Any news from Doug and company?

Hopefully this is not the end…

Telerama is making that impossible with virtually nonexistent contact ability for normal or emergency customer service. Their email support function does not work either. No matter their great history, there is no excuse for treating customers this way.

Why don’t you try to access my Telerama web page right now? Ha-ha!

Just recently and last year, I have had to beat on them to accept my payment (via CC). I have had to fight to pay them and it still has not gone through after 2 months this time. How can you stay in business or increase business that way?

As a note to peterb’s comments, I called them a couple of years ago looking for a speaker for my Rotary club. That is a great chance to get out and tell people you are there and what you have to offer. If nothing else, they had great customer support (when they weren’t BSing about why they were down). They never returned my phone call. One of the great causes of failures wasn’t the number of guys, but the failure to realize that you were in fact in business and needed to do business. The old economic system never died, the dot coms only provided a new business that ultimately had to deal with customers — something they never got good at.

To peterb: hello — you helped me out years ago with some early web sites and lots of technical issues. Good to “hear” your voice out there.

You’re right about my use of “Gal” for HR. I was trying to make a joke, but since it’s a joke based on stereotypes, it doesn’t really work. It’s tangential to my point, so I’ve changed it.

I stand by Guy though. The people you hire to fill these roles are Guys. Even if they’re women.

I respect Dee very much, but my central point is that anyone you have doing more than one of these roles isn’t a Guy. They’re just a guy. Your Guy doesn’t learn on the job: you hired them because they were already an expert.

That Doug was willing to hire people (like me, like Chris, and like Dee) who didn’t start out as domain experts certainly made it a special place to work.

-peter

Also, most likely Doug was the one that put me on this career path, interesting as I think back on it. Thanks Pete.

I think what’s is also worth pointing out is that Doug would often let people rise as high as they wanted to. The aforementioned Dee started out as a receptionist after all. She had no knowledge of computers, networking, or the internet beyond what she saw on my computer at home. That Doug, or any one for that matter, would let someone rise as high as their competence would allow them is remarkable. Of course, het got burned by this a number of times and one of the side effects of this is that the people he brought in started to feel they had more than just an employee’s interest in the company. I personally believe that when this happened is when Doug started forcing people out – it was his company after all and if he wasn’t going to share it with VC (or even get a loan) I really doubt he was going to share it with employees.

This being said, Doug is a remarkably resourceful and intelligent person who has, for all intents and purposes, been able to get exactly what he wanted out of Telerama. He was able to do it using highly unconventional methods and hires. In the process he put a lot of people onto career paths they might have never had the opportunity to explore otherwise.

Personally, I do feel I owe Doug (and Pete) and debt of gratitude for getting me on my career path. Even if I do hate computers.

Otherwise, this is all very sound advice.