Febin John James's Blog, page 14
July 18, 2017
I loved your new design.
I loved your new design. I wish whatsapp had implemented this. It’s always a pain to switch between conversations.
This is a brilliant Idea.
This is a brilliant Idea.
July 10, 2017
Actually the title was “How to Save Money on Uber?” That’s when the user commented the above.
Actually the title was “How to Save Money on Uber?” That’s when the user commented the above.
I am sorry for the inconvenience.
I am sorry for the inconvenience. It would be something to do with the algorithms uber used to calculate prices. My point is if you split the long trips to shorter once you will save a lot.
Why is Two Uber Pools Cheaper Than One?
I wanted to take a trip of 14 miles. Because of heavy traffic in my city(Bangalore). It usually takes an hour.
I punched in the source and destination
Uber Pool shows a price of Rs.419 or $6.49 . I thought, What if I take two trips?
The total now comes to $4.02. I can save $2.
Well, did you take that trip?I had an uber pass. The special price was around $6 (I don’t have screenshots, The above screenshots was taken much later). I took two trips.
The total cost was $3. I saved 50%.
Why is this the case?I am not sure, but all I can say is this has something to do with Algorithms Uber use to calculate prices. Split your long trips into shorter once and you can save a lot.
Why is Two Uber Pools Cheaper Than One? was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
How to Save Money on Uber Rides
I wanted to take a trip of 14 miles. Because of heavy traffic in my city(Bangalore). It takes at least an hour.
I punched in the source and destination
Uber Pool shows a price of Rs.419 or $6.49 . I thought, What if I take two trips?
The total now comes to $4.02. I can save $2.
Well did you take that trip?I had an uber pass. The special price was around $6 (I don’t have screenshots, The above screenshots was taken much later). I took two trips.
The total cost was $3. I saved 50%.
Why is this the case?I am not sure, but all I can say is this has something to do with Algorithms Uber use to calculate prices. Split your long trips into shorter once and you can save a lot.
How to Save Money on Uber Rides was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
June 7, 2017
Words That Can Make a Difference
I recently had a bad experience with an Indian ops startup. I wrote a medium story, posted it on multiple networks. It worked , next day the company apologised and they sorted out the issue. But, they had to pay a price for it. It was wrong from my side to curse them on the open web. This happened because I was angry and it affected my thinking. Later I analysed the situation on how it could have been prevented.
Story in brief: I booked a paying guest with Zolo on June 2nd. I paid the deposit and rent. I confirmed with their team multiple times if I can check-in on June 6th. I had a surgery on my left knee. I can’t give it much strain. When I walked into the premise, the property care-taker asked me to come back on June 10th. I made multiple calls to customer care. I had to wait for 5 to 10 minutes to speak to their agent. Agent agrees to sort this issue and promises to call back. He never does. I post the story on multiple networks. I get a call from the company, they apologise for the inconvenience and sorts out the issue.
Things can go wrong at times. We can’t prevent screw-ups since there are too many variables in this universe. But, there is a way to deal with it. Let us analyse the initial conversation between me and the property care taker.
{I walk into the premise.}
Me : I am Febin, I have booked a room here on Zolo.
Property Care Taker : {Looks at his tablet} Yes, I know you have booked a room. But, we don’t have free rooms here. Come back on June 10th.
Me : { I go blank for a moment. I get angry on Zolo , since they assured me multiple times the room was available. I had a hard time walking in with the heavy bag putting pressure on my weak leg.}
There are two ways this situation could have been handled.
) If the property care taker was trained to talk to a customer.) I could have thought of a logical solution instead of getting emotional.If the property care taker was trained to talk to a customer
{I walk into the premise.}
Me : I am Febin, I have booked a room here on Zolo.
Property Care Taker : {Looks at his tablet} Yes, I know you have booked a room. But there has been a miscommunication between us and the company. The room you booked was already allocated to someone else. We apologise for the situation. We can temporarily give you a bed and a place to keep your things. You might have to adjust with a common washroom for a few days. We will compensate you for the inconvenience.
Me : That would be good. But please sort this out ASAP!
I could have thought of a logical solution instead of getting emotional
{I walk into the premise.}
Me : I am Febin, I have booked a room here on Zolo.
Property Care Taker : {Looks at his tablet} Yes, I know you have booked a room. But, we don’t have free rooms here. Come back on June 10th.
Me : {Takes a deep breath} See, I had a surgery on my left knee. It’s difficult for me to move around with this heavy bag. I just need a bed to sleep and a cupboard to keep my stuff. I am ok with a common washroom. I can adjust for a few days until the room is free. You can compensate me for the inconvenience.
As I said universe has too many variables. Bad things happen. Our response to the situation is what matters. This story is intended towards both startups and customers. Startups need to train their employees or related people to talk to their customers and handle such situations. Customers like me needs to relax and think logically instead of getting emotional.
Words That Can Make a Difference was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
June 6, 2017
Negligent Indian Startups
I booked a PG with Zolo on June 1st. I called their customer service the next day. An agent answered my phone who confirmed the room and asked me to pay the deposit. I paid the deposit through their website. He said I can walk-in anytime on June 6th.
June 6thI called their customer care and asked if I can check-in today. She said “You can, after you pay first month’s rent”. I paid.
I recently had a surgery on my left knee. I can’t give it much strain. When I walk-in with my heavy bag. The first sentence the property owner uttered was
“Come back on June 10th, Room khali nahi hai. We can’t do anything , It’s Zolo’s mistake they didn’t confirm with us.”
I stayed there, made many calls to their customer service. Every call, I had to wait 5 to 10 minutes to speak to their agent. They say “I will get back to you”. They never called back.
They asked to adjust on the down floor for a few days and we will shift you to another room. The “other room” was not the room I paid for. It doesn’t even have an attached bathroom. I waited for an hour. Now, they are running around for a key. Am not sure if that’s a drama , indirectly asking me to leave the premise.
I contacted Zolo customer care via email support@zolostays.com (This is mentioned on their website).
The reply was “Thanks for writing to Zolo. However, this is an unmonitored inbox and emails to this account would not receive a response.”
Luckily this is HSR, Bangalore, I have bunch of great friends here who can accommodate me.
But, I wonder what if it was someone else, Who was new to Bangalore? The poor guy would be helpless.
These startups run behind growth and don’t give a shit about customer experience.
Update : An agent from Zolo customer desk called and sorted out the issue. He apologised on behalf of the entire organisation. He has promised me such events will never happen again.
Negligent Indian Startups was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
June 5, 2017
It Won’t Cost a Bomb to Build Your Idea
Let’s say you have got an idea for a food delivery business. What do you do? Typical approach would be to hire a freelancer or outsource the project to a firm or in some cases hire a tech team to build it. The project takes a few months , a few thousand dollars and you have your business online. You will also be spending for hosting probably on the cloud.
What if I say , you can spend 1/10 of the same amount and get your idea up and running in weeks.
My solution is Shopify or Wordpres. A lot of business are on Shopify. In case you need more control go for Wordpress. You would be asking “Seriously, that is for making a blog rite?”. Yes, it was built for blogging. But, the creators of Wordpress made it highly customisable.
Let me get into the details. Your food delivery business or most ideas have these in common.
) Signup & Login) List of your products) Billing & Payment Gateway Integration) Track Order) Email SubscriptionWordpress already has a module for signup and login. You can create a page with a Wordpress editor to make a list of your products. Payment gateway is available in the Wordpress plugins store. You can email your user about updates on the order. Email subscription is again an inbuilt feature.
If you don’t want to do this yourself, or if you need more features checkout theme forest website for themes and plugins. Chances are 80% they already have the feature you are looking for. In very rare case you will have to hire a freelancer to build a specific feature or a theme.
Since Wordpress is free and open-source , you only have to pay for hosting. It’s likely you are validating your idea and expecting a low traffic. Start with a shared hosting like Hostgator. It would cost you less than $100 an year. If you want more control, go for digital ocean $5 per month droplet.
The above is one such theme I found on theme forest.
Since Wordpress is backed by a strong community the maintenance and upgrades are free of cost. The platform is mature since it evolved over the years. There are a huge chunk of developers working specifically on Wordpress. So hiring is also easy.
Since a lot of people find it hard connecting with me for consulting on Facebook(They hide messages). Here is my LinkedIn. Let’s talk.
It Won’t Cost a Bomb to Build Your Idea was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
May 30, 2017
The Secret War Against Google
It all started with the banner ad “You will” on 27th of October 1997. After which were the days when advertisers directly bought inventories from publishers.
As publishers grew, there were millions of unsold ad spaces. Ad networks came into picture who bought these unsold ad spaces, packaged them and sold it to advertisers. The problem arised when the number of ad networks grew. It was hard for advertiser to find out whom to buy from. Sometimes they bought the same audiences again.
This was when ad exchange was born. Instead of selling inventories they sold audiences. Publishers made their audience available on ad exchange and the advertisers bid on them.(These bid happens programatically based on algorithms that can give best results to advertisers). The winner made the impression.
In the massive set of audiences finding out whom to bid became important. This is when advertisers integrated themselves with Demand Side Platforms(DSP) to buy relevant audience based on data. On the other side publishers integrated with Supply Side Platforms (SSP) to optimise their selling point. Oh wait, what about Ad Networks? They started to buy and sell on ad exchanges.
Most publishers used DFP(DoubleClick for Publishers) from Google to sell their inventories. DFP made it easier for publishers to sell their inventories across multiple Ad Networks based on bids or even buy directly from advertisers and provided a way to maximise revenue.However, DFP only allowed bids from Google AdExchange and AdX. The process of bidding here was a black box to publishers. In other words they were not in control.
The other problem was google had an advantage because of it’s tight integration with DFP. Say you had a 720 x 90 banner ad on your website. Three ad networks AppNexus, OpenX and Pubmatic are interested. AppNexus bid $1.80, OpenX $0.70 and Pubmatic $0.5.
Publisher can set price estimates for these Ad Networks. If it doesn’t cross this estimate the bid , it will be rejected and passed on to the next bidder. Assume the price estimate you set are AppNexus $1.90, OpenX $0.65 and Pubmatic $0.5.
Since the estimate amount you set for AppNexus is $1.90, which is higher than what they bid ($1.80) , Their bid is rejected. It is now passed on to OpenX. They are ready to pay more than what you asked for. They can win the bid. However, google comes in between , they pay a penny more ($0.66) and win the bid. The publisher has lost ($1.80 — $0.66) $1.44 on one CPM (Cost Per Impression). This is a huge loss for the publisher and unfair for the Ad Networks. This is why Header Bidding was introduced.
Header BiddingWhen a user visits a website , information such as location, device type, cookies are send to the bidders or Ad Networks. Ad Networks analyse these data and revert back with their bids. If you consider the previous scenario , AppNexus $1.80, OpenX $0.70 and Pubmatic $0.5. Here AppNexus wins the bid at $1.80 instead of $0.66. Incase google want to buy the impression, they have to bid $1.81 (Sorry Google!). Hence more money for the publisher. This entire process of bidding happens in the user’s web browser (Like Google Chrome). This is hence transparent. Any user can go to the browser’s console and type a few commands to see who bid what for your impression. Header Bidding helped publishers increase their revenue by 50% to 70%.
Setting up Header BiddingAppNexus open sourced Prebid in early 2015. It is an open source tool which publishers can use to implement header bidding. In the coming days I will write more stories to help you set up header bidding. Make sure you follow this publication and me(Febin John James). If you don’t want to go through the headache of setting up of header bidding on your own. I can introduce you to a team, who can do it for you. Just connect with me on LinkedIn.
The Secret War Against Google was originally published in ART + marketing on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
