Update: I originally cited the content of a customer’s email in this post, and although I didn’t reveal her identity, I don’t think this was appropriate or particularly constructive.

Mea culpa.

In the future I will never cite the contents of a customer’s private email, no matter how anonymously, unless they have expressly permitted me to do so.

I have edited the post to remove the contents of our correspondence with each other. I am leaving the post because I still think it expresses some interesting ideas.

Continuing the recent trend of posts about, essentially, “just doing it,” the purpose of this post is to underscore the wisdom of staying in touch with customers, while acknowledging that doing so brings its own challenges.

Since I established my own web store a few years ago, I have collected the emails of customers who buy my software and, for those who leave the pre-checked option selected, subscribe them to a company newsletter for infrequent announcements:

Infrequently is the operative word here. In more than three years I’ve neglected to send even one email to these folks. This is a problem, because permitting me to contact them set up the expectation that I would. When major releases such as MarsEdit 3 have come out, some people don’t find out until months later, and tend to be annoyed that they haven’t heard about it directly from me.

Yesterday, I finally got around to setting up a mailing list with Campaign Monitor, drafting a simple plain-text letter, and pressing the send button. I finally broke the ice.

For those of you who are not on the mailing list, here’s what I said:

News From Red Sweater Software

Hello from Red Sweater! This is Daniel Jalkut, its founder and, for now, its only employee.

When you purchased one of my products, you agreed to receive infrequent email updates that keep you up to do date with my latest products. Since that time you have received approximately zero emails! I sort of dropped the ball on direct communication, but I’m working to rectify that now.

Messages will still be infrequent and hopefully pertinent, but if you are no longer interested in receiving updates about Red Sweater, just visit this link to unsubscribe:

(unsubscribe link)

On to the news: what’s happening at Red Sweater?

1. MarsEdit 3 Released

Earlier this year I released a major update to MarsEdit, our desktop blog editing application. MarsEdit now sports a rich text “WYSIWYG” editor, support for WordPress pages, and a media browser that integrates with iPhoto, Aperture, and Lightroom. Read more about MarsEdit 3 on the web:

http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/new3.html

If you don’t already own MarsEdit 3 you can purchase it for $39.95, or update from a previous version for $14.95:

https://www.red-sweater.com/store/

2. iPhone and iPad Releases?

People often ask about my plans to release applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It’s easy enough to convey my intentions, but a bit harder to make specific promises. I am very excited about building iPhone and iPad versions of my apps, especially MarsEdit and Black Ink. I have made significant progress on these apps but there is still fine-tuning that needs to be done before I’ll be prepared to release them publicly.

3. The Mac App Store

You may have heard the news that Apple is planning to launch a Mac version of the App Store, which will give Mac users the ability to easily browse, purchase, and install applications in a similar manner to the way it works for iPhones and iPads. I’m hoping to get most or all of my apps into the catalog so I can reach an even wider audience of users. The good news for you, my existing customers? More customers will hopefully lead to more revenue, which means more resources and impetus to continue adding great features to the applications you already love.

4. Keeping In Touch

As I said earlier, I am resolving to do a better job keeping in touch. Next time a major update like MarsEdit 3 is released, you’ll hear about it before 6 months have passed! But if you want to proactively stay tuned in on an even finer level, there are some resources available to help you monitor our progress:

Email support. You can contact Red Sweater with whatever’s on your mind, be it a bug report, feature request, or just to say hi.
Address: support@red-sweater.com

Red Sweater Blog. The official company blog is my platform for providing a combination of company news and business-related thoughts and analysis.
Link: http://www.red-sweater.com/blog

Twitter accounts. For short, conversational style updates I maintain a personal account, a company account, and a special account just for MarsEdit:
Link: http://twitter.com/danielpunkass
Link: http://twitter.com/redsweater
Link: http://twitter.com/marsedit

5. Thank You

I want to close by thanking you for your business. I have been working on Red Sweater for over 10 years now, and in the past few years it has reached a level of success that supports myself, my wife, and my son. This is so unfathomable to me that I can only assume the sky is the limit! Let’s keep working together: your feedback and support combined with my desire to build great products should lead to many more years of successful results.

Daniel Jalkut
Founder, Red Sweater Software

To unsubscribe from this email list, just visit this link:

(unsubscribe link)

Delivery Confirmation

Campaign Monitor made the mass delivery painless for me. Thanks to their sophisticated tools, I know a day later that the vast majority of recipients received the letter, and only a small percentage have unsubscribed. Out of the thousands (wow!) of messages that were sent:

97.1% appear to be delivered
2.9% bounced
1.48% unsubscribed after receiving
1 reported it as spam (1 person, not percent – can’t win them all!)

This kind of feedback is great, but nothing compared to the direct responses I got from customers. The semi-personal tone of my letter inspired customers to respond in kind with heartfelt support and encouragement.

I received dozens of responses, ranging from the brief, enthusiastic “Word!” to longer, philosophical letters about small business, following one’s dreams, and the meaning of work in life.

Then, early this morning, I received this:

[EDITED: In retrospect, I do not believe it was appropriate for me to share the content of a customer's email here, even if information about her identity was removed.]

An upset or merely irritated customer always calls for a cautious response. The last thing I want is to escalate the situation. But this response is particular challenging, due to the number of provocative facets:

1. The customer is not pleased by the email I sent.
2. The customer is using a sarcastic, admonishing tone.
3. The customer projects a lack of respect by omitting proper punctuation and sentence structure.
4. The customer’s core criticisms are vague and subjective, making it hard for me to evaluate whether an apology or correction is called for.

These facets sort of multiply with each other and make it difficult not to respond defensively. My first reaction is to shout something into my email client like “What the hell?! Most people like a little humanity in a company, and furthermore, I did enumerate benefits where appropriate, and the content of this letter addresses the most common questions I have received over the past few months. And … and … who pissed in your Wheaties, anyway?”

Instead I take a deep breath, vent a little to my friends on IRC, and respond:

[EDITED: As with the content of the email from the customer, I don't believe it is appropriate for me to include the content of my response.]

I then proceeded to vent on Twitter about the response. I wasn’t particularly looking for comfort, but was glad to receive supportive responses from people who agreed there was cause to feel irritated by the customer’s tone. A sample of the dozens of reactions:

“That’s the kind of thing, when said in person, earns someone a kick in the teeth.” — @dssstrkl

“That guy is a jerk. Keep your personality in your work. if he doesn’t like it, let him use products from huge faceless corps” — @scottaw

“Personally, I couldn’t live with myself without adding a note about their tone. Why encourage an asshole.” — @mrgan

“Screw that guy. He’s just jealous that your Indie endeavors are successful enough to support you and your family. Good on ya!” — @fonix

“He presumes to speak for all your customers, co-opting “us.” He does not. Bravo on your measured and thoughtful response.” — @artgillespie

“That guy replied as if you were trying to sell him something. Your letter was more like a ‘state of the union’ communication.” — @morrick

Many of the responses refer to the customer as “him,” while none of them refer to “her.” In fact, this customer is either a woman, or a man with a very feminine name. Apropos of not much, but it’s interesting that we tend to assume somebody who is “being a jerk” is a man. I would have made the same assumption.

Do I feel a little disingenuous about responding to the customer politely and without indication of my annoyance, while essentially glorifying her message behind her back on Twitter and now here? Yes. This is not really my style, and I don’t think it’s very classy of me to share the private message of a customer, even if I am preserving her anonymity.

But, I think this experience is instructive both to customers and other small-business owners. And since I already vented on Twitter and essentially let the cat out of the bag, I thought I might as well go all the way.

Staying In Touch

What does it mean to stay in touch? It means building and preserving a relationship with customers. The stronger the relationship, the greater the empathy for the other’s circumstance. But as with other relationships, the increase in communication and contact leads to an increased risk of misunderstanding and offense.

My letter served a valuable purpose. It let my customers know that I’m thinking about them, that the checkbox they vaguely remember leaving selected wasn’t pointless. That I do have plans for the company and for the products they purchased, and that I am interested in turning a new leaf with regard to communicating directly with them.

The challenging customer and my reaction to her has also been helpful. It reminds me of the related importance of “staying in touch” with my own values and priorities. Over the course of Red Sweater’s growth, I have used a very rules-based approach to how I handle just about everything. Running my own business means biting my tongue and doing “the right thing” even when the instinct in my animal brain wants to do the opposite. This is true for coding habits, fiscal responsibility, and yes, customer support habits. A variety of informal rules help to keep me in line.

As I have gained confidence in my own decisions, I find myself more prepared to break these rules. I suppose that pragmatism slowly takes over. When I first started out, I informed my decisions by asking “what would a good business do?” Then I learned to admire other Mac software companies such as Bare Bones, Rogue Amoeba, Panic, and Omni, and asked myself “what would they do?” I still defer often to the wisdom of others, but sometimes I have the distinct pleasure of asking myself “What would I do?” and acting on it. Staying in touch with myself is as important as staying in touch with my customers.

I decided to release MarsEdit 3.0 when I did because of what I refer to lovingly as my “suck it up and ship” mantra. I tell other people all the time that you can’t hoard your work. Sure, putting off the ship date indefinitely will allow you to avoid the embarrassing critiques, the discovery by the public that you are in fact imperfect. But you know what? They never get to try out your app, either.

The customer-developer feedback loop is exceedingly important when it comes to prioritizing bug fixes. The months you spend “perfecting” your stuff will undoubtedly focus on parts of the app that your users don’t even, as it turns out, give a damn about. Get your 1.0 (or 2.0, or 3.1.2) to users as quickly and responsibly as possible, and evaluate the results.

On that note, MarsEdit 3.1.2 is available today, fixing an issue in the rich text editor that, suffice to say, is far more than a “minor glitch.” In a nutshell: if you did a “search and replace” where the replacement text included the search text, the app went into an infinite replacement loop, hung, and required a force-quit.

That is so not Red Sweater. Yuck! I discovered this thanks to my new (as of 3.0) crash reporter that, while providing precious few details about the reason for the force-quits, eventually included key feedback from a user who offered the hints as to what was happening.

I hope this release cuts down dramatically on the number of mysterious, context-free crash reports. There are some other goodies, too:

MarsEdit 3.1.2

• Fixes for issues with Find/Replace in the rich editor
  • Fix a potential hang when doing replace all
  • Fix “Use Selection for Find” menu item
  • Fix behavior of “Replace All” when limiting to selected text
• Fix a bug that prevented “None” from sticking as preview filter choice
• Fix a bug that caused wrong alt text to be generated for some uploads
• Prevent ugly clipping of font descenders e.g. on lower case “g” in Media Manager

Here’s to the next imperfect release!

His latest, My Loss, reminds us that even successful entrepreneurs have gone through the wringer more than once, and have made their share of mistakes.

I especially like the “moral” of this latest post:

Say “no” where you used to say “yes”. Say “yes” where you used to say “no”. Do the thing that scares you the most, then get up and go.

This captures the essence of  one of my own motivational mantras: ”Say Yes.”

When someone asks me to speak at a conference, write an article, give a toast at a wedding, attend a conference, or just to have lunch, my gut reaction is to refuse.

Almost every public thing I do that pulls me away from my computer and out of my house, comes from saying yes when I want to say no. I psyche myself up, remember that this life isn’t going to drive itself where I want it to go, and step up to the plate.

Say yes.

I object to Apple’s sometimes farcical behavior when it comes to App Store policies, rejections, exceptions, etc. But my feelings are extremely mixed. I love the hell out of my iPhone, and I pre-ordered an iPad at 8:30 AM on Friday. I believe Apple has a morsel of magical quicksilver in its palm. As with the iPhone, I’m coming along for the ride, whether or not I like the way they are driving.

The iPhone and iPad are compelling enough, so why haven’t I released any significant apps yet?  I still have several apps under development, but none of them is ready for mass consumption. Mainly because my Mac software takes priority for my attention, but also because I want to make sure I understand how software on touch devices should work before I tackle the problem.

I attended Apple’s iPhone Developer Tech Talk in New York in December. During the reception, I had the privilege of speaking briefly with Apple’s UI design rock-star evangelist, John Geleynse. I got to talking with him about the iPhone and its significance in the world:

“I’ve lost 20 pounds in the last 4 months,” I blurted out. “I don’t think I could have done it without the iPhone.”

I had downloaded an app called Lose It, and thanks to the ubiquity of the iPhone, I was able to use this simple calorie-counting aid to change my eating habits for several months. I was eager to share how this little app had changed my life. I struggled to make my point:

“The iPhone has changed everything. Surfers love waves, right? And they want to surf everywhere. But if you’re a surfer and you want to surf in Antarctica, you’re screwed. But if you had the right wetsuit, you could surf anywhere. You could surf in Antarctica!”

Mr. Geleynse indulged the metaphor, but seemed to be waiting for the punch line.

“So, I lost all this weight, and it wouldn’t have happened without the iPhone. Before the iPhone and before this app, losing weight to me was like surfing in Antarctica: I had no equipment, and no chance of survival.  The iPhone gave me the equipment not only to survive, but to know that survival was possible.”

This is what Apple does well. While the rest of the world iterates on existing solutions to known problems, Apple discovers and solves problems we didn’t even know we had. I didn’t realize that the lack of a ubiquitous, hand-held computer was limiting my abilities. I didn’t know what had been impossible would become possible.

Skeptics of Apple’s innovation tend to be stuck in that mode of thinking which judges solutions only in terms of known problems. Imagine the poor inventor of the scuba suit, who upon first showing his contraption to peers, may have been met with flat rejection: “It doesn’t look very comfortable.” True, the scuba makes for terrible evening wear … unless you’re throwing a party at the bottom of the ocean!

If you’re not looking beyond the horizon, if you don’t care to expand the reach of civilization, or to solve impossible problems, then you don’t need a scuba suit.

If you are looking for adventure, suit up. Antarctica on a surfboard? April 3.

Out of this experience came a new personal mantra: Always Be Marketing. This catch-phrase came to me as I tried to discover what it is that I actually do to market myself, my business, and my products. The answer fell somewhere between nothing specifically and everything specifically!

Another catch-phrase I bring up a lot when talking to other indie developers is Say Yes. This captures my belief that we developers are shy, scared, and would rather be programming than doing anything “out there in public.” So I often implore other developers to say yes to interviews, speaking engagements, etc., before your scared nerd-brain can take over and run screaming.

But Always Be Marketing sort of captures the same sentiment while driving the message home:

• The local user group wants me to present, should I go?
  Always be marketing.
• Another developer wants to co-market my product with theirs.
  Always be marketing.
• What the … CNN wants me to be a talking head?!
  Always be marketing.
• Should I really have a Twitter account and a Facebook account?
  Always be marketing.
• I don’t have time to monitor searches, comments, feedback.
  Always be marketing.

OK, I’m running dangerously close to being a world-class prick if I really reduce my conversational skills to this kind of catch-phrase smack-down. But you can bet this is what my  internal dialogue is going to sound like from here on out.

I’m pleased to report that the project was an outstanding success. I will not be surprised if the total money raised exceeds $100K.

As for Red Sweater, we contributed a not too shabby $2,300 to Partners In Health.

Way to pull off an amazing charity drive, everybody. Now, let’s get back to work!

Nearly 150 developers are participating, and have pledged to donate the proceeds from today’s software sales to a variety of charities benefiting earthquake-stricken Haiti.

One of the unfortunate bits of confusion to arise out of the program is the question of which time zone the “January 20″ sales should apply to. To help alleviate confusion on my store, I’ve modified the main store page and the checkout page, to each contain a prominent header near the top of the page. You’ll know your payment to Red Sweater is actually going to Haiti, by the presence of this banner on the page.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to buy Mac software, and wouldn’t mind if that money went to help folks who are struggling through a tough tragedy, please consider buying software from myself and the other participants today.

One of the challenges therein is getting the word out to … everybody. The customers, the press, other developers. The more people who know about you, the more likely they are to tell other people. You know, the whole viral thing, except Mac developers haven’t yet come up with a term for it that doesn’t sound like a sickness.

When I put on the One Finger Discount promotion last year, I was trying to tackle this problem on a small scale, and it worked. The excitement of the 20% discount, and the feeling of all this great software clumped together in one place inspired customers to check out lots of new things which had previous fallen beneath their radar.

But it was nonetheless on a small scale.

I’m excited to learn that Macworld Expo is taking the indie developer community to heart with this year’s show-floor offerings. A new $1250 entry-level exhibitor’s place gets you a spot at a kiosk with other indie developers, where you will be exposed to the thousands of enthusiasts and hundreds of members of the press who are expected to visit the show.

But Macworld has also taken a page from the One Finger Discount playbook, offering a free level of participation that closely mirrors the One Finger Discount model. The Indie Developer Spotlight invites developers from around the world to put their apps on sale for 20% off during the week of Macworld. In exchange, they get to be part of the virtual community and have their stuff listed on Macworld’s indie developer spotlight page.

I spoke with Paul Kent, Macworld Expo’s organizer, a few weeks ago. I tried to express on behalf of the indie community what we need from a trade-show like Macworld. Well, it’s not much different from what any business needs: maximum exposure for minimal cost. In our case, very minimal cost ;) Space on the show floor at an event like Macworld will never be dirt cheap. I have to imagine there are too many expenses in renting the space, paying for insurance, union laborers, etc. So $1250 feels like a very compelling price to me.

If you can’t afford that, or can’t make the travel work with your schedule this year, at least you can get in with the free, online community.

Mac Indie Marketing Blog: Fishing For The Big Picture

Dan does a good job of summarizing my version of the metaphor, which is essentially a mental model that customers will always be swimming by your offerings. Whether they get stuck on them or not is mostly up to steps you take to make the software more attractive, functional, and engaging. If they swim away, don’t worry. A new fish will swim back around, and even that “one that got away” is likely to come back to your part of the sea eventually.

But Dan turns the metaphor around, suggesting that when customers go actively seeking for a specific solution, the products should be viewed as the fish. The software or other solution is being fished for by a customer, so you want your product to stick to the hook, instead of somebody else’s.

We’re just dealing in metaphors here. At the end of the day we’re talking about products for sale and the desires of users. We want their desires to stick to our products. To that end, while I find Dan’s inversion interesting, I think it’s simpler to continue with a single model where customers are the fish (no offense intended!).

We don’t need to invert the model: if a customer is seeking out specific solutions or styles of application, our fishing metaphor already has an answer for that. It’s called bait! To recap, at any point in time, you’ll maximize your haul of new customers by:

1. Having a net in the water.
2. Having as large a net as possible.
3. Having as few holes in your net as possible.
4. Placing attractive bait in that net.

As a vegetarian, I really should have called this metaphor “Fishing For Tofu,” but I know that most customers would be even more offended were they identified as “the tofu.”

The response was so overwhelming, that a day into the promotion I realized I would not be getting much work done. I spent most of the following week keeping up with new additions to the promotion, and trying to update the web site to be more useful and attractive. I worked my butt off and didn’t take a penny from any of the participating developers. It just felt great to be doing something and getting the word out about smaller software shops.

When the promotion was over, I got a few really heartwarming notes of thanks from various developers who had taken part. I also ended up selling quite a bit more software last month than I do in ordinary months. Word from developers was that they had likewise seen significantly improved sales. We all win!

Today, with memories of One Finger Discount fading, I was busy coding away on MarsEdit, when my wife knocks on the door with an important looking envelope. Air mail from Canada? Hmm, what could it be? I recognized the name on the envelope as Dan Messing of Stunt Software, a friend of mine and fellow indie developer. Inside, I found two cards:

A thank you card? But what had I done for Dan lately? Even the tell-tale white hearts on pink didn’t clue me in that it was One Finger Discount related. It wasn’t until I opened the Thank You card, and noticed that it was in fact a 10 page booklet containing dozens and dozens of personal thank you messages from a large number of One Finger participants:

Holy cow! How touching that Dan (with help from my podcasting cohort Manton Reece, and my wife) managed to collect so many notes of thanks from so many participants. This was truly an accomplishment, and a greatly appreciated one. Thank you Dan, Manton, and Chrissa for your parts in organizing this. This alone is quite a payback for the hours I spent laboring to make One Finger Discount the success it turned out to be.

And the other card in that envelope? Each developer who had graciously agreed to send a personal note of thanks had also chipped in some cash and sent me the largest Amazon gift card I have ever seen! If you ever wondered whether $700 was enough gift to convey your heartfelt thanks, the answer is yes, yes, yes! Thank you so much to each and every developer who took part in this thrilling and inspiring gesture.

It’s great to be reminded that there are so many generous and thoughtful people in the world, and in our community. Sometimes you may feel that your deeds are going unthanked or unnoticed, but the old cliché that “what you give comes back to you” is true on many levels, and it may surprise you the ways it finds of doing so.

Thanks again, everybody!