Featured Entrepreneur: Feedback Jar

We’ve talked a lot recently about the importance of getting feedback from your customers. For customer feedback to be most effective it needs to be a two way communication between business owner and consumer, and our latest Featured Entrepreneur understands how important that dynamic is.

I’m happy to have Nick Leung, founder and owner of Feedbackjar.com, tell us a little bit about himself and his company which provides a community built around two way feedback and communication.

Special Offer: Nick has a special offer just for Small Biz Bee readers. If you want to start gathering, and using, your customers feedback this is for you! Details following the interview.

What is Feedback Jar?

FeedbackJar is a way for customers to communicate with each other and with their local businesses. Customers and merchants can help answer questions, share ideas, and resolve problems with products and services they use in their local community in a public forum.

When did you start the business?

We’re started implementing the idea back in the summer of ’08 and started a private launch in Fall ’08. We’re currently in public beta as of Feb ’09.

How did you get the idea?

We read a lot of bad press on how review sites do not give business owners justice when it came to bad reviews. Clearly, the solution was to allow the merchants to talk with their customers in a public forum. We also wanted to allow customers to respond and help to other customers with products and services they use from their surrounding businesses.

This put us in another category, which was not your traditional review site but a crowdsource customer support application. We searched other companies that were in a similar space, and soon discovered none of them were focusing on the local small business market. This of course inspired us to create FeedbackJar.com.

What sources did you use to fund your biz?

Currently it’s me and my friend I’ve known since college. Our burn rate is very low since we do all the development ourselves and we can move relatively fast.

What was the biggest startup challenges?

The biggest challenge is getting the word out and getting people to use the site. Our idea is very new and not many people are familiar with the concept.

How did you overcome those challenges?

We’ve been embedding ourselves in online communities, Twitter, social networks, and blogs. We also getting our faces out there in the community by going to networking events, parties, and talking with bloggers. Focus on what your users want is probably most important since a happy user is your best evangelist.

What has been the response/reaction to your business from your clients?

A lot of the merchants on FeedbackJar like using the site since they have another medium to communicate and connect with their customers. Customers are more likely to voice their opinion to the business since it’s so easy to submit a feedback.

Best advice you can give to a new startup?

Be passionate about what you’re doing. That passion will reverberate into your product and customers. Also, be prepared to experience highs and lows. Starting a new business can be daunting since there’s no black and white way to do things. It’s okay to make mistakes, but make sure you can identify your mistakes and correct them early.

Biggest lesson you’ve learned from starting your own business?

Your product doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be working. Have tools and mechanisms in place to measure your progress before you become obsessed with constantly adding unnecessary features.

What’s the future look like for Feedback Jar?

We’ve just finished creating a FeedbackJar widget. Now any merchant can easily embed a FeedbackJar widget on their business homepage. With the widget, customers can leave feedback without going directly to FeedbackJar.com.

We’re also working on a new UI design and hopefully have that done with in a couple of months.

What inspires you to do what you do?

I’ve lived in the Silicon Valley all my life. I know and heard of countless people who formed startups in their garage. I’m still relatively young and don’t have much to lose. It’s just part of the culture here in the Valley where young entrepreneurs take a leap of faith hoping to create the next killer app.

In one word, what’s the key to success?

Passion

About Nick

Nick Leung and Dennis Chan are programmers from the Silicon Valley wanting to start a online business together ever since they were roommates in college.Nick previously founded open.srcphp.com, a visual library for open source php projects. Dennis is the founder of costshare.net, a group expense sharing site, and slickgadgetz.com, an ecommerce site.

Special Offer:

Feedback Jar is giving away 25 free website widgets to Small Biz Bee readers. The widget is easy to install on your website, and gives your customers a quick and convenient way to leave you feedback. If you would like to claim your free widget, and start capitalizing on your customer’s feedback, here’s how:

1. Create a business profile.

2. Go to http://www.feedbackjar.com/ContactForm, fill out the info,

and enter "SmallBizBee" in the subject line.

Can’t visit Small Biz Bee on a regular basis? You can stay up to date by having the latest Small Biz Bee news delivered to you for free via RSS or Email.

For exclusive Small Biz Bee content and offers, sign up for our free newsletter: