创业与商业blog.freshdesk.com
HN 上的一条评论如何让我辞职并创办公司
How a simple comment on Hacker News made me quit my job and launch a startup
2011 — 2012，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Freshdesk 创始人讲述创业故事：一条 Hacker News 评论点醒他们，让他们放弃工作、在印度创办客户支持软件公司。文章分享了倾听市场、贴近客户发现真实需求，以及以极低成本运营的经验。
为什么经久不衰：它展示了产品/市场契合和客户开发的真实案例，也证明了硅谷之外同样能做出面向全球的产品，对创业者历久弥新。
HN 评论精选
贴近客户、发现真实需求才是产品/市场契合的关键，别迷恋花哨功能。
这个创业故事太棒了，恭喜！尤其打动我的是关于产品/市场契合的部分。他们真正去接触潜在客户，了解对方在用什么、遇到什么问题，很多情况下客户会清楚告诉你想要什么——这正是客户开发和精益创业的核心。他们还发现客户要的是解决核心问题，而不是把推文转成工单这类花哨功能。这是对技术人常被炫酷功能吸引、忘了客户只想把事办好的绝佳提醒。
mindcrime查看英文原文
That is one awesome story, congrats! I was especially struck by some of the stuff you said about product/market fit. To me, this bit is pure gold: We started engaging with our prospects on what they were currently using and what problems they were facing. In many cases people were telling us clearly what they really wanted to see in their customer support software. Yeah, that's the key, right? Actually engaging with the customers and finding out what problem they're really trying to solve. This cuts to the core of sgblank's Customer Development stuff and the whole Lean Startup movement. We were surprised to see that a lot of what customers wanted were their core problems solved and not some fancy features of supporting customers from their Facebook wall or converting tweets into customer support tickets. While we understand that these are definitely the way of the future, many many customers do not need this today. Heh, perfect example of how us techies can get caught upin the fancy, glitzy, "cool" stuff and maybe not realize that customers are not so concerned about that, as they are getting work done. Really, really good reminder to focus on the customer's needs! Another important learning for us was that customers did not want to be dealing with separate invoices for their helpdesk, their contact management software, for their customer feedback forums and customer satisfaction surveys. The SMB customer wants one invoice and as much functionality as possible in the customer relationship management solution. That's gold too... It reminds me that sometimes the "problem" isn't so much a technical problem, as a structural problem with the existing business arrangements. Wanting one invoice instead of 3 or 4 is a wonderful example of a problem an entrepreneur can solve, and it doesn't have anything to do with product features or technology. Reading this is like having a glass of cold water thrown in your face (well, for some of us!) We also identified underserved market segments (companies with multi-brand support requirements) and segments which were getting priced out because the current solutions were expensive. So we reprioritized our feature set to what we thought is the ideal product/market fit for us. This means that things like Twitter and Facebook integration can wait. But things like multiple support emails or support for SLAs and Business hours are in. Very inspiring. Thanks for sharing such details about your experience. I think a lot of people can learn something useful from your experience. You've certainly given me some thoughts to chew on.
印度创业公司靠产品而非外包立足，可能催生本土的硅谷文化。
Zoho 可能是印度最知名的科技创业公司，而且不是典型的呼叫中心或医疗转录业务。随着 Zoho 的核心员工陆续创办自己的公司，这可能在印度带来硅谷/YC 式的文化：成功不意味着找美国的大金主，而是做出全世界用户都愿意购买的产品。FreshDesk 继续加油。
chime查看英文原文
Zoho is most probably the best known tech startup from India that isn't in the typical call-center or medical transcription business. As key Zoho employees go on to build in their own companies, this could bring SV/YC culture in India where success does not mean finding a big check-writer from US but rather building products that users from around the world can use and buy. Keep up the good work FreshDesk.
不要以低价作为卖点，应聚焦目标客户和卓越体验。
一个忠告：千万不要把价格（'我们更便宜'）作为用户选择你的主要理由。被其他方案价格劝退的用户仍需要在价格之外认同你做的事，否则一旦竞争对手推出更便宜或更简单的方案，你就会失去他们。要下功夫选定目标客户（'我们不服务谁？'），别宣传价格，要宣传卓越的体验。
wensing查看英文原文
One word of caution--do not, I repeat do NOT, focus on price ("we are cheaper") as the main reason for people to use you. People who are "priced out" of other solutions still need to buy in to whatever you are doing, beyond price, or else you risk losing those customers to your competitors should your competitors offer a cheaper/simple plan. You're off to a great start (I just signed up for the beta), but make sure you do the hard work of selecting your target customer ("who will we NOT serve?") and don't preach price--preach superior experiences.
赞赏其倾听市场与极低运营成本，并好奇外国人在印度创业的门槛。
很棒的故事。你们倾听市场、在正确的时机做出正确的产品，简直完美。有一点让我注意：160 美元的办公场地？从你们办公室的照片看相当不错，烧钱率也很健康。外国人在印度开公司容易吗？
guylhem查看英文原文
Beautiful story. The way you listed to the market, built the right product in the right moment - just perfect. One think caught my eye: $160 for your office space?? From what I've seen on http://blog.freshdesk.com/freshdesk-gets-a-fresh-office it looks very decent. Your burn rate is also quite good. How easy is it for a non indian to start a company in India?
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