Thoughts in Time

JOIN THIS FACEBOOK GROUP: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12256012493 

IKEA told me that the only way I can complain or possibly get compensation for getting mistreated is by writing to some address in the UK.  That’s no fun, I’d rather find everyone else who IKEA has treated this way and get us together through Facebook.  If you’ve been treated poorly by IKEA, join this group - or if you just want to show a big stuffy corporation that doesn’t value service that customers do matter and that it might be worthwhile to listen to customers rather telling them they “need to write to blah blah UK to register a complaint”, JOIN THIS GROUP- http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12256012493
The rest of the story….

IKEA had told us they would deliver our cabinets on Tuesday(for the first parts of the story see here, here, and here).  Remember, I ordered this stuff in the middle JANUARY.  On Tuesday, we never got the delivery, and finally were told that “they were at your place at 7:30AM, but didn’t know which flat the raised ground floor one was and were afraid to ring the wrong bell so they left” -

Are you serious?  How incompetent can one company (or it’s outsourced delivery reps) be?  So, Kellee called them and  they promised that they would then deliver our order before Saturday, or at the worst, first thing on Saturday (before 9AM).  It’s now Saturday at 5:20… Do we have the order? Of course not.

At about 3, I get a call from DHL saying IKEA has moved the order to some other courier (no reason known).  Sorry, they can’t tell me who or what’s going on - I have to call IKEA.

I call IKEA.  The girl says “I don’t know why your order is being switched from courier to another - there aren’t any problems on your route” - I run out of pay as you go minutes on my Orange phone, and thus get cut off.

top up phone minutes (remembering that IKEA has cost me something like 10-15 pounds between the times I’ve now spoken to them through this drama)

I call back.  A new girl asks me to hold on while she finds out what’s going on. Remembering the pence ticking away as I’m on hold, I respectfully decline, asking her to call me back.  A couple minutes later, I get a call back. “Don’t worry, all the orders will be delivered tonight, including yours. They’re just running late.”

Me…” So, you expect me to sit around all evening as well?  I’ve got family visiting from the US and wanted to take them out.”

“her - I really do apologize”

At this point, I started asking for compensation.  She said they can’t do anything beyond giving me the delivery cost back (which they already had done when they messed it up last time.  I said that wasn’t good enough. I asked to speak to a supervisor.  She put me on hold and came back saying the supervisor said that’s all they can do.

At this point, I was getting very agitated.  I ask again to speak to the supervisor. I’m told I can’t do that.  I ask for a supervisor’s name -I’m told I can’t have it.  I’m told that what I’ll need to do is write to their customer response team (they mistreat customers so often they have staff dedicated to this!)… I try to explain my position to the rep in a way that personalizes it…”what if IKEA told you to come in to work today at 9, had you sit until 5, then said - oops, we don’t need you, we’re not paying you, and your only recourse is to write to some office in Ipswich”… She says - “sorry, I can’t do anything else”.

This is where I explain that I can. I can write about it online, I can start a facebook group, I can become a pain that is going to cost them well north of whatever compensation they could have provided (I would have been happy with even a 50 pound voucher). She has nothing to say, so I hang up.

So here I am - IKEA, you are the first company to make me a determined detractor. I will share this story with anyone who cares to listen, and it has gotten me so annoyed that not only have setup a facebook group, but I’ve budgetd $25 towards buying ads on facebook to spread the word about that group.  That’s right, your service has been so bad that I’m choosing to spend money to tell people how bad it is.  And all this could have been avoided with some reasonable service and someone at IKEA taking responsibility when things did go badly.

I just had th strangest call.  I ordered some stuff from staples online in the UK about a week ago.  They said they would deliver it. It’s never shown up.  I called them to find out what was going on. The rep couldn’t find the order.  I checked online and it’s in my order history. He says “that happens sometimes, check your credit card statement. We probably didn’t charge you so we’ve erased the order.”

me….”HUH? So it’s like it doesn’t exist although it’s in your system?”

Him “Yes, sorry.  You can either re-order through me or put in a new order online”

Unbelievable - almost as bad as IKEA…

It’s 10:56PM. I’m finishing my PIkum workday. I started at about 8:40AM.  About 14.5 hours…. Not bad - and I still feel as though there is a ton to get done (maybe that’s because there is!). At least, we’re into the fun part which is building towards launch. I’ll be sharing some news soon on the Pikum front as there are some major events happening which we’ll be ready to announce publicly in the next week or so… stay tuned!

Araz also asked me to provide an update on my friends at IKEA. It’s funny - they have an add here that goes “doink, doink, doink…..” and eventually ends showing them testing beds and says “doink knows that beds arent’ just for sleeping”.  Amusing right?  Tell you what, The only doinking I’d like to do is to take a 4 x 4 and doink IKEA’s service and operations teams over the head!  It’s now close to 6 weeks since I placed my order and I still don’t have my wardrobe cabinets.  Mind you, I do have all the stuff to go in them… which is further cluttering our place, but no cabinets.

I was super excited to receive a call today from someone who said they were with IKEA delivery (just wait). They said they could bring them on the 4th…. of March - of course, I leave for South Africa on the 3rd and won’t be back until two weeks later.  I asked if they could do it on the 3rd… This is when I heard - well IKEA only releases it to us on the 3rd, and we’re all booked that day… Huh? IKEA releases to you - aren’t you IKEA? “no- we’re a contract delivery service” - me… “but you said you were IKEA delivery.” rep “we are”… ME -”I AM GOING CRAZY!”…

So no way to get it on the 3rd withouth having a brother who’s an SVP out IKEA or something (maybe that wouldn’t even help).  I ask about getting it the Monday after we get back - the response “sorry, we only deliver, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for IKEA” - Me - “well who delivers on Monday -  can you transfer me to them?” Rep- “sorry sir, it’s just us and that’s all we do”

IKEA -doinking bad customer service… that’s the update.

With friends like these… how can Seesmic fail? by ZDNet’s Steve O’Hear — “Having secured $5.5 million of funding from investment group Atomico (Skype’s Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis and co.), Loic Le Meur admits he didn’t need the money. And yet he’s enlisted a further twelve individual backers for his new startup Seesmic — which has been described as “Twitter for video” — the list of which is peppered with the names of some of Silicon Valley’s most successful and well connected entrepreneurs.”

I found this article fascinating for a number of reasons, and thought I’d write about three of them

1. It illustrates why taking smart money from connected people makes sense, even if you take a little extra dillution. I have heard young entrepreneurs who are hesitant to expand a round because of a small amount of extra dillution. Taking the small extra dillution while having the buy in of people with great networks who will be willing to reach out through those networks to the benefit of the business is well worth the dillution. Seeing someone as succesful as Loic do this is a clear demonstration that it is a winning strategy.

2. It’s really interesting to see the interconnectedness of the valley / venture community. As I’ve been meeting with people in London over the last month, I’ve come to realize that even in a city like London, the core entrepreneur / VC / Service provider eco system is relatively small. There are networks within the network. Let’s call places like Silicon Valley, Seattle, Raleigh Durham, London, New York, Boston, Beijing - etc… Venture Hubs. I think that within each hub, there are what I would call dominant strong networks. These are the networks of the most active, currently succcesful people. Think of them as the top tier VC’s, entrepreneurs they’ve funded, and the vendors that serve those companies (Lawyers, accountants, bankers, etc). I think that once you become part of this network (well represented by the network graph in the article) you come to realize that most people within that network know one another - that’s why I would term it a strong network. From those networks, you also have much larger, let’s call them passive loose networks. These are composed of the more casual acquainenances, employees etc. who often have connections to the strong dominant network in the venture hub, but aren’t a part of it (by being directly involved). Within each venture hub, I think entrepreneurs who can become part of the strong venture hub (by engaging members as investors, advisors, etc) have a better chance of success. I also think that when someone is moving to a new venture hub - as Loic has with his move to the valley, and I have with my coming to London - there is an opportunity to provide value with the perspective and connections one has with the venture hub one has left. For instance, one of the people I met here is starting a company in the healthcare / IT field that might be a really good fit with what Connecticut Innovations funds… and he was looking at how it might be brought to the US. I was able to be helpful with an introduction.

I’ve always been really fascinated by networks and have a strong belief that the ability to build strong relationships and help others in one’s network is a strong indicator of one’s chance to succeed as an entrepreneur or venture investor. When I start with the Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology program at UPenn, it’s an area I hope to explore / research.

3. There is a disconnect between the idea that having a strong network in order to be able to start a business, and the fact that many succesful companies were founded by young entrepreneurs who started with a very limited network. I wonder if there is a correlation between how fast the company network grows and the chances for success, thus it’s not the network size at the start of the business, but rather the rate of change of network size / number of strong connections that is an indicated. Of course, this might not work with entrepreneurs who start with a large network - so maybe the answer is to look at rate of growth of number of strong connections with the company. This could come from new connections that become strong (strong meaning having a 1 degree separation from direct involvement - board, investment, partnership, advisor, etc), or from existing connections that move into this category. I’d be interested in what others think about these ideas, so please comment / send me your thoughts.

Kellee and I hung out with two London entrepreneurs last night, Justin Hsu and Keld van Shreven. If they don’t sound British, well, they’re not from here originally - Keld being a fellow South African, and Justin being from the US. First we got to see a sneak preview of Diary.com, the cool startup that they’re co-founders of. Promised to not reveal too much, but needless to say, go to Diary.com and sign-up so you’re notified when they go into beta - it will be a cool, social, and fun service.

From their nice digs, we went over to Shoreditch House, part of the Soho House family of clubs (there’s one in NYC too). We had some drinks (I had my first Orange Juice and Brandy - perfect cure for a cold according to Keld…seemed to work), and were having some food when who should appear but Amy Winehouse … Yes - that Amy Winehouse - and I’m telling you, the hair is bigger and better in real life.

Anyways, the night was fun and I look forward to hanging out with Justin and Keld in the future.

Last Friday was the first day for the Pikum UK team in the office that’s been rented in Chalf Farm. 3 Desks, 2 windows and about 200-250 square feet of space (if that). Johannes was in town as well to celebrate the opening along with Per, Araz, and me. I’m sure we’re going to be amazed at what we accomplish in our small space.

And the answer  to the question about whether we brought too much stuff… I’ll let the pictures talk.

yeah - I like boxes

there weren’t enough boxes in the other photo, so I added some more…

Will it really fit?

how do you fit 50 boxes in 1 room… if you want to know, I’ve done it

wow - we had boxes left over from the living room to fit in here? Good thing we have high ceilings so we could stack them to fit a bed later!

ok - so I got a bit behind on posting

Moving In Day

During the process of moving out of our house in CT, Kellee and I kept wondering whether it would all fit in the place in London.  Well, moving day is here and we get to find out. They’ve told us that they will first move all the boxes into the flat (all 833 square feet of it), then unpack them, then remove the boxes and rubbish (that’s right - no trash or garbage here).

Update: This seems to be working ok. They said they’d be done bringing stuff in soon….

Further update…

So - it’s all here… Wow - how is all this going to fit.

I thought that getting it all out of our house in CT was going to be the most stressful part. Seeing all these boxes accumulating and wondering if they’re all going to fit might actually be more stressful as if they don’t fit, I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do with them.

When moving, consider that it won’t just be big things such as a new house that you’ll want to get used to. No, you will even have to relearn how to do even basic things….like washing your clothes.  Now before you think we were all high and mighty and never washed clothes in CT (Kellee might claim I didn’t!), we always have done our own laundry, and figured that knowledge would translate well from New England to Old.

Did it?  Not at all.  In the U.S. a washer and dryer are separate.  In the UK, usually not.  This initially didn’t seem like it would be a big problem. We thought we’d figured out the right place to put everything.  First problem - we couldn’t figure out how to get the door to open.  Seemed like it had a mind of its own. Sometimes it would open, other times it wouldn’t let us open it?  “£$$%!”#ing machine.  Eventually, we figured that out and Kelleeproceeded to do several loads of laundry over the next week .  Somehow stuff didn’t smell quite right… and it was kind of itchy.

Then, Kellee noticed that when she was putting stuff through the washing cycle, but not drying that the place where she put the detergent in was still full.  Puzzled she finally just looked up a number for Hoover on their web site and eventually (after being passed around a couple times) got through to someone who could help. Turns out we were putting the detergent in the place where the fabric softener goes!  No wonder it itched.  Now that we’ve got that figured out, we can  Onw move on to other important things like figuring out how to get a cell phone without having to put down $1,000 in deposits because Experian and Equifax credit systems in the UK are completely unlinked to those in the US. On we go…

Stopped by Barclays yesterday to find out about our accounts.  It was amusing - the lady who proposed to “help” us asked how long I was going to be a student here (I guess I still do look young when clean shaven?), and informed me that I couldn’t be premier as I’d have to have £1,000,000… somehow when the premier banking manager finally came out, learned a bit about our background, she got much nicer…. but we still don’t have an account open.  They’re supposed to call us today with an update.  We’ll see.