7 days to leave Hiveage | Hacker News Reader

7 days to leave Hiveage

dabase.com

20 pointsValentineC15 comments

I'm astonished that their response to this was to boot him off because this is "becoming a PR issue", and mystified as to why only 7 days notice was given.

On the PR issue side, this would seem to have generated quite a bit of negative press, more than one person's intemperately worded blog possibly could have. I see that some other commenters have taken exception to his tone, but there is another way of looking at that, which is to discount his opinion /because/ it is intemperately worded. The over-reaction on Hiveage's part, the short notice, and the issues with export are objective facts that are hard to ignore and surely carry more weight than the original opinions expressed.

On the notice side, seven days is too short, and all that has done is shone a light on their export issues, which will scare many people away now.

Hiveage claim 45,000+ businesses use their service - can this really be the first time they have had to deal with a grumpy so-and-so, and have they really never heard of the wisdom of not feeding trolls (not calling the guy a troll, just trying to see it as they evidently do), and the lesson of the Steisand effect?

Did they have a right to boot him off? Sure. Was it sensible? Not so much...

The PR issue they talk about is nothing new. I met OP at a Gopher meetup in Singapore last year, along with an ex-Hiveage guy. Even there he was complaining about Hiveage and how they had asked him to leave. I don’t want to go all ad hominem here but six months is a pretty long time to put up with a pita customer. The fact that I received emails asking to comment here supporting him probably says more about what’s going on than that blog post. It’s probably the final scene of a drawn out drama.

I’m not a Hiveage user and don’t know much about them, but I am involved with a B2C startup. This is the kind of nightmare I want to stay the hell away from.

P.S. Throwaway, for obvious reasons.

I side with the Startup. If the customers is not a good one for them, they have the same right to kick him off as much as the customer has the right to seek for another better service provider.

And his condescending tone it pretty obvious to me, in http://s.natalian.org/2015-06-17/7days.pdf (but maybe these are just cultural differences ;])

But boot the customers when they try to give constructive feedback on what they are missing on their blog?

That link http://dabase.com/blog/Hiveage_grievances/ is not bad publicity, the reaction to it is.

Not only that, but on a cursory glance, only the custom invoice templates per customer, and a contacts api seem to be the only issues much more than relatively quick wins...

One thing is obvious, their export functionality would definitely keep me from using their service...

Also 'quick wins' require effort, need documentation, needs testing, needs attention. It is not that is a feature request is simple or quick it should be added.

There are to less business that say NO to customers, when what they are asking for is not in the vision of the company.

It's all about tone. "Broken" and "Byzantine" are not words you use when you're giving constructive feedback.

Some businesses (people) will deflect your negativity and work to find your message. Others will argue back. Most will ignore you. All would be happier if you'd chill out, or go away.

When you show that you're not going away, and not going to get nicer, some businesses will fire you as a customer. I think that's all that happened here.

Yeah, this. Don't let a single client run your business and plan your schedule for you. Booting maybe was too much and was probably an emotional reaction but people make mistakes.

Maybe Hiveage's response could be better but it seems like the OP is a serial complainer. Just check his Twitter timeline: https://twitter.com/kaihendry

Sounds like a great guy to have as a customer. Too many people put up with broken UI without saying anything and as a result many web apps have horrible usability (and looks like Hiveage is one of them).

I think Hiveage's approach to this was unbelievably unprofessional and unjustified. Even if a customer is demanding, kicking them off your platform is not the answer.

That Kai Hendry looks like a right pain in the neck... [adds email address to blacklist of potential future startup]

Through all of this, I do understand where hiveage is coming from... just the same, one thing I do see from this, is that given their pretty poor export functionality, I'd probably avoid the service for that reason alone.

Note: I'm not a customer of hiveage or any of their competitors...

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9730573

(Not much of a discussion)

Could you imagine writing a blog post complaining about the quality of your phone, and having Apple show up and demanding you stop using their phones?

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