Bigstep's Andrew Beebe Talks About His Relentless Obsession with Customer Experience

Now it seems like everyone on this planet is offering free or
low-cost web sites to small businesses, but back when
Bigstep.com launched it was a pioneering proposition. So,
we've been looking forward to interviewing co-founder and
chairman Andrew Beebe in a big way. (Yup, that's him on the
cover of the Wall Street Journal today.) Here's what he told
us:

Q: Could you share your insights about how Bigstep.com has
been able to capture the small business market?

Beebe: Of course, I can’t give away all of our trade secrets!
[Laughs] I’m going to say a lot of things that sound
ridiculously over-simple; but actually, I think, are true.

We founded the company on a unique concept -- that a start up,
particularly one with young people with great ideas but not a
lot of experience, could win by serving only one customer. It
sounds like a ridiculously obvious point. But if you think
about it, a lot of companies will try and serve 10 different
customers. Or will try to launch a product rather than launch
a solution to a customer’s problem.

We don’t go after consumers. We don’t go after big businesses.
We don’t go after non-profits in southern India. We focus
solely and exclusively on small business. It does happen that
some consumers and some non-profits in southern India do use
Bigstep. When you have 180,000 businesses, you’re bound to
end up with a little diversity. But basically we’re focused
on small businesses.

It’s that level of focus and intensity -- and making it even
more focused on that level of business in the zero to 20
employee range -- that has allowed us to really nail it, in
the sense that we have. Customer focus -- that’s something we
breathe everyday. We‘re pretty proud of being customer
focused, especially in the world of software.

The second thing is probably a religious connection to our
customers. We are constantly getting with our customers day in
and day out. We have 150 people on staff and probably five or
six people who are exclusively focused on bring customers into
our offices every day and sitting down and videotaping them as
they play with the software, as they walk through different
sets of service.

We actually have one of these visibility labs where we can see
their face and see the screen at the same type so we can see
their expressions are as they click on different things. There
are moments where you can see where their eyes go, ”Oh, wow.”
Or “That’s just what I’ve been looking for.” What’s great
about that is we have a library of tapes of different types of
users’ reactions. But what’s even cooler is that customer
focus is ingrained in our staffers' experience. They go to
those meetings, sitting in the next room watching the customer
on the screen, even though we’re videotaping them. They can
watch the customer walk through the experience.

It’s that kind of focus on the customer and the user
experience that we haven’t let up on in two years. So that we
can stay really nailed on exactly what the customer wants.

We also have customer roundtables where we have six to 10
people in at a time. That’s a really neat environment where
you get this group dynamic of hearing them talk to one another
about how would you solve this problem? And what software do
you want us to build next? And what are the problems that we
aren’t solving with this set of features? Hearing them talk
about it together is astounding. Astounding to an engineer
but also to the marketing people who are trying reach out to
the next set of them.

The third thing is we have an honest relationship with our
customers. Another obvious point but, in fact, it’s pretty
hard to do when you’re missing deadlines and when you’re
slower in development than you want. It’s really hard to sort
of 'fess up and not to put a spin on it.

One of the things we realized early on is that a lot of
companies that were supposedly targeting small businesses were
extraordinarily disrespectful and weren’t really responding
honestly to the customer. They were putting a spin on what
product was coming out or why things were delayed. We have a
much more direct approach of saying, “Yeah, just like you,
we’re frustrated that this new functionality hasn’t come out”
or “one of the servers crashed.” We are very direct with our
customers about what’s going on.

Those were all painful times for us. But what was neat was
that in the long haul, the customers felt like they were going
through the process with us. They had a bit of shared sense
of ownership. I got dozens of emails saying, “So how did it
go? Is everything okay? Are you feeling better? Is the team
rested up?” It is a very inclusive relationship that we have
with these customers that we haven’t met.

Q: Looking over what the company has done in terms of
marketing, you have hit all the things that are key -- you
have good visibility in the press, you’ve run sweepstakes,
you’ve built up affiliates, you have great partners. It looks
like you and your fellow founders had a master plan -- not a
seat of the pants operation.

Beebe: It actually is pretty much exactly what we wanted to
try to build so far. I think we have a lot more to build in
terms of what we ultimately want. The customer-centered
company is the root of it. We knew that if we built that, then
all these other things like great partners coming to us would
follow. It’s hard because the market gets choppy and
investors get skittish. But not with us. Our investors have
stood by us. The company has continued to thrive, I think,
because we have that devotion to the customer. If we continue
to listen to them, they will set the vision for what we build
next.

Q: Bigstep.com is a very strong brand name. There are tons of
other companies out there trying to grab the small business
person. You are very focused and that seems to make all the
difference.

Beebe: People try to expand their market size and grow by
growing into new markets. Oftentimes if they stayed even more
focused on their current market, they would own more and more
of the market and reap more of the benefits. While perhaps
others are saying, “well, we used to be B-to-B and now we’re more
B2C and tomorrow we’ll be B2 whatever,” we are sticking to our
knitting saying, hey, yesterday we were looking for our
customers and tomorrow we’ll be looking for our customers.
Luckily, the small business market is massive. So that’s the
plan. That’s the way the plan’s always been. And hopefully
that’s the plan that will let us continue to be successful.

Q: What are you planning on doing in terms of marketing
efforts in the next few months? Any big campaigns?

Beebe: There’s a bunch of stuff that we’re working on right
now to show people how to take advantage of the holiday
season. Something that we’re trying to do is online sales in
the small business arena this year and most of that’s going to
come in the next three months. We’re trying to equip people
to be successful around that. That’s a lot about learning and
teaching since you need to walk the customers through what
other people have done to be successful. There’s going to be a
number of functionality things that you’ll be hearing about
but we can’t generally comment about new functionality yet.

Q: Will this campaign be primarily online?

Beebe: The promotional aspects of the campaign will be on and
offline.

Q: Can you give us an idea what the offline going to consist
of?

Beebe: Well, we’re not going to do any Super Bowl ads!
[Laughs] It’s probably going to be a bunch of unconventional
stuff, but we’re not public with it yet. So stay tuned.
Basically, we’re not flashy marketing glitz. We’re more about
talking to customers – where they are really going to be, what
they care about, getting answers. So you can’t expect
anything too splashy. It’s more down to earth, having a
conversation with the customer.