform random acts of
kindness for our customers and prospects. This year I've sent t-shirts to
Norway, a custom order of premium teas to Capetown, a box-set of books to
Lincoln and many, more little gifts to surprise our customers.

\- personally manage our primary twitter account, @hover to make sure it has a
consistent voice and purpose. This account is in addition to the group-managed
accounts we operate in support of the primary account.

So what's the pay-off? Why should a founder or leader be concerned with such
trifling things? In the three years since making our commitment to providing
real customer service (as opposed to lip service), we've built a culture where
everyone understands what we each need to do to meet or beat customer
expectations, and fix it when we don't. I don't think it hurts for my team to
see me working alongside them helping customers and fielding inquiries day-to-
day. The rest of my senior team works similarly and it really makes it easy to
raise the quality bar when the leadership team is "walking the walk".

In our business, this extra efforts means that our renewal rate beats industry
average by light years and our customer sat metrics are world-class.

(edit to fix formatting and some stupid grammar that crept in while I was
distracted)

~~~
weaponofchoice
Agree that it feels like a waste of executive time.

Although, there's probably a bit that the exec could learn from early users,
perhaps initiate conversations over features, gather pain points and so on.
But there's no reason why this can't be handled by _someone else_ on the team.

And '1000' is just a ridiculous arbitrary number. How quickly did the company
get to 1000 users? Imagine replying to a 1000 early adopters who've signed-up
over 5 days. It's absurd. I feel dedicating a % of the day for this, might
make a little more sense.

Lastly, it's astonishing you find time for the stuff you've listed.

~~~
freejack
Whether or not it's a waste of time depends on the commitment you've made to
your customers. Jobs obsessed over design for a reason. Our promise is to
provide exceptional customer service, so that's how we prioritize our time.

~~~
weaponofchoice
Well said.

Though, habits like these (suggested by the article) early-on could shape the
startup's perception of their commitment to their customers. It could end up
being a costly 'culture' thing.

It's still debatable whether dealing with customers daily, makes for
productive use of an executive's precious time, even if the startup's value
proposition revolves around exceptional customer service.

I've witnessed a few small companies getting infinitely better, once they
started hiring the _right_ people to fill sales and customer relations
positions, that were usually handled by the founders themselves.

~~~
freejack
Well, I can say that it has been a great use of my time :-) The increased
focus has demonstrably paid off in terms of real revenue and customer activity
that I don't think we could have tapped into with a lesser focus. Everyday I'm
seeing new things that help us improve, that help me set a strategic direction
that would be muted if the feedback were filtered through intermediaries.

There are other ways of organizing of course. Someone once told me that its
way better to organize around the strengths and weaknesses of the people that
you have and the people that become available than it is to organize within
the constraints of an org. chart "because that's the way its done". I'm sure
that if we had a different mix of skills, we might choose to delegate
differently, but this is what works for us. For example, I spend very little
time worrying about engineering matters compared to the amount of time I spend
managing customer service workflows. What matters is whether we're putting
points on the board, not so much which plays we're running.

------
redguava
As long as you have their first name, I don't see why this can't be automated.
It doesn't seem time well spent and there is more chance for error doing it
manually.

I agree with getting in touch, I just don't agree with spending your time each
day doing it.

~~~
damoncali
You shouldn't fully automate it. I have a semi automatic process where I click
a mail_to link and get a pre-filled email ready to send with the customer's
name in it.

Occasionally, there is reason to do a little research into the customer's
operations (e.g. visiting their website) from which I can add a personal
twist.

If you do it that way, it's not a huge time suck.

Here's what wrecks the experience:

1) The email comes from info@example.com instead of your personal company
email account.

2) The email does not contain your normal signature, complete with email and
phone number.

3) The email contains too much custom info (nothing more than the customer's
name). No real person would take the time to cut and paste a customer's custom
URL, for example.

4) HTML emails, unless they are very plainly styled. It needs to look like a
regular friendly email.

5) Any sort of marketing speak. Has to be in your actual voice, as if you were
talking with a friend. It's not a sales pitch, but an opportunity to connect.

6) Getting the name wrong! Just because there is a name field doesn't mean
your customers put their name in it. This is the main automation killer.
Better to have no name at all than the wrong name or "Dear Admin User"

7) The email is too long or contains anything that a reasonable person would
assume was cut and pasted in.

8) Not asking any questions - if you don't ask questions, you're less likely
to get an answer.

I'm sure there is more, but this recipe works reasonably well for me.

~~~
redguava
All of this can be handled in an automated email. I do this already in my
startup and I get responses from my users just like I did it manually.

When bootstrapping a startup that you want to be able to scale, automating
everything that can be automated is very important.

------
mnutt
One other thing that is also useful: for any automated message you send, make
sure that it comes from a real address that you monitor. Many, many customers
reply directly to the automated emails.

~~~
mkopinsky
+1. (Especially) for a startup, there is no reason for announcements to come
from no-reply@startup.com. I have, as a consumer, replied to emails coming
from info@startup.com with praise/complaints/feedback, simply because it's
easier than copy/pasting customerservice@startup.com from the bottom of the
email. You _want_ to get those kinds of emails, so make sure you monitor
whatever address the automated emails come from.

------
garyhalverson
How can you go wrong trying to connect with your customers as a business
owner. I think this is a great strategy to follow and even beyond the 1000
users, you can still grab x number of new customers to email personally.
People want to feel important and personally communicating with the founder is
one way they can do that.

I can recall a time when I received a personal phone call from the CEO of a
marketing blog I followed. When he introduced himself, I recognized the name,
but was sort of shocked he was calling me. The guy ran a very successful
business with tens of thousands of subscribers, why was he calling me? That
was my initial thought. He wanted my opinion on a few things, that was all.
Wasn't trying to sell me anything. My answers were lame at best cause I was
caught off guard (literally shocked), but after the call was over, I had to
sit down and take in what just happened. I never forgot how that call impacted
me. It did make a difference. I ended up buying several of his products after
that, not because he called me, but I believed his products were good and felt
comfortable buying them from him.

It's simple, really, after looking back, he was just building relationship and
rapport which translates into trust which translates into relationship which
turned into sales. When your product has a lot of competitors, who does your
customer turn to first? If you have established some sort of rapport, it will
be your business. It works...

------
MicahWedemeyer
I wrote a little about this here:
[http://peachshake.com/2011/01/02/engagement-secret-the-
autom...](http://peachshake.com/2011/01/02/engagement-secret-the-automated-
personal-note/)

I do it fully automated, but take steps to make it look handmade. I've found
it to be incredibly effective, with probably a 30% response rate.

Doing it by hand might be a little nicer, but everything is a balancing act.
If I can get 80% of the benefit by automating it, I'm happy with that.

------
robjohnson
At first glance, I balked at the title, saying to myself, "Who has the time to
personally email 1000 people while doing everything else a founder is
responsible for. "

However, after reading the article, I completely agree with this approach. The
personal touch, ID of earlyvangelists, and starting a constructive
conversation. Great article.

------
rumblestrut
I've mentioned this in another thread before, but Wufoo sent me a handwritten
thank you note for being a (paid) customer one year around Christmas.

Now THAT made an impression.

~~~
rumblestrut
Ha! I found that postcard today. Here's the front and back.

<http://ericjgruber.com/images/wufoo-thanks-front.jpg>

<http://ericjgruber.com/images/wufoo-thanks-rear.jpg>

(Note: Frank, who the card was addressed to, was the cardholder on the account
but I used it all over our site, to clarify.)

~~~
mkopinsky
You can never go wrong with dinosaur stickers!

------
leftnode
I personally wrote thank you cards to our first hundred or so customers. It
really goes a long way to show some sort of personalization.

------
jroseattle
This is excellent advice.

With every startup I've been involved with, the first iteration of our product
was not the last, nor was it perfect. I see this more so as a means of
ensuring your product doesn't get between you and the customer. Most startups
simply do not value customer service as part of the opening strategy.

Side rant: I blame Google for the perception that you can automate your entire
business, without any human interaction. (Ever try to get support from a
Google rep for an application?) Even Apple, who offers products that "just
work", offers very good customer support.

------
fabiandesimone
I've done this since day one in my startup (I'm in day 112). Not being a
hacker I have to be really careful where to put my dev money, so any
automation I might want to do I have to figure out ways to do it without
involving the devs (that money goes to the service I'm building)

I have a combination of processes:

1\. User must fill out a form with their name and email in order to get the
download link. For this I use Madmimi.com.

2\. I have setup a drip campaign. Basically what happens is that once my users
confirm their email, Madmimi automatically sends out and email with an welcome
text and the download links (the benefit here is obvious: I have the users
email and I now have statistics about click rates on the link)

3\. This drip campaign has two additional emails. One in 15 days and another
in 30 days (after the signup).

The 15 days after sign up email, basically ask how's everything is doing and
contains a link to a quick survey about the whole experience so far (I use
Wufoo). Is a guided survey with close question.

The 30 days after sign up email is an open question about how they feel with
the app. What does it mean to them, etc.

Also, my app sends me a log every-time the user uses it for the first time
(here is where I haven't been able to do a full integration)

What I do is: I receive this log that contain the users email and some data
about the usage. At that moment I fire up my email client and write a welcome
email. This is a personal email from me to my user. I thank them, give them
all my contact info and basically say: I'm here for you 24/7 (to this day no
user has ever waited more than two hours to hear from me when they write) and
I keep that promise.

Most of the time, the emails I get are basically about the same and my answers
are very much alike.

To manage this and to be able to give it a personal touch, I installed
TextExpander on my Mac and have setup several templates that contain most of
my answers but not the full answer. This forces me to read what I'm writing
and actually personalize it a bit.

This method, while not perfect has brought incredible benefits for my startup:

One client was having some issues with the app and my response was fo fast and
so helpful that he could not believe it. Turned out the guy was a radio dj and
had a show about entrepreneurship. We did a two hour radio interview.

Another client is actively pushing my app to his clients because of the
customer support I gave him the first days he used the app. He was having some
issues (all created by him) and I dedicated 6 hours to help this client. He is
now one of my most active evangelist.

It pays, big time, to do customer support with passion. Let your users feel it
and they will reward you for it.

~~~
singer
Do you have any trouble with people reporting your drip emails as spam? I
found that some people are reporting emails instead of clicking the
unsubscribe link. Unfortunately, many email clients make that button more
convenient than tracking down an uninstall link within the email.

~~~
chadgeidel
You know what would be neat? When you click the "spam" button in Gmail (or
other clients with similar functionality) and there's an "unsubscribe" link in
the email then Gmail could suggest visiting the link with some kind of a
notification and buttons labeled "unsubscribe" or "no, this is spam".

I suppose that could be abused however.

~~~
Timothee
Actually, Gmail does something close to that.

When you click "Report as spam", if it detects it's a mailing list, it offers
to (try to) unsubscribe properly:

[http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/unsubscribing-made-
eas...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/unsubscribing-made-easy.html)

It's a bit strange that they don't give you the option then to unsubscribe
without marking as spam (you can do it but with more clicks), but I would
think that if you unsubscribe and mark as spam the overall system doesn't take
the spam factor at all or as much. In that case, it's probably limited to your
own account.

~~~
chadgeidel
Cool, I did not know that!

I actually do unsubscribe, but I would imagine that many just hit the "spam"
button to "make it go away".

------
brackin
This is a great idea, my problem is we're approaching 30,000 so its far too
late. But this is something i'll try. I recommend using Toutapp as you can
start with a basic template and customise for the user situation. It just
speeds the process of emailing lots of people up.

------
eslachance
I think it's a nice trick, and I will definitely apply it myself once we're
ready to roll out. I do have one comment though (similar to redguava's).

Emailing the first 1000 users, fine. But doing it personally and manually,
why? Aren't you going to end up using exactly the same text for all your users
(either that or risk typos that make you look less professional, not more
human)? Don't forget the risk of developing CTS while you could be doing much
more constructive stuff.

I would say, have it automated but sent a couple of hours after signup, or
have them sent in batches at a time where you would normally sit down and do
it. I'm thinking that people either assume it's automated or they assume it's
manual, one way or the other.

~~~
freejack
Its not an engineering problem, its a customer service, business and
relationship problem. I contend that the more you humanize these types of
interactions, the better your results will be, the more you will learn. Look
at it this way, 30 seconds to send each email works out to a bit more than 8
hours work to get some amazing customer feedback. Some organizations will
spend this much time in planning meetings just to setup a discussion to
strategize customer sat approaches. You can get the feedback for almost free.
For me, its an easy choice! ;)

~~~
eslachance
But, again, what do you _say_ in an email that is personalized? Do you switch
sentences around at random, change "hi" for "hey", forget a comma, replace a
dot by an exclamation mark?

Responding to "it's a waste of my time to write the same email a thousand
times" with "you should __reply __to each email personally" is moving the
goalpost. The OP is about sending a first welcome email to every user that
signs up, not about replying to an email sent for customer service or
technical support.

I would never _reply_ to a client using a canned response, I hate those with a
passion. But the _first_ email being sent, the client didn't send anything,
doesn't know you or your writing style, didn't offer you any chance of
customizing because it's just a "welcome to our service, thanks for signing
up, I'm there if you need me" email. My point is, write it as if you would
send it personally, but automate the actual sending.

~~~
freejack
In theory, I think your approach is fine, but in practice, there will always
be opportunity to personalize. If you are really motivated, you can google the
person and see if something interesting comes up, or you might already know
the person tangentially from a conference, or there was an issue with the
order that your team had to fix (a great opportunity to reconnect with a
potentially unhappy customer). etc. Sure, a number of them might be exactly
the same, but many of them won't be if you commit to the exercise and look for
opportunities to form a relationship with these clients.

~~~
eslachance
I think I'm starting to see the value, especially reading other comments here.
Seeing an email that I recognize may be a great opportunity for a personal
hello. I think perhaps one proposed solution would work best - having a list
of new users that haven't received the welcome email, see their information,
and then decide to send the regular message or edit it before sending. I think
that's the way I may be heading, it sounds balanced and right.

------
callmeed
I'll go further and say that _it's the CEO's job to personally CALL as many of
the first 100 users as possible_ (if your startup is not aimed at
developers/geeks).

I've been doing what this post recommends for Cilantro. We've hit 100 signups
since launching the MVP 2 months ago.

A few random things I've noticed and done in addition to what's in this post:

\- My response rate is lower than I thought (below 20%). My hunch is that this
partly due to a very busy user base and partly due to language barriers.

\- I tried using Tout to do this but in the end, I didn't see any benefit over
GMail's canned responses.

\- I actually called about 1 out of 3 new users (I ask for their phone number
at signup). The response rate is WAY higher and the feedback I receive is much
more valuable.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Personally, I hate to be called. It's a huge interruption. Email I can choose
to deal with, but a phone call is too in-your-face.

Do you allow people to opt-out (or better yet, opt-in) for this call?

~~~
callmeed
Hackers hate to be called ... the average Gen X small business owner doesn't.
They are used to being on the phone. Plus, a single phone call can often get
you information that would require 10 back-and-forth emails.

A Phone number is required because we're building them a website. If it wasn't
required, then yes, I'd probably still ask for it but include an opt-in
checkbox.

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paulnelligan
This is awesome, thanks!

I just emailed everyone who signed up in the past week using a similar
template ...

Obviously I should have been doing this all along, But I'm a first-time
founder, I need to be reminded ...

------
yuhong
BTW, I was thinking that famous people like CEOs should sign their emails,
espicially after the iPhone 4 antenna/BGR fiasco. At that time iOS 4 did not
support S/MIME, but now that iOS 5 do, I wonder if famous people will use it.

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iworkforthem
I use this formula instead.

10,000 emails x 0.1 ctr = 1000 leads 1000 x 0.02% sign up = 20 users

I want to make sure I got enough leads or first time users and assuming only
2% of my leads actually sign up. I want to still have a decent monthly
recurring income.

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nikcub
protip: setup a separate email account to this from

