Be a better entrepreneur every week.

Hey, Creators!

March was certainly full of madness this week. (Raise your hand if you’re still recovering from one hour of lost sleep and St. Peter’s busting your bracket by pulling off major upsets ✋.)

The perfect reset? Channeling your energy into creating something awesome. We hope today’s newsletter is the perfect pick-me-up—let’s get to it.

(Credit: Tenor)

NSFW: Not suited for work

Sure, we’ve all fantasized about quitting a job, retiring early, or hitting pause on the daily grind to embark on an Eat, Pray, Love journey … but would you ever consider yourself “anti-work”?

Recently, the anti-work reform movement has gained serious traction in the U.S. and serves as a topic of particular popularity on Reddit, where /r/antiwork has amassed over 1.8M members. The community has been a rallying cry against exploitative work under capitalism and believes the traditional 40-hour work week is outdated—at one point, some members even flooded Kellogg’s job portal after the company tried to squash a union strike.

Contrary to the name, “anti-work” is not about being lazy or not working at all (though many have believed it to be a misnomer, flocking instead to /r/workreform). Instead, the movement supports organized labor, better working conditions, and higher wages.

These ideas may have felt fringe pre-COVID, but once the pandemic stripped away the pleasurable trappings of work as we knew it, folks were left wondering what it all meant. That dissatisfaction combined with the climate crisis, big feelings after the 2016 election, #MeToo, and a general ‘WTF is happening here?!’ has left thousands looking for things they can actually change.

That’s a lot to consider for entrepreneurs who may be considering quitting traditional 9-to-5s to build something from scratch. Thoughts? Weigh in on our Twitter poll.

If I could turn back time

Last week, the Senate approved legislation to make daylight saving time permanent by 2023. It's still unclear if the Democratic-led House will take up the measure and President Joe Biden hasn't offered his take yet. Other than a collective vibe shift when we “spring forward” into more daylight, what does it have to do with your business?

Some say it will boost the economy, make workers happier, and improve public health. Turns out, that might be a stretch. Scientists actually encourage sticking with standard time (i.e., brighter mornings, darker evenings) because it’s more in sync with our natural rhythms. Only time will tell.

How to validate your business idea

Prep Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour per task
​Yields: A clear direction for your business’s future

Once you’ve come up with your business idea, you want to conduct due diligence. Validating your idea reduces time wasted and maximizes your chance of success. Here are the steps:

1. Discover consumer interest: Use keyword research tools like GKP, Moz, or Keywords Everywhere to discover the search volume for keywords related to your ideas. Make sure to keep different types of search intent in mind!
    
2. Research your competitors: Figure out who your competitors are and their target market so you can identify any potential areas of opportunity. Find them by using Alexa Similar Sites and get a backstage look at how they operate with Branalyzer or SEMrush.
    
3. Determine long-term viability: Use Google Trends or tools like Trend Watchers to pinpoint whether your business idea has long-lasting potential as part of a growing market, or if it’s a trend that will die out in a couple of months or years. If there are lots of peaks and valleys, it’s volatile. If it’s on an upward trajectory, that’s a sign of stability.
    
4. Create an MVP: When Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone in the 2007 Apple keynote address, it didn’t actually work. He had a stash of extra iPhones on stage ready to swap in if the original one crashed. But like any good MVP (minimum viable product), it was still enough to get consumers excited and ready to buy. So create your own MVP! Don’t spend too much time or money on it—just make a bare-bones prototype to pique people’s interest. More on this next week.
    
5. Run surveys and customer interviews: One of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make is spending too much time building their product instead of selling it. Once you have your MVP, get it in front of your customers. How? Call them, text them, slide into their DMs, and conduct surveys using tools like Formly. Your surveys and interviews don’t have to be super formal—just start getting feedback! That feedback will determine whether your business idea has legs to stand on.

Other takeaways:

• Make sure you’re solving a problem you care about
• Don’t spend too much money while validating: don’t hire a branding professional, don’t spend on pay-per-click-ads—not at this stage
• Move quickly: what can you accomplish without spending weeks and months?
• Continue to collect audience feedback to improve the product to suit their needs

(Click to expand. Source: The State of Customer Service in 2022 [HubSpot Data])

At your service

Getting that coveted 5-star review requires companies to be on top of their game. But customer service was pretty rough for consumers during the peak of the pandemic, from long lines at grocery stores to hours spent on hold with airlines. Now that we’re (hopefully, maybe?) pulling out of this whole thing—there’s a new business opportunity: customer service training.

More businesses are putting an added focus on creating a solid customer experience. A new report by HubSpot reveals an influx of companies looking to up their customer support training. They found that investing in customer service is smart: around 50% of respondents saw exponential growth while simultaneously training their support agents several times a month. The two biggest customer service challenges for agent-level respondents at both high- and low-growth companies were not having enough time in the day to address problems and dealing with upset customers. Consumers also want a more personalized experience. You know, fewer chatbots and endlessly pressing “0” in a desperate attempt to talk with an actual human.

What’s more, customers expect more: 93% of customer service teams say customers have higher expectations than ever before. They also expect a response in minutes, not days—no pressure.

So our team asked Candice, AppSumo’s Director of Customer Experience, “What advice would you give to a company looking to improve their customer support?”

The answer? Invest in customer experience professionals! Candice says:

“I've seen quite a few companies address Customer Support as a humanized help center, but that is not where their value lies. Build a help center to address your most common questions and build a support team that is well-versed in the intricacies of your product and your audience!

Most anyone can answer an email; support professionals can diagnose issues (often before they're even communicated!), quickly and effectively communicate solutions with your customers, and suggest high-leverage developments to your product based on customer feedback.”

Got a question about your business that you'd like answered by an expert? Want to be featured as an entrepreneur? Have feedback for us? Reach out at mindyourbusiness@appsumo.com.

Until next time! Mind your business.

—The MYB Team

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