Hi! This is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps! Now today, I want to
ask "Is it important to have your own domain on your email address?"
Alright, so, we have a few clients that they produce like tools and devices and things like
that, and we write the apps that communicate with those devices. There's a
lot of like businesses that we work with in this way and one of them has a device
that's not yet finished yet. So, it hasn't been created, but they they know which
Bluetooth chip set they're going to use. And we, they want us to start on the
development side of the app, you know, before they're finished with the device,
which means that we have to use the same chip set, which is- which is fine.
We've done this before, so you know, they gave us a few- they gave us
all the specifications and a few different suppliers, I had the chip set,
although most of them didn't have it in stock. But one of them was still, you know,
they still had it. It was like it's- it's a Bluetooth Low Energy thing, right?
And it's really cool that actually. Basically what happens is you plug
it into USB and you plug the chipset into a board, which is- which comes
with the board and then you can send commands through the Bluetooth and you
can see it like on a terminal on your PC. Anyway, that's not important but cool. if
you get the chance to work on that kind of stuff. Alright, so anyway, I called up the
company, I go to the company's website rather and I find the development kit
that I need to use. I go and I added it to my basket. I go through
checkout and like on the third step, there's an error. Not an error due to
anything I've done. It was just sort of like a- like a website error. Like they're
maybe- they're running out dissipate, I have no idea what it was. It didn't make
any sense to me. But you know, these kind of things happen and so, that
was fine. You know, it wasn't a small company according to their
team page and like ten-fifteen people at least. You
never know really, but it wasn't like a one-person company. So anyway, I could
try back a few hours later, think it may be- they resolved it and they had it, so I
thought, well, I'll just call their support line, so I go find the
contacts, call the support line and the phone rings a few times and the
person answers and says, "Hello?" and I say, "Uh, yeah, is this, uh, XYZ company?"
I don't remember they were called and she said, "Yeah, how can
I help you?" and I say, okay, the website and I explained it to her. She says
they'll look into it on all this kind of stuff and then we hang up. Now, the
whole- this whole- yeah, there are a few things that went wrong there. So, they
had problems with their website, they weren't able to help me on support,
all that kind of stuff. The thing that bothered me the most about it
and I don't know why this did, was that she answered the phone by saying "hello?"
and not the name of the company. It was just- it was just one of these little
things that threw me off and threw off the whole thing like it was
just, you know, I didn't know post-phoning the right place
And afterwards, they thought about and I thought, well how she answered the
phone was not important. It didn't have no bearing on anything. It would-
you know, it didn't- she could be really helpful, you know, the website
didn't work, all this stuff. That had no bearing on anything, but
still it bothered me. To me, it lacked a sense of professionalism, like
it wouldn't have costed anything else to answer the phone like professionally. Now
again, if this was like a one-person company or something like that and
they're working in a home, then I could understand that. But this was like a
company. Like I called offices and they said hello, it bothered me. Now, this is
the same kind of thing that bothers me when I get contacted by companies and
their email address is like Gmail or hotmail or yahoo mail. It's just
one of these little things that's always kind of bothered me. Now, if
somebody emails me like they're like a developer or they're an
individual and they have gmail.com, that I'm okay with. But a
lot of times, I get contacted by companies or so-called companies
whatever, they might have a website, they might have, you know, all this kind of
stuff, but they have the gmail address And I just- it's one of these
little things that- it's not expensive to get a domain and it's not
expensive to hook up a domain with a gmail, with a gmail. We use
Google Apps for business. You can also set up other
different domains, all this kind of stuff. But it's one of those little
things that's not expensive to do, but it's just a little bit more professional.
I started thinking about like all the other ways to do this
kind of stuff, like it again- they could be- it doesn't have any bearings on
their- how well they do their job, on the type of service they can give, all
these kinds of stuff. It's just one of those little things that just doesn't
quite sit with me. It puts doubts into my mind early on. It's
a little bit the same as if you go to a job interview. Like if you go to a
job interview and you're not dressed appropriately, you might not get the job.
Now, you know how your dress has nothing to do with the job you do. It's just the
impression that you make to show that you're trying a little bit. And I
was trying to think, why this was bothering? Why did this bother me? I
try to put it into words. Like let's say you're gonna call an
electrician. Let's say you've got electrical problems in
your house and you make three calls for electricians. The first guy
shows up, he's just in his car, you know, he's got- he goes into the
trunk, he was just wearing normal clothes- t-shirt and jeans, he goes into
his truck- into his trunk, he pulls out a few tools, he walks to the door, he knocks
on the door. When you answer, he says, "I hear you got a problem with the
electricity?" That's fine. The second guy comes up. He pulls up in his van,
the man has the name of his company on it , he may or may
not be wearing- he's wearing a shirt, but he may not be branded shirt,
whatever, that's not really important. I don't think, but then he
takes his tools, and then he answers the phone, he says, "Yo,.Hi, I'm Joe from Joe's
electricians. You gave me a call. How can I help you?" all
that kind of stuff. And then the third guy shows up and he's in a really nice car
and he comes up in a three-piece suit. He doesn't have any
tools and he just says, "I understand you have trouble with your
electricity." Now, of those three people which one would you choose? The guy
who made no effort, the guy who made some effort or the guy who made too much
effort? Yeah? For me, I was try to think which one would I- which one
would I want to go with and it would be the second one. It'd be the one who had a
sense of professionalism about him, but wasn't trying too hard, like the third
guy wouldn't want to be an electrician or I think there's no way I
can afford this guy or whatever. What does he like? Is he electrician to
the Stars or whatever. But you know, the first guy who made no effort which is
the case a lot of times, it has no- it has no bearing on on how
will they do their job. The the first guy could be the best
electrician or the last guy could be the best electrician, but it's
the second one who made the effort to those little things that
just sort of, you know, they just put me at ease that I was spending my money
wisely. So, this is my question to you, because I know I've talked to a
lot of people about this in the past, where they say, you don't really
need a website, you don't need a domain name, you don't need business cards. You
know this, none of that stuff is important. It's just knowing the
right people and meeting the right people and I know other people who spend
way too much time on that kind of stuff. Like they spend all their time setting
up the website, doing the business cards, not enough time finding clients and I
think, it's sort of a happy medium in between. So, I want to ask you,
guys, today- for this weekend, do you think it's important to have a domain name? Do
you think it's important to have a website? If you're gonna work with
clients or if you're gonna even do app support, all that kind of stuff,
even just as a company? A lot of you, guys, are setting up your own companies or you
have your own companies. Do you feel that kind of stuff is important or do you
think it's all over-hyped? So, anyway,
those are just my thoughts for this- for today. I hope you, guys, have a great
weekend and I'll talk to you guys on Monday!