As some of you might guess, Quidzel is my side gig. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE doing this. I love doing production, debug, development, but most of all, I LOVE getting to talk with customers. Most of the time, there’s not too much need to interact, but when questions or problems arise, I always like those opportunities to help my customers out. I think my favorite memories so far have been turning bad situations into good ones. I’ll sometimes get an email to the effect of ‘It doesn’t work; give me my money back!!’ or something like that. My response tends to go like this: “Hi! I’m Sam! I’m so sorry you are having problems, and I’m here to help or get your refund…” Sometimes, all it takes is some guidance to get things working great; other times I have to send out replacements; and sometimes, I don’t hesitate to offer a return/refund. Where the joy comes in is when I do get it working for someone, sometimes after some effort, and what was initially a hard experience turns into a rewarding experience with the organic referrals that are the best form of marketing. I’ve tried some paid marketing, but have yet to figure out how to make the needle move more than just the organic referrals that people share after finding something that worked for them. When I get an opportunity to share with others what I do outside of work, I sense that joy rising up in that I’ve been able to help others.
If you are ever considering starting a small product manufacturing based ecommerce business (i.e. makerspace -> marketplace), as either a side venture or with the hopes of making it into something larger, I’d love to talk with you and share what has worked for me, and likewise, if you’ve got some suggestions for me on how I can serve you and/or others better, I’d love to hear from you!
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