We talk about UI. We talk about retention and user acquisition. We talk about mobile and location. But we don’t really talk about customer support. At least not enough. When did you hear about a list of startups ranked by awesome customer service? Here are my top six customer experiences:

Beats by Dre: Took care of some broken headphones before I’d even reported them and then even mailed me to apologise for the breakage happening in the first place! Brilliant example of social media-driven customer support.

Hasbean: We’re fairly heavy consumers of Hasbean coffee. A recent order problem was fixed incredibly quickly and at no charge to us. The CEO checked in directly to make sure our coffee beans arrived.

Maxroam: Have literally lost track the number of times which the Maxroam team have taken care of me.

Amazon (specifically Kindle): One of the very best approaches to customer support in the world. A while ago, I broke my Kindle and when reported, they immediately sent a new one without even waiting for the broken one to arrive back first. Trusting the customer is risky but the reward is unshakeable loyalty.

Virgin America: A while back I left a set of headphone one of their planes. The Virgin America air hostess found them, rang me and then Fedexed them out the next day. No charge to me.

Silicon Valley Bank: A bank? Really? Absolutely. SVB have absolutely blown me away with service and support in the last two months. Their help in setting up the Fight My Monster San Francisco office (via their London branch) has been utterly invaluable.

A few years ago, I used to have a huge list of stuff I brought with me when I travelled. Having tried an immense range of electronics and productivity tools, I’ve now refined it down to a small collection of hardware and apps.

Mobile/Data

iPad 2 3G

After a particularly galling Orange experience I swore I would never ever again pay a penny/cent in international data roaming rates. So when I’m travelling I now switch my iPhone data off completely and just use it for calls and SMS. All data goes through my iPad 2 via a Maxroam data sim. I took a hard look at the iPad 3 but it really didn’t do much for me.

-critical iPad apps: Onavo (data-shrinking), Uber (US car service), Hailo (London taxi), Airbnb (hotel).

Computing

13″ Macbook Air. Hands-down the finest notebook I’ve ever owned. The larger screen real estate (11″ v 13″) makes a huge difference and still fits into any crazy reclined economy seat situations.

Luggage

-Long haul: still rocking the Travelpro I bought years ago. Unbreakable.
-Short haul: say what you want about Tyler Brule but the man knows luggage. For overnights I use the Japanese-designed Porter Boston Bag. Just wish it had a shoulder strap.
-Day trips: Nothing beats the Tom Bihn Ristretto. It really is perfect.

Audio

Still an area I haven’t quite nailed yet. Up until recently I’d been using the Beats By Dre noise-cancelling headphones. Then I broke them. And so I bought another pair, and then proceeded to break those as well.

Special mention: Jawbone’s Jambox, which survived trips to China and the Middle East before giving up the ghost. Great for both music and conference calls.

Sharing

Pretty simple. Dropbox on every device with custom sync (to avoid unnecessary data usage). Is there really anyone not using it at this stage? Keynote and Pages on iPad for editing and creation.

As a quick project with my younger brother-in-law-to-be (need an acronym for that) we did a short poll of a group of twenty people aged between 19 and 21. With so much noise about how young kids are engaging with the Internet, I was curious just what the habits of the slightly older generation was. Here are the top three most interesting findings:

#1 The beginning of the end for TV

Top Site Useage
1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Twitter
4. Google
5. Gmail

Clearly, it’s worth buying Facebook stock as this generation aren’t leaving it any time soon. What’s more interesting is YouTube’s dominance ahead of everything else. Based on this, I’d speculate that the decline in conventional TV viewing is going to accelerate dramatically in the next few years.

#2 Facebook is a credible threat to Gmail

How do you contact your friends?
1. Text message/SMS
2. Facebook
3. Phone call

One of the main reasons Google has been freaked out by Facebook is social search. But email is arguably as high a priority. The Internet Inbetweeners will potentially go from university email straight to Facebook mail.

#3 Mobile commerce is getting younger and younger

42% of the group regularly uses mobile Internet. And almost all of that group (33% of total) have made at least one mobile commerce purchase, with the most popular being tickets.

Hong Quan is the founder of Quantum Startups in San Francisco and an advisor to 500Startups. He’s the first recruiter I’ve ever met who I didn’t want to murder and who actually understands startups (he routinely answers 2am emails). He originally wrote the following post in February and I still thinks it resonates:

I’m calling it. And I hope I’m dead wrong. But this year is going to be filled with mergers and acquisitions in the startup ecosystem.

Early to medium stage startups at various inflection points of financing (post-Seed, pre-A, pre-B, on bridge, etc.) are going to be acquired by larger public (Google, LinkedIn, Zynga), soon to be public (Facebook) or extremely well-funded later-stage startups (B, C, D rounds). These transactions happen as a natural part of business but this year will see an increase of M&A activity around startups.

Why? Because people.

My job is to find people, specifically Engineers, Developers, Designers and Product folks of the highest caliber. They’re usually working at startups. Their own startups. And those folks all want to hire people too! That’s just not sustainable.

The big companies can’t hire. Google isn’t the dream employer it was 10 years ago. Even Facebook is going to lose it’s luster, especially when potential hires are given RSUs and stock grants instead of options. Going to work at a huge campus in East Menlo Park isn’t cool, even if the street name has been changed to Hacker Way. It’s the old Sun Microsystems building, my wife worked there for years. Look at what happened to them.

Even medium companies like Twitter and media darlings like Square can’t find enough people to do everything they need to do. And small startups are all fighting like mad over the handful of talented people who haven’t started their own companies yet (damn you side projects!).

The Series-A crunch is real. Some startups will drag it out and some will die in obscurity. But the most talented teams will get bought. Their services and apps will be shut down. Investors get a small exit, and the buyer gets a talented team that will hopefully stay (golden handcuffs sold separately).

That’s the only way these companies can keep growing. Once your recruiting is done by HR, you’re dead. You don’t bring in new blood and fresh thinking, you only hire more of the same. And then it’s up to Corporate Development and his little brother Biz Dev to get interesting people in the building. Sure it costs more, but it’s worth it. Gotta keep that “startup spirit” and entrepreneurial culture alive right?

I heard about the sale of TeachStreet this morning. I don’t know Dave, but have met him a few times. He’s very well-known and well-liked in the Seattle startup scene for good reason. It was a great moment for the press and for his investors, and Dave was buying everyone beer at Hops & Chops. But I would buy *him* a beer if I was there. I know how tough it is to call it quits, and selling isn’t always a joyous occasion.

Sure beats dying though.

Cheers,

Hong

p.s. “Acqui-hire” is not a word. Please stop it.

p.p.s. Using the term “talent acquisition” for recruiting is pretentious. Please stop it.

You should follow Hong on Twitter and read his blog. If he’s got time, you should also speak to him about hiring.

I wrote a piece for The Journal about how kids are going to utterly disrupt the landscape of the Internet as we know it today. And why teachers are pretty much screwed. 

I occasionally do a little bit of speaking, and afterwards the most common question I get asked is ‘do you really think Facebook will be around forever?’

People ask me this with a strange, almost excitable glee in their eyes, as if they’re convinced that Facebook is about to collapse at any moment. I generally whisper back conspiratorially “You know, I think there is a threat looming on the horizon”.

The under-13 gaming market is super tough. So for a company bootstrapped on a hundred and fifty grand to reach one million 8-12 boys is pretty impressive. But for the same company to be seeing engagement rates greater than Facebook is just mindblowing. Fight My Monster announced some awesome data earlier on and I’m incredibly proud to be involved with Dominic and the guys. I think the infographic below says it all (the PDF is here).

Ian Sigalow (Greycroft Partners) discusses social gaming and Fight My Monster on Bloomberg.

Last week I was out for dinner with two good friends who work in branding (well one does, the other pretends to). The conversation turned to Google and Brand Guru 1 asks “What does Google actually stand for these days?”. I suddenly realised I had utterly no idea. “It seems as if they could use our services”, whooped Brand Guru 2, as he rubbed his hands with almost violent glee. “Actually”, I replied, “I think they may need something a little more radical…”

Larry, Sergey, you used to be small. But now you’re big. Maybe you genuinely don’t realise this but you’re suffering all the problems that other big companies experience. You’ve tried management re-shuffles, acquisitions and straight-up forcing G+ down people’s throats. In short you’re trying all the things that big companies normally try. Which is completely understandable. But it’s not how you originally became an extremely profitable company, is it?

Once upon a time Google broke all the rules. You started a search company when conventional wisdom stated that Yahoo owned the market (imagine!). You were the anti-company. When you launched Google’s first ad product, it was everything that Madison Ave wasn’t. No agencies, just a self-serve model. When Google went public, you ran a highly innovative auction process despite a lot of opposition from Wall St. Since then, you’ve committed hundreds of millions of dollars into non-core areas, which would normally never get approval by a public company board (e.g. self-driving cars, renewable energy etc.).

You didn’t break rules just for the hell of it. You did it because it made sense. It was simply the optimal thing to do. Somewhere along the journey, you’ve forgotten how to think this way.

Conventional wisdom dictates that companies must continue growing linearly. But why? It clearly doesn’t lead to better product execution.

It’s time for you to smash the rules. Announce that you’re going to radically alter Google’s structure into an archipelago model. Split the company into ten separate units. Separate P&L, everything. Google, the public company will hold majority holdings in all but no operational control. You and Sergey will need to decide which one you join. Yeah, that’s right, you’ll have to pick *one* thing. Not ten.

You’ll be told by lawyers, investment bankers and analysts that you’re crazy. You’ll probably be hit by class-action suits as well. But at the end of the day optimal growth and execution comes from small companies, not big ones. Can you really argue with that point?

A couple of friends of mine in different companies have two very interesting positions open. For various reasons (mostly relating to products which haven’t actually been announced yet) it’s a bit difficult for them to advertise publicly. Both are certified awesome. Mysterious enough for you?

The CTO Role

This company is a mature startup (about 30ish people) but is still very run-and-gun. They operate across Ireland and the UK and are 1 and 2 respectively in those markets. Technically, they’re enterprise software but focused completely on the SME sector. Well backed with cashflow and investment.

CTO can be based in Ireland or UK.

The Editor-in-Chief Role

This is a rapidly growing startup looking for an online video chief editor. Lots of profile, lots of great content. Small team although very experienced, already revenue-generating and with excellent investors.

Can be remote so Ireland, UK or US.

If any of these ring bells just ping me and I’ll connect you with the right people.