Sometimes the biggest problems out there in startup land that are yet to be solved aren’t that sexy, Mikkel from Zendesk knew that “working on a helpdesk won’t get you the girls” but he also knew that solving big market problems comes with a chance to be extremely profitable.
Companies were investing heavily in helpdesk infrastructure only to find the cheapest employees possible (usually outsourced) to be their interface with their customers. Sounds crazy right? But you are all familiar with this scenario.
At a time when a customer is in obvious need to be shown support it just wasn’t there and that meant unhappy customers. Unhappy customers of course ultimately leads to a loss of business.
This was the opportunity that Zendesk Founder Mikkel Svane pounced on, and in a candid and entertaining fireside chat enlightened us on how his business developed to solve this problem and how he tackled it.
I might also point out that recently Derek, our CEO and Founder retweeted a story from Techcrunch highlighting the tremendous opportunity ($192 Billion Market) that exists in government. So while I never advocate starting a business purely for financial gains and without passion, I am sure that some of you out there maybe just have a big idea that could work in this market and wanted to give you something to think about. The truth is opportunities come in all shapes and sizes and don’t necessarily have to be as sexy as entertainment, mobile, or social media as was the case with Zendesk, so be sure to take note on any frustrations you may have on a daily basis. At the end of the day if you genuinely set out to truly help improve people’s lives in one way or another the money will come with time, persistence but most importantly listening to your customers.
Zendesk built a business around it!
Mikkel’s story was extremely powerful to me for the simple fact that he had real world problems, fights with co-founders, venture capitalists that shut their door in his face, all of these things that we seem to forget when we see someone that has achieved so much in such a short timeframe. The fact is that we are all human, and each and every successful entrepreneur comes with a unique set of tales that more often than not involved tremendous struggle and sacrifice on their way to the top… I hope you enjoy the story of Zendesk.