Tell HN: What I learned from the AirBnB / EJ incident

Posted by rexreed on Sunday July 31, 2011 @09:46AM
from the self-post dept.

I posted this as a comment on a previous thread, but I thought I'd share it as a separate post. While I hope the situation resolves well for all parties (except the guilty ones), I'm most interested in learning the lessons that would apply to my own startup.

I'm trying to learn from other people's lessons (it's the cheapest way to learn). Here's what I learned from the recent incident as well as others recently talked about in the 'sphere. Whenever there is a crisis:

* Respond quickly

* Respond in the open so that there's no he-said / she-said

* Be fair, and err on the side of the customer

* Don't spin the company line - be thoughtful, especially if someone has lost money / time / confidence / data / faith in humanity

* Think "This could be me / this could be someone I know & love"

* If relevant, get the authorities involved quickly so that you can be sure it's not a shakedown.

* Assume the customer is telling you the truth unless you have specific and verifiable reason to believe otherwise

* Get insurance

* Don't let others (especially those with interests) speak for you.

* Try to establish a single point person for all contact with the customer, and make that person easily and quickly available to the customer at the customer's behest

* Try not to respond to what's said in the press

Did I miss any good lessons here?

Re:Tell HN: What I learned from the AirBnB / EJ incident by codeup on Sunday July 31, 2011 @10:13AM (#2828344)

This might get voted up, but other than that I don't see the purpose of this Tell HN at this point.

I doubt you know enough about the different sides of the fairly complex story to come up with definitive lessons learned at this point.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: What I learned from the AirBnB / EJ incident by rexreed on Sunday July 31, 2011 @11:00AM (#2828467)

Thanks! Actually, I've been learning from this incident as well as a bunch of different incidents. I've put together my observations and lessons learned that can apply in my particular scenario, of which I hope there will be few, if any. So, however this particular case resolves is not entirely material, unless I can learn something more about what to / no to do.

However AirBnB resolves this issue is really their matter. I'm hoping to learn along the way what seems to work and what not. And on that count, I've already learned a lot.

As for votes, that's not my primary interest. My primary interest is to see what others might have learned as well.