Starting Up | HelpDocs Blog

Hire Vans and Sports Cars: The Two-Way Street of Customer Service

From the death of a loved one to losing your job, it’s fair to say Matt only wanted one of the “five most stressful life events” to happen this year. 🙈

Starting Up

How Service Saved Our House Buying Dream

Somewhere between sizing up kitchen worktops and the slow queue for mid-shop IKEA meatballs, it dawned on me: We’re buying a house. Wait, let me correct that. We’ve bought a house. I still can’t quite believe it. 3 months ago, my wife and I’d already written

Starting Up

Communicating through Emoji

If I’ve learned one thing during the 8 months I’ve spent following HelpDocs, it’s that this company is truly unique. The people here are even more so. If I was to go into detail about everything that makes them unique, I’d have a book. Probably multiple

Starting Up

Emerging From our Hiring Failures

Last time we tried to hire was a 💩show. So when Jake told me we were hiring again, I had two contradictory and gut-wrenching reactions: Excited relief, and overwhelming fear.

Remote Insights

HelpDocs Has Ruined Marketing for Me, and Here's Why I'm Grateful!

“If you ever need a marketing gig in the future you’re pretty fucked”, Jake remarked during a completely off-topic bout of lighthearted banter about work ethics. We often joke about things like hustle culture, working too hard, or not enough. You only put 12 hours in today? Pfft! Let’

Remote Insights

A Rose by any Other Name

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to chat with our customers and friends at Referral Rock, about all things referral marketing, customer success, and putting people first. It was enlightening, and while I’m a little awkward and massively introverted, I loved learning about the company and hearing

Starting Up

Customer-Centric Service isn't a Growth Hack

It was a rainy Sunday. My wife and I had spent the morning lazing in bed reading as the rain bucketed down outside. After a few hours of pleading puppy dog eyes, we eventually gave in to the demands of our 3-year-old cocker spaniel and took him to the local

Starting Up

Size isn’t Always Indicative of Size

We had a short debrief on Slack before Jake and Jarratt disappeared into the night, retreating back to their much-earned glasses of wine. I, on the other hand, got thinking about how the perception of fault and blame is attributed to small and large companies. Who says I don’t

Starting Up

Taking Responsibility for Other's Faults

Yesterday, I experienced my first moment of pure dread since joining the HelpDocs team. The stupid thing is, in hindsight, it wasn’t even that big a deal. It was 4:02pm—I know, because that’s what it says on Slack. Jake and Jarratt had signed off for the

SaaS Insights

Why ROI Isn’t Ingrained in Our DNA

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been struggling with measuring the ROI of my work. And it wasn’t until I brought it up with the rest of the team I realised I shouldn’t be trying to measure it at all. I’ll explain! It’s no secret

Starting Up

Hustling Hard for Happiness

49% of all working days lost in 2016-2017 were due to work-related stress, depression or anxiety. Let’s take a moment to think about that for a second. Work is the single biggest cause of stress for the UK population—though given recent events, I imagine global politics is running

Starting Up

What I Learned from Failing at Co-working

A couple of years ago, I took my first stab at co-working. I was a freelancer at the time, exploring new ways to build out a small network of contacts. Taking the advice of many a blog post that being around likeminded people would help, I decided to give it

Starting Up

Don't Preach to Teach If You Intend to Sell

I was reading a blog post earlier from a moderately well known social media company. The post, whilst framed as educational, was almost entirely dedicated to pedaling their wares and establishing the founder as a thought leader. Editor’s note: this post is a bit ranty, and a departure from

Starting Up

Hiring for Culture Fit and Hurting Hearts 💔

Who knew hiring as a small, bootstrapped team was so tough. A few months ago, we began our search for a Customer Success Manager. It was an entry-level position. The short version is we wanted someone to take the heat out of the relatively low (but still distracting) volume of

Starting Up

The Crappy Art of Rejecting Writers

Rejection is my biggest weakness. Whether it’s me saying no, or me on the receiving end, I’m just not good at it, at all. I can take criticism. I'm a pro at that, assuming the criticism is constructive and intended to better my work. But outright rejection just

Starting Up

When is a Startup no Longer a Startup?

When does a startup become a company? Is it a case of profitability? Team size? Revenue? It’s been on the front of my mind recently. Part of my job is to manage perceptions of HelpDocs as a brand, and I’m becoming more uncomfortable with the inferences that come

Product Insights

Not the Hardest Admission to Make (a Clickbait-Free Story)

I have to admit something. HelpDocs is not the only software your support teams will ever need. And we have no plans to be. As a marketer, it feels a bit strange to write about our limitations. In any other company, my job would be to gloss over them. Normally,

Starting Up

Why We're Not Marketing Our Enterprise Knowledge Base Software

When I first joined HelpDocs a few months ago, my experience with support docs, and enterprise knowledge base software was pretty limited. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in marketing in some form for many many years. I’ve worked in big data and enterprise companies. I have

Starting Up

Breaking the Bad Habit of Breaking Habits

Around 18 months ago, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and it made me feel sick. A couple of years before, I'd quit a 14-year smoking habit, and had replaced the behaviour with endless snacking. 🍿🍰🍩🍪 I’d spent those years munching on crisps, chocolate, biscuits and cakes,

Starting Up

Living up to Your Own Definition of Success

When I took the leap to go freelance, one of my first roles was helping flesh out the blog of a branding agency. The company I was working with, Motto, is a visionary agency who help their clients realise, embody, and communicate their purpose, vision, and values. Working closely with

Remote Insights

Delusions of Culture: Making Remote Work as a Small Team

Since working at HelpDocs the past few months, I’ve become a pro at explaining what remote work is and how it works. So much so, I’m thinking of adding it to my CV under “additional skills”.

Starting Up

Lessons From Carving Productively

A couple of years ago, I first wrote about venturing into the splintery world of woodcraft. I had no idea it would turn into an ongoing obsession. I had even less of an idea that some two years later my now fiancée, Cat, would be demanding my services as a

Starting Up

Organizing Our First Company Retreat as a Bootstrapped Remote Startup

For us the benefits of being a remote company are obvious. You can work when and where you’re most comfortable, you’re able to travel or spend time with family, and you can skip the office politics. But despite software making it easier than ever to feel connected while

Starting Up

How Being Rejected By Multiple Startup Accelerators Actually Helped Us

If you're anything like we are as startup founders, you'll have considered joining an accelerator program. At least once. I mean, it seems like a great deal, right? You get some money, some mentorship, and the chance to pitch a group of investors looking for the next big thing™️. And

Starting Up

How We Gained 2 Hours a Day by Experimenting With a New Startup Work Schedule

Getting in the zone with work has always been tough for us. Like many other startup founders, getting the most out of each day is crucial. It’s not about the number of hours either—it’s about getting the right work done and doing it to the best of