If you subscribe to our newsletter — which you do, right? — then you'll know that recently we've been thinking about conversations.
We're a small group making fun software for people, and we like to have conversations with those people; the lovely folks who like our take on blogging or our super-simple contact form, or who want a copy of the zine, or who just want to say hello. We love talking to these people.
But we are also a serious business, so we want to make sure that when someone reaches out to us — with a problem, with some need, or just with some love — that we, collectively, can see it and respond to it. You might call this "Customer Support", but I like to think of it as just... conversations. Just because you might pay us some money doesn't mean you are nothing but a customer to us. No sir! That's not the kind of relationship that a boutique shop like Good Enough plans to offer.
Regardless though, with our exit from the Maelstrom, and with each launch that adds to our constellation of wildly successful internet products, the need to be more serious about these conversations imposes ever further on our otherwise-bohemian organisational style.
But enough lyrical waffle; let me put it to you straight: having six people working in a single Fastmail inbox is not Good Enough.
We needed something better, and so we looked outward at what we could buy. Zendesk? HelpScout? HubSpot? Front? Missive? Every single one of these products is great, I'm sure, but also insanely expensive when all you actually want is just a better way for small groups to handle email together. These tools are a no-brainer, I'm sure, if you are a huge company selling Widget X and you know that for every $50 per month per support agent you're netting an extra $2000 in sales. But $50 per person per month is a lot of money for a small group of people with multiple responsibilities and a careful budget. And we think there are a lot of small groups like us out there, totally underserved by these Customer Support behemoths.
So, here we are, putting our flag in the ground. This situation is not Good Enough. But we are going to change that.
UPDATE: Introducing Jelly