MyPunchblog

Most people look at companies like Facebook, MySpace — and even Punchbowl — and categorize them as media companies. Like the old media stalwarts (Hearst, Conde Nast etc) these new web companies are thought to be extensions of the same kind of business.

Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Founder & CEO) said this little gem in response to a statement by Kara Swisher at the AllThingsD conference yesterday:

Kara: you are a media company.

Mark: no we are a technology company. We focus on building technology.

Well said, Mark. I like to think of Punchbowl as a technology company too. We’re focused on building the best technology to enable people to plan a great celebration, and we’re building the technology that’s required to build our business as well. Sure, we may also develop new content and sell advertising (like a media company) but ultimately what sets us apart is the technology and user interface that our users love.

I thought this was an interesting tidbit from a guy who has built a pretty impressive technology company. Call him lucky, shrewd, or brash — but I respect Mark and the team at Facebook for the amazing technology company they have built.

If you’re a MyPunchbowl user and you need help, you’re likely to click on the “Help” link on the top of every page on the site. Most of the time, you’ll read our help section and get your answer. Some of the time you might click through to read our FAQ section to find the answer. And when that fails, you might want to just find someone to talk to. So you click down to the “Customer Support” FAQ where you will find the following:

Question: I need help! How do I reach customer support? 

Answer: Please contact us. We’re here to help (unless we are at a party). You can email us at support@punchbowlsoftware.com or call us at 650-814-3393.

Yes, that’s a real phone number. In fact, it’s my cell phone. The one that’s usually in my pocket. And I only carry one cell phone.

So why would I put my personal cell phone number out on the big, scary world wide web for all to see? Simply put: because I believe actual users are the lifeblood of a great business. And if you’re a customer of MyPunchbowl who takes the time to pick up the phone and (gasp) call a website, then I believe you should be able to talk to someone who can answer your question quickly and thoroughly.

I’ve had my cell phone number on MyPunchbowl for more than 2 years now. I’ve taken dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of phone calls from users all across this country (and a few foreign calls too). I’ve learned more about our market and users than any focus group, marketing survey or roundtable could have possibly provided. I’ve talked to real customers, with real needs and real problems. People who are actively using our site to plan their event.

There are countless reasons I answer the phone on a daily basis, and I thought I would share a few facts and figures about what I’ve learned over the last few years:

• First, and most importantly: You would be surprised at how *few* calls I get on an average week. If I were to average it out over the last few years, I would guess I take no more than 3 calls a week.
• The average call takes less than 3-5 minutes to resolve. Quick answers and a little explanation is all it usually takes.
• I’ve talked to users who are savvy and users who are new to the web. All kinds of users seem to pick up the phone and call — there doesn’t seem to be a pattern.
• Women call more than men — but that simply might be a reflection of our overall demographic.
• If I hear about a significant problem on our site, I can expect the wave of calls to start pretty quickly thereafter. As you can imagine, this gives me a early barometer reading if something is really wrong. Many times, by the time the calls would have started in mass we’ve addressed the issue on the site.
• People are very very (very!) appreciative of talking to a real person. Most of them are shocked that I’m real — and it’s always fun to admit at the end of the conversation that I’m the CEO of the company. The customers that call and talk to me end up being our most loyal users — and are largely to thank for our explosive growth as a company.
• I usually end the conversation by asking a few quick market questions (where are you from, what kind of event are you planning, how did you hear from us…). I don’t keep an official log of the answers, but I’ve certainly learned a lot about who is using our product and why they chose MyPunchbowl.

I could tell you many stories of people that I’ve helped — and if you ever meet someone who works at Punchbowl Software make sure to ask them about how I use the Bill Clinton technique in meetings (”I talked to Lisa in Spring Hollow, Nebraska today — and she gave me a great idea for that feature).

If you’re a CEO of an early-stage company and you’re reading this thinking “Is this really worth Matt’s time?”, let me ask you these simple questions:

1. Do you have your finger on the pulse of who used your product today and what they used it for?
2. What’s your first warning if there is something really wrong with your product?
3. Can you quickly name 10 customers that would act on your behalf as a customer reference?
4. What are you actively doing to cultivate a group of loyal, fervent users?
5. Is making customers happy a priority in your organization?

If you’re still not convinced that it’s worth your time, here’s a suggestion — start taking customer support calls and see how your answers change over two weeks. Go on — put your phone number on your site tomorrow and see what you learn in your first 10 phone calls.

Don’t be afraid to talk to your customers: as Cathy in Fremont, CA just told me a few minutes ago “I will be a loyal MyPunchbowl user forever and tell all of my friends about this site just because you took two minutes to talk to me tonight. Thank you!”

No, thank you Cathy. You’re the reason I answer the phone.

A handful of months ago, we were fortunate to be featured in INC Magazine. It was a one page article, all about Punchbowl Software. INC Magazine has pretty good national circulation (a few million) so we got lots of inbound inquiries and notes of congratulations. One in particular stood out — from a company that we had never heard of called “Roaring Lion Energy Drink.”

Sean Hackney of Roaring Lion wrote: “Matt & Sean - I saw your article in INC & thought you might need some energy to put you over the top of your investment goal. Very best of luck. We know your struggle - started with $62K and now are #2 behind Red Bull in Bar & Nightclub sales. Stay at it. Cheers!” You can’t imagine my surprise when I picked up the box that was delivered by UPS – Roaring Lion had sent us AN ENTIRE CASE of Roaring Lion energy drink.

What Sean H. doesn’t know is that his gift has become legend in the the land of Punchbowl. Our Director of Engineering is practically addicted to Roaring Lion — and sometimes gets a scary look in his eyes if he hasn’t had his fix. He’s been known to drink Roaring Lion in the morning, noon, and night, and he savors every last drop.

Thanks to Sean and the team at Roaring Lion for reaching out to us and sending such an awesome gift. We’re now loyal Roaring Lion drinkers and we’ll help spread the word in Boston.

But now we have a problem — we are out of Roaring Lion. PANIC! What should we do? How will we go on? Our productivity has slowed to a standstill and our energy is at an all-time low… it’s not clear where we can buy any of this amazing energy drink. HELP US ROARING LION! WON’T YOU SEND US ANOTHER CASE?

Here’s our Director of Engineering (Blake) enjoying some Roaring Lion and yours truly with the note they sent us.

Here’s Blake enjoying some RLED (Roaring Lion Energy Drink) with his feline friend:

Last night I attended the PopSignal event at Tequila Rain (near Fenway Park). The PopSignal event is a gathering of tech and web like-minded people in Boston. Here are a few observations from last night:

1) Venue: Tequila Rain is a great place to have an event. It is large enough to hold more than 500 people, the bar is very accessible, and the waitstaff and friendly and helpful. I’m looking forward to the time when MyPunchbowl holds our own event at Tequila Rain. Great spot.

2) Boston CEO’s: I was lucky enough to have some significant time with a few CEO’s that I really really respect. It’s not every day you get to have a conversation with Dharmesh Shah (Hubspot) AND Jon Radoff (gamerDNA) at the same time. Both of these guys have had multiple successful startups, and the tidbits of wisdom that they shared with me in those few minutes were invaluable. Guys like Dharmesh and Jon are what makes the Boston startup scene so rewarding for me.

3) The new “cool” metric: I overheard quite a few conversations where people were comparing number of Twitter followers. No offense intended, but it was kind of like watching a bunch of kids brag about how many baseball cards they have in their collection. Apparently, the new way that you know if you are cool is to have thousands of followers on Twitter. I just checked: I have 72. Enough said.

4) Recruiting is easy when you wear a sticker that says “I’m hiring”: Apparently, my idea to wear a sticker that said “I’m hiring” was unique. It was also pretty effective. I found a bunch of potential employees among the crowd and had some significant conversations with some nice people. If I met you last night and we talked about a position at Punchbowl Software: email me your resume today!

5) Popularity of MyPunchbowl: When I used to go to these types of events two years ago, I’d have to explain what MyPunchbowl.com was all about. Last night, about every other person I spoke with mentioned that they had just used MyPunchbowl recently — it was pretty amazing, and pretty humbling.

It was a great event last night. Congrats to the guys at PopSignal. They pulled off one of the best events I’ve been to in Boston in a long time.

Those that live and breathe Web 2.0 know the guys at 37 Signals write a blog about design and simplicity. It’s called “Signal to Noise” and it’s read by tens of thousands of bleeding edge designers and web programmers every day.

37 Signals is a company that does some neat office productivity apps — including Campfire (groupchat) and Basecamp (project management) — both of which we use at Punchbowl Software. The designers at 37 Signals believe in simple web apps that get the job done rather than over-complicated apps that have lots of features. The “Signal to Noise” blog is about simplicity in design, and they seek submissions from the community at large.

A few months ago, I sent them a screenshot of our new theme picker. I didn’t hear anything back from them, so I assumed it fell into the black hole. But just last week, a few of these bleeding edge folks emailed me to let me know that we had been featured on the 37 Signals blog. I don’t expect tons of traffic on our site as a result of this mention, but it is neat to be featured on the cool kids blog. Here’s a screenshot from the blog post (click on the picture to see the actual blog entry):

Thanks to 37 Signals for including MyPunchbowl — it’s nice to have our design work recognized by people “in the know.”

Since I started MyPunchbowl.com a few years ago, I’ve noticed a few times where I’ve felt “in over my head.” Sometimes it’s when I have a million things coming at me at once (like this week) and I have to brutally prioritize my list of to-do’s. Other times it’s when I’m in a high-level meeting with an investor or potential partner and I feel overwhelmed by the importance of presenting MyPunchbowl well. Other days I can feel overwhelmed by the reality that our employees and contractors have put their faith and livelihood into Punchbowl Software.

Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge Capital Partners) wrote about this phenomenon today, and specific passages really struck a chord with me.  I remember in the early days of Punchbowl a lot of nights as Jeff describes in his blog post: “I would come home at night, shake my head as I recounted to my wife the decisions I was responsible for making, and reflect that I really had no idea what I was doing.”

Jeff continues his blog post with a description of the 80/20 rule for entrepreneurs: 80% of the time you should be in control of what you’re doing, and 20% of the time you should be in over your head.

I like the spirit of this 80/20 rule, but I would amend it a little. For me, I think it’s important to concentrate the feeling of being in over my head into a burst. I think it’s important that once in a while — for a stretch of a few days in a row – to push myself out of my comfort zone and feel in over my head. Sometimes this will take the form of attending a conference where I have to do a lot of meet and greet with executives way over my level, and sometimes it takes the form of tackling a really hairy product or technical issue with our development team. The key for me is to concentrate that feeling of being “in over my head” into a few specific days, and then get back to the tasks and objectives that I want to achieve for the month.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you never feel “in over your head” then do whatever it takes to stretch yourself to that place. It’s not comfortable while you’re there, but soon you’ll look back and see how far you’ve come, who you’ve met, and what you’ve learned.

Thanks to Jeff Bussgang for tackling this important subject.

It’s Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 — the first Saturday in May. That means it’s Kentucky Derby Day.

As I sit in my home office on this rainy morning, my wife is downstairs preparing Mint Juleps and various southern foods (from the smells I’m guessing pulled chicken, corn bread, and sweet potato pie). My job is to help set up the chairs in front of the TV and nail down the betting rules. Here’s what I got so far:

$2 to enter. Pick a horse randomly from the hat. If you pick Big Brown, Colonel John or Pyro (one of the three top horses on the morning line), you have a choice to make:  

• For Big Brown: pay 5 times more (total bet $12) or choose another horse
• For Colonel John pay 3 times more (total bet $8) or choose another horse
• For Pyro: pay 2 times more (total bet $6) or choose another horse 

3^rd place: Double total bet, 2^nd place: Triple total bet, 1^st place: Remaining pot
A few of the Punchbowlers will be coming over to the house this afternoon (it’s not a required company event like our annual Groundhog Day Party but they’re coming anyway!) Should be a fun afternoon. MyPunchbowl was very useful for our online invitations and potluck coordination. Damn, I wish we could have purchased Kentucky Derby party supplies through MyPunchbowl. Someday….

Whether you’re having a party or not, turn on the TV around 6pm EST (NBC) for the best two minutes in sports. See it once and you’ll be hooked. Happy Kentucky Derby Day!

I’m taking some time over the next week to unplug from the office. I’ll be shutting down completely, not reading emails or connected to the web world….

In the meantime, here are a few related blog posts to read:

Need perspective? Then go on vacation

Why NOT to work on vacation

I’ll be back in about a week. Until then, I’ll be here:

Have a great week!

I get bombarded from outsourcing companies all of the time. Some are professional requests, some are more salesy, and some are downright pushy. I usually delete most of them, but this one (that I got last week) was too good/funny not to post. Read carefully.

Sir, this is Jahangir from Art n Design. We are the team of expert freelancers, we know the value of time and professionalism. We are agree on all of your terms and conditions. We’ll sign the contracts with you and then move forward. Give us a chance to proof ourself. We are young innovative and professional. We have worked in Professional environments and know how to deal with the things even in tough deadlines. I can provide you samples on Ruby on Rail if there is a chance to get some freelance work. We can work on any terms and conditions with acceptable prices.

My favorite line: “Give us a chance to proof ourself.” Maybe we should hire them for editorial.

I’m really proud of the announcement we made this morning — Punchbowl and Kayak.com have teamed up to offer a party planning travel center on MyPunchbowl.com. The team at Kayak has been great to work with, and we’re really happy to offer travel services right alongside our event planning toolset.

Here’s the press release we issued this morning:

MyPunchbowl.com and Kayak.com Launch Party Planning Travel Center
MyPunchbowl adds Kayak.com travel search capabilities in time for graduation party planning.

Framingham, Mass (PRWEB) April 15, 2008 — According to the U.S Census, more than 6 million students will graduate from college and high school this academic year. For many families, a graduation provides a reason to celebrate - but it also presents coordination headaches to plan the party and get everyone to the event destination.

Today, MyPunchbowl.com a leader in online event and party planning, has answered these needs with the launch of a new party planning travel center powered by Kayak.com, the world’s largest travel site. Kayak.com’s award-winning search functionality has been added to MyPunchbowl and provides quick access to the most comprehensive travel search on the Web. Party planners and goers can now search prices and availability for hundreds of airlines, more than 100,000 hotels and all major rental car brands without ever leaving MyPunchbowl.com.

“Lots of our users are researching trips for events such as graduations and family reunions and we are pleased to bring the power of Kayak.com straight to the party planning source,” said Paul English, CTO and co-founder of Kayak.com. “In this difficult economic climate, many travelers may need to price a trip before replying to an online invitation and now these consumers simply and quickly use the Kayak.com search widget to research prices and availability without leaving MyPunchbowl.com.”

The MyPunchbowl Travel Center includes all of the core features that are available on Kayak.com, plus:
• Event hosts can search flights, cars, and hotels directly from their MyPunchbowl account
• Event guests have travel search capabilities directly within the MyPunchbowl save the date or online invitation
• A simple option enables hosts to choose whether or not to display the travel center on the guest view

“Our new travel center furthers our goal to be the leader in end to end party planning online by integrating Kayak.com’s travel search technology within the site,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “Like MyPunchbowl, Kayak.com makes planning travel easier by searching hundreds of travel sites for prices and availability, and providing all the tools and content a traveler needs to make an informed decision about their purchase. Together, Kayak.com and MyPunchbowl make attending an event even easier.”

MyPunchbowl offers a modern, user-friendly interface that adapts to the party planning needs of the host. Unique features such as “Pick a Date” and “Party Checklist” along with online invitations help hosts with coordination and logistics through every stage of party planning. MyPunchbowl is the perfect site for planning a graduation party, birthday party, or important life milestone celebration.

To view the MyPunchbowl Travel Center, signup for a free account at http://www.mypunchbowl.com

About Punchbowl Software
Punchbowl Software was founded by software and user interface experts Matt Douglas and Sean Conta. They were frustrated with the available methods for planning an event or party and knew there had to be a better way. Matt was previously in senior management positions at Bose Corporation and Adobe Systems. Sean has held positions at Zildjian Cymbals and Innoveer Solutions as a user-experience specialist. The company is located in Framingham, MA in the heart of the Metrowest technology center of Boston and is backed by Intel Capital. To learn more and sign up for a free account, visit http://www.mypunchbowl.com

About Kayak.com
Kayak.com, the largest Travel 2.0 site in the world, is a global Internet media company operating Kayak.com, Sidestep.com, TravelPost.com and TravelSearch.com. Kayak.com and SideStep.com display results from more than 400 travel sites, providing prices and itineraries for hundreds of airlines, more than 100,000 hotels, all leading rental car companies and 18 cruise lines. Kayak.com has won more awards since launch than any other travel site including “100 Best Products of 2007″ by PC World; “25 Sites We Can’t Live Without” by TIME Magazine; “Best Search Engine” by the Associated Press; and “Best of the Web” by BusinessWeek, Forbes.com and US News & World Report. Launched in 2005 by co-founders of Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia, Kayak.com’s investors include General Catalyst Partners, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, Oak Investment Partners, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners and America Online, Inc. Kayak.com has sites in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. For more information, visit www.Kayak.com.

For more information about MyPunchbowl.com, please contact:
Matt Douglas
Punchbowl Software   
650-814-3393     

For more information about Kayak.com, please contact:
Kellie Pelletier   
Kayak.com   
203-899-3111   
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