Freshdesk Introduces MobiHelp: A Help Desk for Mobile Apps

Freshdesk Introduces MobiHelp: A Help Desk for Mobile Apps
What Should You Expect to Pay for a Content Writing Service?
Compassion Impacts Small Business Success
The Battered Incomes of the Self Employed
Youngest Funded Entrepreneur Raises $1 Million by Age 16

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 01:00 PM PST

Mobile app developers have to put in a lot of work to not only create apps, but also to maintain and fix any problems along the way. The problem for many is finding a way to receive customer feedback without negatively impacting the app's public reputation. That's why help desk provider Freshdesk developed its new in-app solution, MobiHelp.

Said Girish Mathrubootham, Freshdesk’s CEO:

"Today, the most common mechanism to leave feedback is in the App Store. Very few people seek out the app maker to reach out for questions or concerns. They just delete the application and leave a bad rating. Because stars don’t give you much to work from as a developer, we came up with a way to provide users with the ability to offer actionable feedback instead of judgmental feedback."

MobiHelp serves as an in-app help desk, offering app users an easy way to get in touch with the developer if they have any questions about the app or run into any problems they'd like to report. In addition to giving users a way to reach developers with feedback, MobiHelp also monitors the app for crashes and then sends reports directly to the developer so that they can fix code at the first sign of problems.

The idea for MobiHelp came to the team at Freshdesk about six months ago. The product did go through some beta testing with Freshdesk users who develop apps.

From that testing, Mathrubootham said that users wanted the interface to be simple and uncluttered, focused on having a conversation rather than offering different support tickets, statuses and closing issues.

In the above photo, the left side shows what an app customer might see when reporting an issue to the developer, while the right side shows what the developer's Freshdesk dashboard might look like when sorting through tickets and requests.

Freshdesk is based out of Chennai, India and also has offices in Walnut, California. The company also has products aimed at helping companies manage help desk applications and providing customer support online.

MobiHelp is currently free for developers. Setting it up requires adding one line of code that links the app to your Freshdesk account.

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What Should You Expect to Pay for a Content Writing Service?

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST

What does a content writing service cost? How much should you pay for a blog post? For small business owners, every penny counts. But, if you've done any research on writing services, you've probably noticed that prices are all over the map.

Let's look at five types of content writing services, the costs, pros and cons, and more.

The 'Walmarts' of Copywriting

I'll begin with this category of copywriting services because they're probably the most popular. And, they're popular for a reason. I'm referring to sites like Writer Access, Text Broker, and Ecopywriters. These sites crank out millions of words at very reasonable rates. They're reliable and affordable.

Cost: Cheap! Textbroker will sell a 300-word "average" ranked piece for $5.10. That will be about $15 at Writer Access, and $15-$30 at Ecopywriters.

Pros: You can get some great deals. Plus, you can be confident that you wont be scammed. These sites have been vetted time and time again.

Cons: Even if writers are "guaranteed" to be native English speakers, you can never know for sure. I'm so careful about who I hire, but even I've been tricked by W-9 forms from overseas writers. Also, you're probably not going to get anything great – even if it is a bargain.

Remember, this is the 'Walmart' class of services: affordable, basic, no flair.

Independent Freelancers

I can only make general claims about a group this big. Freelancers can be very hit or miss. But, with sites like Guru.com available as resources, you can play things pretty safe and hire a well-established, highly rated freelancer.

Cost: Again, cost can be all over the map. Writers may charge by the word, project, or hours. Always get an estimate before you begin. You might pay anywhere from 2 cents to 30 cents per word, which would make a 300-word blog post $6-$90. Or more.

Pros: Talk about personalized service. When you work with a freelancer, there are no go-betweens. You get exactly what you want and develop a relationship with another person – not a faceless 'Walmart' copywriting service.

Cons: Freelancers don't always have editors. Also, they go through "feast or famine" stages (I know because I used to be one). And, when they're swamped with work, you might have to wait.

Oversea Services

I've yet to find a good reason for using these services. These services are largely based in India and southeast Asia. You see them advertised all the time by AdWords or on less reputable business sites.

Cost: Dirt cheap. Blog posts come at $5-$10 or less. They look like it, too.

Pros: You pay next to nothing.

Cons: You get next to nothing. Also, frustrating communication, time zone difficulties, international transaction fees, and fly-by-night business strategies plague these services with issues.

*I will point out that there are plenty of fluent English speaking writers overseas. The issue is finding them among the sea of options.

Marketing Agencies

If you're already using a marketing agency, you might want to see if they can provide you with copywriting services, too. Most marketing agencies do. You've already gone through all of the getting-to-know-you work. Why do that all over again?

Cost: High. Marketing agencies usually charge top dollar for their content. Also, your marketing agency might be outsourcing your content to a boutique writing service (covered next), which means you pay a high price plus markup.

Pros: Typically very high quality. Your content gets rolled in with your regular bill. No need for a new account.

Cons: High pricing is definitely a drawback. Also, you don't know exactly who is writing your content (the marketing agency could be outsourcing it).

Boutique Writing Services

These writing services usually have about 7-20 writers, each with their own niches, and crank out 25-30 thousand words per day. Add a couple of editors, an SEO guru, and someone to run it all, and you're in business. These companies are great to work for if you need top-quality content. (Disclosure: I operate this type of business.)

Cost: Again, cost ranges, but is generally in the middle to high range.

Pros: You get one-on-one attention, and fast turn-around. Also, you get to work with one writer for all of your needs. Expect competitive pricing and freebies.

Cons: Boutique writing services don't necessarily have the most knowledge about your industry (compared to you, that is), but they are great researchers.

What kind of writing service do you use or are you still writing your own content?

Writer Photo via Shutterstock

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Compassion Impacts Small Business Success

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST

Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks International and author of, "It's Not About the Coffee:

"It's impossible to lead in business – or in life – unless you genuinely care about people. That's what matters. Period."

It’s not about the coffee. Business leading with caring about it’s people not the product. A very smart, sound and profound business model for any business. How much coffee do you think Starbucks has sold as a result of this philosophy?

Benefits of Running a Small Business

Owning a small business and being the chief everything officer most of the time means having more flexibility to take action quickly and make decisions without a lot of red tape and flagpoles. Small businesses have the ability to react and respond quickly to opportunities for showing compassion in action.

Showing The Power of Kindness and Compassion

Your personal branding is the way to present and market yourself, stand out and get noticed. You are your business and your business is an extension of you. Being an out front leader allows customers and community to get more personal with you and your business via everything that you do in social marketing, blogging, video and community involvement.

Nothing Brands, Bonds and Sells Better Than Compassion

There are amazing examples of how kindness and compassion build trust, credibility and authenticity. These are the magnets that attract repeat business, referrals and new customers.

Check out compassionate businesses and their leaders in action from the Compassionate Action Network. The CAN dedicates itself to:

“Nurturing compassion and compassionate action in our children, ourselves, and our world, and engage in compassionate action locally and globally.”

How Human Brands Thrive

Trendwatching highlighted RAK, random acts of kindness, and how kind, human brands thrive in our connected economy:

“For brands, increasingly open communications both with and between consumers (especially online), means that it’s never been easier to surprise and delight audiences by sending gifts, responding to publicly expressed moods or just showing that they care.”

Compassionate businesses have a few simple and powerful things in common:

They care about and put people first.
They care about community.
They care about the greater good.
They care about serving others.
Their leaders are out front leaders.

Author, spiritual icon and peace activist, Deepok Chopra, talks about the:

“. . .lack of engagement and compassion in business costing U.S. businesses 358 billion a year.”

“Compassionate careerist“, mom and family blogger Stacey Hawley says:

“Compassionate careerists avoid complaining and criticism. They don’t whine or walk away from problems. They want to be part of the solution; not part of the problem. They strive for meaning in their work. They treat others as they want to be treated. They want their opinions to be heard – all the way to the top.”

There is a renewed enthusiasm, priority and need for meaning in life. We want to be happy, make a difference, be a part of the solution and it begins with showing compassion.

Any business that makes compassion an integral part of their business model, will succeed, thrive and build a lasting legacy.

How are you showing compassion in action in your life and business?

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The Battered Incomes of the Self Employed

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 05:00 AM PST

Self-employed people have more variable income than those who work for others, economic theory explains. When times are good, their earnings often rise more than the incomes of those receiving a paycheck. But when times are bad, their pay takes a bigger hit.

The 2010 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances – a triennial survey of a random sample of American households conducted for the Fed by a University of Chicago-based survey research group – shows the large drop in self-employment income that occurred during the recent economic downturn.

According to analysis conducted by Federal Reserve economists Jesse Bricker, Arthur Kennickell, Kevin Moore, and John Sabelhaus, median income declined nearly 6 percent in real terms between 2007 and 2010 for families headed by a wage or salary worker, but nearly 19 percent for those headed by a self-employed person.

Average income was little better. For households headed by a wage employed person, mean income in 2010 was 97 percent of what it was in 2007, when measured in inflation-adjusted terms. But for households with a self-employed head, it was only 74 percent of its level three years earlier.

Median Household Income in Thousands of 2010 Dollars

Source: Created from data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances

The figure above shows the median income for the two types of households in the last four FRSCFs. As you can clearly see, the income of households with a self-employed head contracted severely between 2007 and 2010 and more than erased the gains made between 2004 and 2007. Moreover, the gap in median income between self-employed households and households employed by others shrank considerably between 2007 and 2010.

The economics here are straightforward. It's not easy for companies to cut salaries. Not only are the size of paychecks sometimes governed by contracts, but companies don't like risking the hit to worker performance that comes when people see their wages contract.

The self-employed, however, take their compensation in the form of profits – the difference between their revenues and their costs. If their revenues shrink and they can't cut costs by an equivalent amount, their incomes fall.

One effect of the Great Recession is a decline in the fraction of income that American households receive from running their own businesses. As the Fed economists who analyzed the 2010 FRSCF explain, the fraction of household income that comes from ownership of businesses and farms and self-employment dropped to 12.2 percent in 2010 from 13.6 percent in 2007.

While the fraction coming from interest and dividends remained constant, the share coming from wages and salaries, social security, pension, other retirement income and other transfer of income increased.

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Youngest Funded Entrepreneur Raises $1 Million by Age 16

Posted: 12 Nov 2012 02:30 AM PST

If you think your business startup can never get off the ground or that you need years of experience and a lifetime of connections to get others to pay attention to you, the story of 16-year-old Nick D'Alosio will change your mind. The London-based teenager has received funding from the likes of Zynga founder Marc Pincus, actor Ashton Kutcher, and artist and Beatle widow Yoko Ono totaling $1 million in startup capital so far. But you don’t need to get endorsements from celebrities to launch your next great business. Our roundup looks at D'Alosio’s success and then gives tips on how other entrepreneurs can find it too.

Getting the Ball Rolling

Boy wonder. To be accurate, D'Alosio was even younger, just 15, when he received his first $300,000 from Horizons Ventures, also an investor in companies like Facebook and Spotify. D’Alosio got these investments, of course, not just because of connections but because these investors and others were interested in an application he had created called Trimit and later Summly that summarizes online news on mobile devices. The best takeaway for any investor: Create a product or service in demand first. Yahoo! Small Business Advisor

Book smarts. Some entrepreneurs take plenty of training courses and read lots of books to learn how to start and run their business better…and to learn how to be a better entrepreneur. While education is important, it may be unwise to rely on those books and courses for everything you need to know to get a business started, warns online entrepreneur Steve Chou. Brave words for a guy who sells his own training course for starting an online business, but check out more of what Steve has to say. My Wife Quit Her Job

The curiosity key. The real key to entrepreneurial success maybe something completely different than the level of knowledge you possess, blogs businesswoman and writer Catarina Alexon. In this post, she shares thoughts from Steve Blank, serial entrepreneur and Stanford consulting associate professor, about the characteristic that is most important to entrepreneurs. Catarina’s World

Watching for Obstacles Ahead

Bad vibes. Conversely, there are some things that can clearly hamper your startup success, and your success as an entrepreneur for that matter. Pay close attention to this simple list of “5 Reasons Why You Will Never Startup.” Some of these items may take you by surprise, since they are often the opposite of the qualities we normally associate with success. If you find some of these in your own startup preparations, don’t stress. Use this list as a road map for change. Rahul Varshneya

Startup chasm. No, you won’t find this landmark on any map, but you will discover it in any graph reflecting the growth curve of a startup. As startup adviser Martin Zwilling explains, these chasms are waiting for entrepreneurs in every area of their company’s growth, including product development, marketing, sales, and customer support. Here are some thoughts on crossing the chasms that appear with every new startup challenge. Startup Professionals Musings

Keeping Track of Costs

Low cost launch. Of course, you don’t need Nick D'Alosio’s $1 million in investment capital to start a profitable business. Heck, even Nick didn’t have that when he started out. In this post, Deborah R. Humphrey gives us some thoughts on keeping costs low when launching a business. It’s a must read for entrepreneurs who want to get started but don’t have much money to spend. Expert Advice

Lean and mean. Any business can operate on a tight budget and reign in costs, even if it’s got plenty of capital to start with. But possibly the best time to be frugal is during the startup phase when you remain uncertain about the demand for your products and services and thus unsure of the revenue you can ultimately count on for your operations. Here are six tips that should help you keep costs under control, giving you more maneuverability as your business grows. SBA.gov

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