I worked for Mercedes Benz’ excellent customer service program during my undergrad. It was a fun job with great colleagues and I learned a lot from it. I derive massive lifehack value from these times until today, because it is actually quite easy to make customer service work for you (not the people, but the institution of it). Here’s how:

1. Always be nice. This is the most important step – never get ugly with the rep you are talking to, he is the only one who can help you at the moment. Not only do I owe this to my colleagues – it also really works. When you are on the phone or email for all day, you can really determine if someone was ripped off or hurt or if he’s just trying to make a buck off you.
2. Tell your story. If you have a genuine problem, explain it nicely and quickly and try to find a solution with the customer service representative. Don’t rant and ramble, just tell what happened and explain why it’s bad.
3. Try to find out what works and what doesn’t before you call. This is important to get through the loops – if you know some of the goodwill solutions (they are usually policies, especially if you are dealing with a large corporation, your case is not the only one), it is easier. Suggest them to your rep and be open about knowing them.
4. Be reasonable. If you are a halfway decent person, you know what flies and what doesn’t. If your problem is real, you should be helped, if you are trying to replace your one year old TV for the next model because you are pissed there’s a new one – get out. Seriously, it is easy to get hung up on these things, and you will make more than one persons’ day miserable if you do.
5. If being treated rude, escalate. Take it to the higher ups, because people should be helping you. If you are nice in turn, you can also quickly get a grumpy rep to sympathise with you, so always try the nice route first – it’s quicker, less troublesome and decent to do.
6. Never threaten. Don’t say “I’m such and such – you will hear from my lawyer/popular friends/blog/etc.” – you will get people working against you, because you are clearly trying an “unfair advantage” they feel is unnecessary. Always remember, customer service is an absolute people’s game.
7. If you aren’t heard and you should be (of course – this is everybody) – just write a letter to the CEO. Yes, a real letter helps, and there is often a separate CSR team for letters being sent to the CEO – they have special budgets, shortcuts, and superpowers. If you treat them badly, however, you will land on the sh#tlist forever, so don’t push it.

These are all very normal suggestions, but they usually get you somewhere. If not, be creative and try alternative rules:

The essence is that the CSRs usually know your situation and understand your frustration. They are being screamed at by hysterical people for a better part of the day, so having someone decent to talk to is usually already a welcome change. Be nice and get help.

Oh, also use those gethuman numbers – they really reduce frustration. If stuck with a robot, just hit zero a couple of times, always works.

Both positions are based in London – feel free to reach out and apply by emailing Philipp. Please include information about your background, experience, your work with startups and tech companies, and everything else you feel is relevant for the job. The job descriptions for the general management and internship positions should tell you more about our requirements.

via seedcamp: We are growing – and looking for you!

SRSLY, ask any questions if you are interested. You will be working directly with me, keeping Seedcamp running day and night, organizing cool events, and working with the best people in the European tech scene.

Can’t be better if you are dabbling your feet in E’ship and are passionate about start ups.

It’s quite amazing how many founders and company leaders are making amazing new technical solutions or products but seem to have difficulty explaining the core narrative of the product themselves. Now, if the person who built the product has a hard time explaining it, then just imagine how hard it is for others to understand it – let alone promote it.

via Why defining your company narrative and creating a ‘social object’ is important. | Henrik Werdelin.

This is what makes a good pitch a great pitch (or a pitch you understand at all). Make a pitch a story and it pulls your audience right through.

Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.

via Official Google Blog: Update on Google Wave.

Now, I am all for game mechanics, behavioral economics, and bashing people with lots of money, but I don’t think the reason for this to work lies in the ever greedy VC that just wants to be part of a good deal.

Rather, I think that a very big problem – especially for early stage companies – is that they are new to the game and want to pitch everything that has two legs and wears khakis. Don’t get me wrong, this is what entrepreneurs need to do – sell their stuff to others, be it customers, employees or investors. BUT, and this is a big fat but (think 2 Life Crew big), you do not want to burn any bridges or be in the wrong pile of a VCs business plan collection. If you talk to the wrong VC too early, he sees what you are doing, puts his mental model on it and writes you off as “too early”, “no traction”, or “I don’t get it”. I think these are all valid reasons to put you in a pile for, but only if you are actually pitching what the VC thinks you are pitching.

Why is this important?

VCs live by dealflow. They need to see absolutely every last deal out there – after all, it is their job to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. VCs also live by their funnel. If the haystack is the dealflow, The finding part is narrowing down the investment opportunities to the best and last one. So – when you are in a VCs dealflow, you are being evaluated as an investment opportunity, whether you like it or not. As soon as you pitch to an investor – even if you both know that you are too early or too young or in the wrong geography, he puts on his dealflow glasses (actual X-ray glasses) and tries to find out if he would invest in your company. He most likely wouldn’t – after all, you are just trying to get some feedback on your business model or market sizing – but once he thought about you in this way, you are out.

This is why early strage entrepreneurs need to make sure they take their time in pitching to later stage investors, and this is why you should not tell people too much about your fundraising situation too early. If you can get along with the “not fundraising right now”, you might actually be able to make a connection to the person you are talking to, without burning the bridge by asking for the wrong thing. You should absolutely try to get into a conversation with your potential investor and show him the nice way that you understand your business model and market. Ask for input, ask for intros, but don’t pitch too early. Trust me, even the VC will be annoyed being pitched the 5th seed deal at an event when it is quite obvious that he only does later stage. Also – once you have established a couple of ties with people in the investment community, it is a lot easier to actually fundraise when you need to.

But I need the money!

Of course, you need to pitch investors like there’s no tomorrow as soon as you need to close a round (start 6 months earlier). However, if you took the right precautions and already know a couple of great people that give you lots of input, it is a much easier to say “we want to take this to the next level – are you in?”. In my opinion, it is very important to be out there and let people know about your business so you are not a totally new face when it comes to your round. When you are able to show people that you know how to turn corners, pivot, and close gaps they identify in your strategy, they will trust you much more as an entrepreneur. And if you have never formally pitched them before, they are only now really seeing you as an investment opportunity – and you can start on the top of their pile. The right pile.

At the end of the day, I’ve really come to believe that you can’t predict success based on where a missile is pointed pre-launch.  Instead you have to assess the quality of the targeting system (the team) and the density/size of targets (the market). And hope that the missile you launch finds a true target – rather than a decoy…

via Redeye VC: Founders and Heat Seeking Missiles.

Pretty good post by Josh Kopelman about pivoting – in the right direction.

We saw teams that presented mobile health insurance (through an MVNO setting) in Africa, a coffee machine taking unroasted beans as an input (dying for a sample machine!), cardboard wheels to lug heavy objects (hello ikea), plants and mechanics combined to provide air conditioning (the charismatic winning team), and smart metering technology (focused on design and user experience). No internet businesses, but they listened to my presentation anyways:

I did not really have to debate getting a MacBook Pro, because they are simply the best made laptops. I was just a bit curious about the choice between a stock 13″ model and a somewhat higher specced 15″ with a high definition, matte screen. I bought the 13″, and I am quite sure it was the right decision if just for size and ability to carry. Still, the 15 inch matte screen is beautiful and way better to work on than the mirror mine carries – i hope there will one day be a 13″ high definition matte (if not Retina) screen available. I hope.

So, other than that it’s not really something to write home about – i work in webapps mostly, Chrome works nice on OsX (although it’s a bit buggier than on Windows), and Office for Mac is an incredible heap of user interface mishaps. As I said, nothing new.

One thing I can really recommend to switchers is to give up on any other machine for at least a couple of weeks to really get the hang of it. Otherwise, you will only be annoyed by the unusual keyboard and shortcut layout and some basic things like file handling, settings, and the like.

So, here are my favorite apps so far and what they replaced:

Texter –> Text Expander a little program that uses shortcuts to paste much needed snippets of texts. i use it for emails, forms, and cross-application error correction. Both work almost identically.
Notepad++ –> Notational Velocity the most awesome improvement, NV does exactly what I want – note-taking in pure text form, searchable and syncable through simplenote. And don’t tell me about evernote, way too much bloat.
Mesh –> Dropbox Mesh (Microsoft) is a bit cooler because it allows you more specific folder syncing, but Dropbox is just plain and simple, which I like. Also, the different way of handling files on Mac OS makes it the difference no problem.
Filezilla –> Transmit well, ftp. Whatever.
Win 7 snap –> Better Touch Tool this program that improves customisation for the magic mouse (ouch, RSI!) adds a little gem: the Win7 window snapping and full screen windows. I always thought Mac people had some kind of fetish for overlapping window soups, until I found out that you cant use full screen at all. Well, now you can.

Things i still use:

Office i hate it on Mac – moving to Gdocs more and more, especially to replace Excel. Plain and simple, i like. That said, someone told me Office for Mac 2011 would look  a lot like a real grown up office suite. There is a decent formula editor, ribbons, and not as many crashes. Not available yet, though.
Chrome Better and more advanced on Windows, but hey, it’s a browser.
VLC best video player for everything.

Things I am still looking for:

A jetpack and a time machine. Oh, my Mac has a time machine!

I moved into an awesome apartment with Nico, my old housemate from college. Islington, our neighbourhood, is packed with great places to go, be it for coffee, beers, or food. My commute is relatively painless (12 mins tube or 40 mins bus), I know a lot of people from college and grad school here, the sun is shining (and it’s below 30), and life is surprisingly not all that expensive. So, all is good. I will put up some pics and hopefully be blogging more, thanks for staying loyal!

I’ve been busy at work, moving in, getting set up, meeting people – London is giving me an incredible welcome, I am very happy here. You’ve got to love it.

You’ve Got to Love London from Alex Silver on Vimeo. HT/Roitsch