Archive for February, 2009

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Friday Fun Facts – Who are we? And, where do we come from?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

As a small business startup we spend a great deal of time looking at and analyzing data to help us drive strategy, make adjustments, and better understand our customers. We try hard to not be robotic in our response to numbers, but rather to let them inform our decisions and our direction and we believe that this is how all small businesses should use their own. Here is the fifth in a serial discussion of some of the data we look at internally, the numbers we analyze, and our strategic approach.

Last May, Ross wrote a post about the countries crowdSPRING reached and where our users were coming from. At that point in time we had been in business for a grand total of three weeks and had 1,227 registered users. We had visitors from 122 countries back then and on that day we had 1,599 visits. Well, we’ve grown a bit since then – here is some cool data(along with some neat charts) for your reading pleasure….

Here are some quick facts about our Visitors to the site:

  • As of today, our visitors come from 196 countries and every continent (except Antartica – still waiting on that one).
  • They spend an average of almost 13 minutes for each visit.
  • Our visitors speak 124 languages.
  • The top 10 countries in numbers of visitors:

    • Here are some quick facts about our Buyers:

    • crowdSPRING buyers come from 41 countries.
    • US Buyers account for about 75% of our projects to date.
    • Buyers from Belize account for 0.059% of projects to date.
    • Our busiest repeat buyer has already posted 10 projects on the site.
    • Since January 1, we have registered an average of 173 new Buyers per week.
    • As I write this, we have 4,097 Buyers registered.

    And here are some quick facts about our Creatives:

    • Creatives who have won a project come from 51 countries.
    • US Creatives account for about 51% of projects awarded to date.
    • Creatives from Paraguay account for 0.063% of projects awarded to date.
    • Our most successful creative has already been awarded 47 projects.
    • Since January 1, we have registered an average of 401 new Creatives per week.
    • As I write this, we have 15,601 Creatives registered.
    So? Where are you from? Leave a comment here to tell everyone where in the world you are and what brought you to the crowdSPRING community in the first place. Can’t wait to hear from you…

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in business, community, crowdsourcing, design, inspiration | 8 Comments »

    Is Great Customer Service Contagious?

    Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

    In my last post, I asked whether people prefer to contact customer service by phone or email. People shared some great stories and advice in the comments. I want to especially thank Doc Kane - I tried his strategy (see Doc’s comment to my last post) the very next day with UPS and it works!!! Big thanks to everyone who joined that conversation. Your feedback was awesome and taught us a great deal!

    Lately, I’ve been thinking about how crowdSPRING can promote great customer service across our entire community. We recognize that as a company, we must provide great customer service. But we are also seeing some outstanding examples of customer service directly in our community.

    Is great customer service contagious? Can an online community share the values of great customer service?

    Our recent experience suggests that the answer to both questions is YES.

    Last week we experienced a very heavy load on our database server early in the morning (due to heavy traffic). The site crashed by 8:30 a.m. CST. While the site was down, it was impossible for our community to contact us via the site. This is where things got interesting.

    Even though people could not access the site, they found creative ways to contact us. They found our email addresses and reached out directly to us to let us know the site crashed. This happened within minutes – before we realized we had a problem. Here’s what we thought was most amazing about those emails -  people were worried about access to the site by the whole community – not just their own ongoing projects.

    Our team promptly reacted and fixed the problem within 20 minutes. Because our normal systems were not working during that brief outage, we had to find creative ways to help customers. For example, Chris, one of our talented developers, brilliantly handled direct emails from users and reassured them that the site would be back up quickly.

    During that brief period of time, our team and our community were one – together finding ways to fix the problem which caused the outage and keep users informed. This was truly amazing!

    We continue to be amazed by the fact that this was not an isolated example.  We see collaboration in our marketplace, in our forums, and in our blog. We see creatives helping each other in the forums. We see the entire community collaborating to improve both our marketplace and our rules and procedures. Many in the community are helping us to drive essential changes that will improve the user experience for everyone. It’s a competitive environment for sure – but the level of collaboration is fun to watch.

    So what does it take to make good customer service contagious? What do you do to empower your team and your community to collaborate?

    Photo Credit: detritus

    Tags: ,
    Posted in business, start-up tips | 6 Comments »

    Friday Fun Facts – Time Management cS Style!

    Friday, February 20th, 2009

    As a small business startup we spend a great deal of time looking at and analyzing data to help us drive strategy, make adjustments, and better understand our customers. We try hard to not be robotic in our response to numbers, but rather to let them inform our decisions and our direction and we believe that this is how all small businesses should use their own. Here is the fourth in what will be a serial discussion of some of the data we look at internally, the numbers we analyze, and our strategic approach.

    Last week we discussed using crowdSPRING’s project data to help you creatives decide which projects you might choose to work on. This week we’re gonna offer up some suggestions and strategies for determining WHEN to work. I know that you guys are scattered around the world’s time zones, and I know that you each have your own scheduling imperatives. Maybe you have a full-time job outside of cS. Maybe you work nights. Maybe the new baby keeps waking you at 2am (your time, that is). In any case it is clear that there are some interesting patterns that have developed on cS which you may be able to leverage to your own benefit.

    In my observation, most of you seem to subscribe to one of two basic schools of thought. There are the “early birds,” those of you who like to jump into a new project almost as soon as it is posted. This might allow you to develop an early (and valuable) dialog with the buyer, build a relationship quickly, and iterate based on the feedback you get. Then there are the “birds of prey.” These are creatives who prefer to hang back and watch. They may pick projects based strictly on the quantity and quality of a buyers feedback. These designers will comb through the projects looking for a buyer who is clearly communicating their needs. Once they see a good one, they swoop in towards the end hoping to provide what the buyer is looking for.

    So, you ask? What does this mean to me, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you what I have learned by taking a hard look at when projects post and when they close. Let’s say you only want to work on crowdSPRING 2 days a week. Well, if you are an Early Bird, you probably want to work in the middle of the week. The first chart shows that 36% of all new projects are posted on Tuesday-Wednesday. If you are a Bird of Prey, you’ll be focused on the beginning of the week. The second chart (Project Closings) tells you that 33% of all projects close on Monday-Tuesday. In other words, no matter which group you fall into, by working just 2 days a week, you can cover 1/3 of all the projects on the site. Not bad, huh? Considering that we have been averaging over 150 open projects, that means you could have 50 to choose from on any given day.

    What about the best time of day to get to work? Well, the data is pretty clear on that, too. Projects post and close at the same time, so it only takes one chart to figure it out. The best times to submit your entries? Between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM GMT, more than 61% of all projects are posted and the same number close. This is great if you live in England and work on the site during the day. But not so good if you are in Asia and would have to work through the night. Here’s the distribution chart:

    So, that’s it. I hope that this helps you to figure out the best days and times to do your thing, creatives. In the meantime, Ross and I will continue our own personal time management strategy. It’s simple, really. Work 7 days a week, 20 hours a day, and make sure the other guy will stay awake while you fall into bed for a few hours….

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in business, design, How To, Strategy | 5 Comments »

    Short Interview – Chad Paulson

    Thursday, February 19th, 2009

    Is it possible that a man can be too obsessed with a movie? Not if you listen to our lead engineer, Chad Paulson. Chad and our dev team make magic happen. When we ran into issues with our content management system, here’s what Chad said: We came, we saw, we kicked its ass! (you’ll recall that Dr. Peter Venkman said the same thing in the movie Ghostbusters). So – here are a few minutes with Chad:


    Interview with crowdSPRING’s Chad Paulson from Ross Kimbarovsky on Vimeo

    You say you don’t believe that Chad actually bought the ambulance? See the photo below and click here for the rest of the photos.

    Leave Chad a comment and let him know whether you share his obsession with fighting ghosts…and maybe a small thank you for his incredible and dedicated work to keep things running smoothly on our site. He’s not kidding – he does sleep only 4 hours per week!

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Awesomeness, community, Interviews, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

    Friday Fun Facts – So Many Projects, So Little Time

    Friday, February 13th, 2009

    As a small business startup we spend a great deal of time looking at our data and analyzing that data to help us drive strategy, make adjustments, and better understand our customers. We try hard to not be robotic in our response to numbers, but rather to let them inform our decisions and our direction and we believe that this is how all small businesses should use their own data. Here is the third in what will be a serial discussion of some of the data we look at internally, the numbers we analyze, and our strategic approach with this data.

    This week and next I want to talk to the creatives in the room. You’re busy people, right? You have lots to do and not enough time to do it? A job, a family, your friends, and plenty of interests outside of crowdSPRING? So let’s see how I can help. Using some of our data, I have come up with some tricks that may help you to maximize your efforts. The goal is to succeed on crowdSPRING, right? Earn some money while you do what you love? This week and next I’ll share some data that could help guide your decisions about which projects to participate in and when to participate. Today, we’ll cover the “which.” We’ll look at the numbers on project awards and project participation, and hopefully help you develop your own strategy for choosing projects, using a statistical approach. Now this approach may not fit with your own decision making process, but maybe it gives a little food for thought?

    In addition to the projects you just WANT to work on – maybe because they are just cool – you might consider a couple of other factors such as, which projects pay the most? Or, which projects have lower participation so that I stand a better chance? The first question is easy, and is answered by the first chart. Web Design projects pay the most of all of the categories while logo design is closer to the median. If you strictly want the highest payout for your work, get in there and enter some great web design projects.

    Average Awards

    Average Awards

    The second question offers a different, and less common approach to choosing projects.I took a look at participation levels for each category of project and it is clear that there are projects on the site with less competition where you can jump in and really wow the buyer. Want the best odds? Easy. Just enter every Widget project that we host.

    Average Participation

    Average Participation

    Next week? We’ll take a look at “when” to participate and discuss some neat strategies for deciding the best days of the week to spend time on the site. As Jerome would say, “Bonne Chance!”

    Tags: ,
    Posted in community, design, How To, Strategy | 1 Comment »

    Short Interview – Chris Detmer

    Thursday, February 12th, 2009

    You’ve talked with Chris in the forums and you’ve seen some of his great work on our site. Chris was making coffee this morning (either Chris or I make the coffee in the morning) and I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.


    Interview with Chris Detmer, one of crowdSPRING’s front-end developers from Ross Kimbarovsky on Vimeo.

    I’m a fan of Chris’s music. But things get a bit complicated when it comes to music (either that or Chris has multiple personalities). Chris is actually James Collin (his musical alter ego). Lucky for us, we only pay one of them!

    Here’s the video Chris mentioned in the interview:

    Leave Chris a note and let him know what you think about his music (or his work on the site)…

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in community, Interviews | 13 Comments »

    Friday Fun Facts – Best Case, Worst Case, and Most Likely

    Friday, February 6th, 2009

    As a small business startup we spend a great deal of time looking at our data and analyzing that data to help us drive strategy, make adjustments, and better understand our customers. We try hard to not be robotic in our response to numbers, but rather to let them inform our decisions and our direction and we believe that this is how all small businesses should use their own data. Here is the second in what will be a serial discussion of some of the data we look at internally, the numbers we analyze, and our strategic approach with this data.

    Like all startups we began life even before we were born. What I mean is, that before crowdSPRING was a business it was an idea, a business on paper only. We worked hard for many months researching the market, writing a detailed business plan, and building a comprehensive financial model. We made projections about our business based on well-informed assumptions: about site traffic, about registered users, about projects posted, about average awards in various design categories, such as the average in logo design and web design. All startups engage in their own version of this exercise. Some might characterize the process as smoke and mirrors, but done well it is a series of well-educated, research-based, detail-justified guesstimates.

    These projections are critical to the planning process. Because, in the absence of actual data, and without projections, how can a business budget? How can a business define goals or determine strategy? And how can a business plan hires and personnel decisions? And, perhaps most important to a startup, how can a not-yet-born business justify the funding it is asking of potential investors? In order to raise funds from investors it was necessary to share with them your projections, and justify these with logical, defensible reasoning. This must be done in a methodical manner. In our case we first looked for comparable companies, collected as much historical data as we could, and used these numbers as a starting point to project our own. Second, we applied multiple scenarios to illustrate that the business could be profitable even if we found ourselves facing the worst-case.

    The process is fairly straightforward: starting with the data from comparable companies, we built a data base of traffic, registrations, and transaction value from their first 2-3 years in business. Then we discounted those numbers by 50% and plugged them into our own model. This served as our baseline or “most-likely” scenario and the foundation of our planning. Next we created two other scenarios – the “worst-case” and the “best-case.” The worst case was arrived at by discounting our assumptions by another 50%. If we could survive the worst, we knew that we would be OK. We built the best-case by removing the discounting we had applied to the assumptions. In other words we assumed that cS would perform as well as those earlier businesses had. We would generate the same site traffic, we would register the same numbers of users, and we would see transaction prices that matched those that we had seen. When we graphed these scenarios we could see clearly what it would take to achieve profitability no matter which way the winds blew and with rational logic as opposed to blue-sky hopes.

    Here’s a graph which illustrates how Best/Worst/Most Likely data would be charted visually:

    Hypothetical Breakeven Points: Best-Worst-Most Likely

    Tags: ,
    Posted in business, community, crowdsourcing | 4 Comments »

    We're in freaking Forbes

    Thursday, February 5th, 2009

    Look mom – we’re in Forbes! What? No – we didn’t do anything illegal! Umm, no, we didn’t meet Barack either. We just – oh, forget it. It’s not a big deal.  Say hi to dad…

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Awesomeness, business, community, crowdsourcing, marketing, social media | 42 Comments »

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