

Tell HN: What I learned from the AirBnB / EJ incident - rexreed

I posted this as a comment on a previous thread, but I thought I'd share it as a separate post. While I hope the situation resolves well for all parties (except the guilty ones), I'm most interested in learning the lessons that would apply to my own startup.<p>I'm trying to learn from other people's lessons (it's the cheapest way to learn). Here's what I learned from the recent incident as well as others recently talked about in the 'sphere. Whenever there is a crisis:<p>* Respond quickly<p>* Respond in the open so that there's no he-said / she-said<p>* Be fair, and err on the side of the customer<p>* Don't spin the company line - be thoughtful, especially if someone has lost money / time / confidence / data / faith in humanity<p>* Think "This could be me / this could be someone I know &#38; love"<p>* If relevant, get the authorities involved quickly so that you can be sure it's not a shakedown.<p>* Assume the customer is telling you the truth unless you have specific and verifiable reason to believe otherwise<p>* Get insurance<p>* Don't let others (especially those with interests) speak for you.<p>* Try to establish a single point person for all contact with the customer, and make that person easily and quickly available to the customer at the customer's behest<p>* Try not to respond to what's said in the press<p>Did I miss any good lessons here?
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codeup
This might get voted up, but other than that I don't see the purpose of this
Tell HN _at this point_.

I doubt you know enough about the different sides of the fairly complex story
to come up with definitive lessons learned at this point.

~~~
rexreed
Thanks! Actually, I've been learning from this incident as well as a bunch of
different incidents. I've put together my observations and lessons learned
that can apply in my particular scenario, of which I hope there will be few,
if any. So, however this particular case resolves is not entirely material,
unless I can learn something more about what to / no to do.

However AirBnB resolves this issue is really their matter. I'm hoping to learn
along the way what seems to work and what not. And on that count, I've already
learned a lot.

As for votes, that's not my primary interest. My primary interest is to see
what others might have learned as well.

