Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, January 9, 2007:
My First (Almost) Big Mistake … The Story of ChatSpot Live
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.
A few months back I posted about working on a new product and promised to follow up in a month or so with details. Well there’s been some interesting developments in this area that I wanted to share with all of you. Since I generally share my successes here I think it’s also important to share my missteps.
After a few months of research this fall I decided that the second UserScape product would be a live chat program for website sales and customer service. I liked the idea because it was different enough from HelpSpot for some diversification, but similar enough that there would be good cross selling opportunities and the two apps would make sense together.
The live chat market is perfect for a small ISV because it’s a very fragmented market with no one big player. There’s also a serious lack of self hosted options. Almost all of the major players are hosted and I believe there are a lot of IT shops who would prefer to manage their own installations. There’s also a serious lack of innovation in terms of what’s possible now with JavaScript, AJAX, etc. So I began some basic work and even had the logo created by mighty MIke Rohde.
If you’re interested you can even checkout the pre-launch page I put together: http://www.userscape.com/products/chatspotlive/
For some reason I appear to have been under the mistaken belief that I actually had time for a second product. Luckily a few weeks ago I decided to shelve the project. HelpSpot sales have been booming and even with Jamie now on board there’s still not enough time in the day. While I think ChatSpot Live would be a great product and a valuable piece of software there’s no way I can remove my attention from HelpSpot for such a long period of time.
I’m happy I realized this before I had truly launched product development, though I do lament the time I spent on it. However, all that time is not wasted. First, I believe I’ll have the chance to develop ChatSpot in the future if the live chat market conditions stay similar to what they are today. Second, I was able to explore a lot of great new technology during the rough drafts of ChatSpot and many technologies I played with will be making their way into HelpSpot v2. Finally, it provided a bit of a reality check which I probably needed.
I could go into a lot of the background on ChatSpot, but I think I’ll save that for another time or perhaps discuss it more in the comments. Overall I’d have to chalk this up as one of my largest missteps to date, but it’s given me an opportunity to learn from the mistake as well as immediately providing an opportunity to use those lessons in the next version of HelpSpot.
Discussion
Hi Ian,
Does this mean you can't integrate ideas from ChatSpot into HelpSpot?
I would hardly consider this a mistake. Spending time writing down your thoughts and ideas, doing market research and even creating mock interfaces always helps to see the big picture.
In your case, this helped you realize the need to take a step back and remain focused on your current product. No harm done!
Created by Alex on 01.09.2007 11:16 pm
Smart people know when to back away. congrats.
Created by Geoff on 01.10.2007 12:42 am
Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
Created by John Topley on 01.10.2007 4:59 am
Tough one there. What you have so far looks great and seems like it would complement HelpSpot nicely. I suppose you've already considered other options like outsourcing or a partnership (which in my case I probably wouldn't pursue anyway due to quality control concerns).
Viewing this as an outsider I wouldn't characterize it as a large misstep at all, for the reasons you stated and because it's just cool. Trying and learning new things is the whole point of living, in my opinion.
Created by Beanbrain on 01.10.2007 7:38 am
Congrats on cutting your losses!
Seriously, I was wondering how you'd be able to get another product off the ground (especially now that you have baby in tow!)
Doing explorations like you did is important for the long term health of the business, I think. They won't always work out, but they can give you some important information about where you need to go over time.
Created by Kevin Dangoor on 01.10.2007 8:39 am
Ian, I'm torn. On the one hand, I had serious reservations from the moment you announced you were working on a new product. I know from personal experience it would be extremely difficult for you to develop another product and give both it and HelpSpot the attention they need and deserve. And as a customer, frankly, I want to know that HelpSpot is your top priority.
On the other hand, I was just thinking the time was about right to add instant messaging to our stable of support options. So, I would have been a sure buyer of ChatSpot!
Still, I think you made the right decision. Glad to hear HelpSpot is doing so well!
Created by Sam on 01.10.2007 9:52 pm
That app is a great idea!
When will you be expanding UserScape to it's 2nd developer? Have you started thinking about it yet?
Created by Michael Sica on 01.10.2007 11:23 pm
Great point Kevin, I think it will definitely be a plus in the long run.
Well Michael, I'm starting to think about a second developer, but I want to wait as long as possible. I really want to be in a place where there's no doubt that it's needed. I think that day is coming, but it's not here just yet.
Created by Ian on 01.10.2007 11:31 pm
Sorry all, looks like these comments didn't show up because of a stupid spam plugin I had running which I thought I turned off. All fixed now.
Sam, I do think things are heading that way. I could certainly do something small perhaps, but I just can't get into that. I want to build a full featured app or it just doesn't interest me.
I'm hopefully that in the future I'll be able to put this back on the top of the list.
Created by Ian on 01.11.2007 2:09 pm
Ian
Well, I remember recommending this idea to you, and also commenting to you about spreading yourself too thin if you have more than one major product. Overall, while I think the product will be a winner, perhaps you have made the best decision.
A few ideas for consideration ..
1 - don't ditch the project, but instead strip out the complexities, and offer it as strictly an add-on module to Helpspot (which makes the support seem like just supporting an extra feature, not an extra application).
2 - Put out a survey to your existing customers, something like (1) would you be interested in a chat application? and (2) how much would you pay for such an application. In other words, see if it is financially viable to hire someone to finish it for you (not a permanent developer, just one to finish the app).
3 - Put it out as is, unsupported, as a beta. The chatspot web site can link back to your helpspot site, drive more traffic, and perhaps open up new opportunities for you.
Created by OneNerd on 01.11.2007 10:45 pm
Thanks for the comments.
I thought about adding it to HelpSpot, but I'm not thrilled with having it tied to only support. The much larger market is for online sales. Also having it tied to only HelpSpot means it's sales will never exceed those of HelpSpot and likely be just a small percentage of that.
My big problem is that I had a pretty grand scope for the app and having it just be a widget within HelpSpot doesn't really excite me.
On the other hand when v2 comes out it would probably be very easy to build a chat app using the web api that logs the chat to HelpSpot. Perhaps I'll hack around with that once the api is out.
As for putting it out now there's really nothing to put out. I only had the layout and some admin screens setup. The main functionality was not built yet.
Created by Ian on 01.11.2007 11:31 pm
Hi Ian - I remember you playing around with Ruby on Rails a while back, but you went back to PHP for HelpSpot. Are your plans for future apps, like this one, to stay with PHP?
Created by Michael Sica on 01.12.2007 7:51 pm
Yeah, for a downloadable app it's just too risky to use a new language. If it was a hosted app I'd feel better because I could make quick changes, but that's not the case with a downloadable app. ChatSpot is/was PHP based on the Code Ignitor framework.
I haven't had any time to look at Ruby in a long time. Maybe down the road I will again.
Created by Ian on 01.12.2007 8:59 pm