10 Questions With… Rich Fialkoff of Chide.it
I’ve written a couple times before about a one question survey, even investigated different customer surveying models. Obviously, I’m a self-admitted fan of customer surveys. There are also different kinds of surveys for different audiences. On this blog I’ve mostly talked about surveys that fall in the “customer satisfaction” heading, but your customers are only one of your audiences and their satisfaction is only one measure of success (and frankly of interest to a limited, but important, audience).
I manage an incubator for high-growth technology companies. As a good portion of my funding comes ultimately from public sources, it’s important for me to be able to show the success of my program – what my funders might call “leverage”. So while I do some satisfaction surveying here and there, the majority of the surveys I perform with my customers (the entrepreneurs in my incubator) is geared toward capturing information to help prove the success of my program and the leverage on the public dollars entrusted in my program. I, along with my sister incubators across the State of Ohio, use something called Table 3. Table 3 captures a myriad of relevant growth statistics on our tenants, but for many the stats on revenue, investment and job creation are important metrics on how much leverage an incubation program has created with their funding. (If you’re interested, I recently published my 2009 year-end statistics.)
All this is to say – “I know me some surveying” – and have used a number of offline and online tools over the years. When the National Business Incubation Association announced a strategic partnership with chide.it, offering a free account for their FluidSurveys product, I was eager to sign up. I was happy with my current provider (PollDaddy), but it’s hard to argue with a free basic account, which is what FluidSurveys was offering any incubation program through the partnership with NBIA. That said – so called “free” programs sometimes aren’t worth it, so I did a little homework before signing up.
I’m happy to say that not only is the free account chide.it offered to us incubators was really free, it was also a fully functional account, limited only by the absence of some advanced features that I don’t use. The best part is chide.it has agreed to renew our incubator’s free account every year. Thanks chide.it!
The person in charge of the partnership between chide.it and NBIA is Rich Fialkoff. Rich was included in all the introductory E-mails NBIA sent out and responded promptly to all the questions I had about the tool and the partnership. Given that Rich is responsible for the U.S. introduction of chide.it products, this responsiveness was even more impressive. After getting to know a bit more about chide.it (somewhat of a start-up themselves) and Rich (created and led several start-up business within larger companies and founded a consultancy focused on software startups), I asked Rich if he’d be willing to participate in my 10 Questions With… series.
If you run an incubator and you’re a member of NBIA, be sure to check out FluidSurveys – not only is it free through the NBIA partner program, but it’s a great tool and just makes it so darn easy to create a survey. (If you’re not a member of NBIA, then you really should be. It’s a great organization with extremely helpful members and two very useful conference every year.) Chide.it is offering it’s second product, MyReviewRoom, at a discount to NBIA members. MyReviewRoom helps teams facilitate application acceptance, evaluation and decision making. I have an application process for the incubator that would be greatly facilitated by this product and I’m looking forward to the demo Rich has promised me.
So, on with the interview…DCO: Tell us about your company. What was the genesis of your business?
Rich: We had some novel concepts on leveraging web collaboration in a way that would provide significantly differentiated feedback and evaluation services. As we deployed some pilot projects, it reinforced our understanding of the gap emanating from the typical online solutions for surveys and review processes. Frankly, being late to the party is not so bad when you have the benefit of validating the market, and hearing from customers on their experiences and what they need to do a better job while reducing their time/costs.
DCO: Describe the moment when you knew you were an entrepreneur? What defined that moment and how did it feel?
Rich: As our products evolved this summer into the latest releases of FluidSurveys and MyReviewRoom we realized that from a capability, usability and technology perspective we had amazing features, broke the mould on ease-of-use, and leveraged self-configuration to allow customers to do things for themselves that previously required an IT shop or expensive tools. But, once you see this enormous potential, it turns up the contrast on success, and you are grabbed by the inevitable feeling of entrepreneurship.
As our websites for our tools evolved along with the tools, we saw users signing up from all over the world. While we felt encouraged, we knew that we had to rely on every bit of our experience to transition this product set into a business. Personally, it was exhilarating to draw on my many years of experience, including systems development, product management, business development, customer support, communications, and alliance and contract management.
DCO: What marketplace issue are you solving and for whom?
Rich: Our two products each address the market in different way. ReviewRoom is without a peer in the market, in terms of capability and price point—it enables organizations to process online applications, receive document/video submissions on their website, review/comment them, and make decisions. Since it’s totally customer-configurable and priced so affordably, it’s perfect for many applications that today are done manually—through emails, spreadsheets, etc. FluidSurveys, on the other hand, enters a crowded survey market but simply, outperforms the rest. Our customers are in all market segments from individuals, to small and large business to government agencies and all rave about our ease of use and capability.
DCO: How do you define success? At what point do you consider yourself successful?
Rich: When this business is self-sustaining and allows me to take more freedoms in extending the business and how I spend my time. For now, I’ll continue to measure success based on customer satisfaction, revenue and growing our own staff in the US.
DCO: What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur?
Rich: You really need to be balanced in your work on all aspects of the business. For example, while we’re competing in the internet online space, we also differentiate ourselves by keeping it a “people” business. We talk to our customers and are responsive in our support. Similarly, you need to be balanced in how you engage the customer– we’re socially connected and easily contacted through Twitter & Facebook, and have many video tutorials on our own YouTube and Vimeo Channels.
DCO: To what do you most attribute your success?
Rich: Through my career I have had the opportunity to create and manage start-ups within large companies such as Bell Labs/Bellcore, Ameritech and Telcordia Technologies. I have managed all aspects of successful software businesses and that experience is invaluable today.
DCO: What motivates you?
Rich: I’m motivated by a strong desire to do the best I can, and to have as many customers as possible using and loving our services. If we can do that, all the other advantages of success will naturally follow.
DCO: What are three pieces of advice you would give to others considering becoming an entrepreneur?
Rich:
- Validate the market and understand how you are going to differentiate yourself
- Make sure you have a solid product that excites customers and provides them with high value
- Recognize that you are rarely ever done—you must continually evolve your products and your approach and that this takes time
DCO: What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Rich: It’s the freedom to explore approaches to the market and determine which paths will be the most effective. And to do this within a business that is still small and responsive while you have some control of all the levers of the business.
DCO: How did you come up with the name for your business?
Rich: I can’t take credit for the name chide.it, although I did like it from the beginning. Since we’re about empowering feedback, the name seemed to reinforce the ability “to chide”. But, we do get some curious responses—my personal favorite is when we’re asked if we’re an Italian company because of the “.it” extension on our www.chide.it URL…we’re not.
Thanks for the great interview Rich. Best of luck to you and chide.it!
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Thanks Dave, for featuring chide.it and allowing me the opportunity to describe my background and the exciting work we’re doing in delivering the next generation of feedback/evaluation tools. It’s so reassuring to hear you, a savvy survey subscriber, note how “great” and “darn easy” you found our fluidsurveys.com and appreciate our support. Thanks again for your continuing to get the word out on positive entrepreneurship and leadership!