Reflections of an Entrepreneur

An accountant from another firm once told me that “Anyone can do accounting” and this is about as far away from the “truth” as the flatness of the world. I like to think of myself as someone with a pretty decent intelligence and comprehension skills but accounting is something that makes that big vein in my head double in size and causes my head to spin faster than, well.. nothing comes close to making my head spin in this way.

“Anyone can do accounting”? Yah right, as I limped away from today’s two hours meeting with my accountant, shaking a little, but trying hard not to let it look obvious. This big A hurts me even more than parallel computing and artificial intelligence algorithms put together!

A word of advice to all entrepreneurs out there running sole-proprietorships or partnerships – do not convert your company to a private limited unless you have a very compelling reason to do so. Please do not do it just for the sake of the pretty “private limited” in the company name or you will be in for a very rude shock when the administrative overheads kick in.

Of course, if the company starts off small, with a small number of transactions, adjusting to the accounting requirements will be less painful and doing so gradually will be a good way to gain familiarity with the system, but iStyles unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) started with this big giant rolling ball that was passed on from ObjectsFusion. As with all big giant rolling balls, this one picked up little bits of dust, grime and moss over the years. Matters were further complicated by the migration from QuickBooks Premier to SAP BusinessOne in the second half of the year.

A solid ERP platform will be an absolute necessity but even that alone will not be sufficient to cover all angles. An accountant will be necessary.

iStyles Pte. Ltd. was previously ObjectsFusion, a sole-proprietorship that existed since July 2004. We ceased ObjectsFusion and started a private limited company with a sole purpose – to qualify for a Verisign merchant account. Despite the merchant fees of two thousand odd yearly, a merchant account will work out to substantial cost savings for us, compared to existing methods at the current transaction volume, and even more so as the business expands. In addition, a merchant account will potentially improve sales by radically simplifying the checkout and payment process on our store.

The acquisition of a merchant account as a Singapore business does not come about easily as it is strictly available only to private limited companies with a paid up capital of more than S$100k, unlike the case in other countries where a merchant account can be acquired with barely more than a corporate banking account, social security number and company registration number. A quick glance at our statements shows that we may be able to put in a paid up capital of S$100k but I’ll only be able to verify this after the statements are compiled.

Not everyone can do accounting and I sincerely thank Su Yen for her patience in working with me.

Some old wine bottle cocks simply crumble during the opening process due to old age and lousy material. (hey, it’s not my technique as I used an automatic bottle opener) What I learned today in my desperation to open that last bottle of red wine to pair with the foie gras is that there is a technique to get to that red goodness after all! Red wine is necessary with foie gras. Foie gras is all that I have left in my fridge anyway, it’s 2am+, I’ve got a long night ahead and I’m hungry!

Ensure that the cock opener has already punctured right through the cock to compromise the vacuum, then stick a small parring knife (with a height no larger than the diameter of bottle opening) right into the cock. Push the knife in till it’s stuck (don’t push it till the cock goes deeper in though) and then, twist and pull the knife out slowly. The trick is in the twisting and pulling action as friction ensures that the cock ‘adheres’ to the blade of the knife. You’ll notice the cock slowly coming out and after a few more patient seconds, voilà! wine!

The impossible has been done and the user registration for the various software components running on iStyles has FINALLY been integrated into a single registration form at https://www.istyles.com/create_account.php

There are two major software components that power iStyles - OsCommerce and vBulletin. OsCommerce is the engine that powers the online store while vBulletin is the engine that powers the forum for the community. OsCommerce and vBulletin are unfortunately not good bed fellows but they have finally been forced together.

The creation of an iStyles account with the link above now creates the account in both vBulletin and OsCommerce. Our new Support Center uses the same member login as OsCommerce to complete the trilogy.

What all these simply means is that customers fill up a single form and they can have access to all sections in iStyles with the same e-mail/username and password that they register!

We will create a tool in the next few days to link member accounts on both systems for users who have registered on both in the past, but for those who have not, please use iStyles Community to create your forum account.

Customer support is the dark mystical art that some companies tolerate, hate or simply ignore, but what makes this subject so frightening to companies? Is it really that dark and mystical? The solutions lie not just within the customer support department but in almost every other department in a company.

Customer support does not start and end with the customer support department. Having fantastic customer support does not ensure a satisfied customer as customer satisfaction is based on his or her perceived level of satisfaction in the usage of a company’s service, which in turn determines whether his or her expectations were met.

It’s all about managing expectations. A company has achieved perfect customer support when it receives zero customer issues to support. Of course, this is impossible in the real world and some of you may even be wondering what I’m drinking (a yummy 2004 bottle of “grand vin” from Chateau Petit-Village in the Pomerol region of France by the way) as I write this article, but just think about it - customer support issues are nothing more than a failure of the other department to perform their duties.

For example, if a customer is frustrated to learn that his order has still not arrived after five days, it’s due to the failure of the IT, content and/or sales department to present the facts clearly that orders shipped via xxx service will take between 6 to 12 days. If a product has mechanical flaws that result in constant failures and support issues, it’s a failure of the hardware engineering team. If a software is hard to use, has improper documentation or simply does not function well, it’s a failure of the software engineers, UI designer or documentation officer.

Resolving all these issues in the other departments is of course easier said then done but it is a state of perfection that we constantly strive towards in iStyles.

A company that has zero customer issues in the real world is a company that is not opened for business. Customer support is thus the final line of defense to ensure customer satisfaction and this is a department that must be taken seriously. Customer support is no less important to a company brand or image than the other components.

The customer support on iStyles has thus far been accomplished via e-mails and forum conversations. We’re pretty much focused on being people oriented and our customer support has been constantly praised for its quick and helpful responses. In an effort to enhance and take this step further, we have acquired a license for Kayako’s excellent SupportSuite and have integrated the software into our web platform. The integration has been completed at the back end at [url]http://support.istyles.com[/url] , but we will still have to update the flow of information accordingly for the other support pages, in addition to populating the knowledgebase and troubleshooter so that customers can easily find a solution to any issues they encounter, should they encounter any.

All e-mails sent to us are currently handled by the new system. The public launch will be done at a later stage, once the full integration is complete.

It’s amazing how far every little bit can go to enhance the customer experience, which in turn results in better visitor traffic and higher sales

When it comes to an e-commerce store, it’s not about splashing the most intensive flash animations and 3D world immersions but about the presentation of a tool that showcase products well, allow customers to find what they’re looking for easily, complete the purchase easily and yet not have that popular ‘as little graphics and colors as possible’ Web 2.0 look as it is still necessary to immerse the customer in the branding of the store as part of their shopping experience. It all sounds simple but it’s a mighty fine line to thread.

We revamped iStyles.com slightly on 1 Sept by replacing the rounded box look in the main content sections with horizontal lines for a more clean cut look, rearranged the presentation of the front page slightly for a clearer focus on the products, added an automatic refreshing “good comments by other websites” section, and added new tools such as “Other products with the same design” in the product pages, amongst other little refinements.

The changes, though technically non-spectacular as it was pretty much like rearranging the furniture in a room, took only one day of tweaking but resulted in a steady increase in web traffic since 1 Sept that’s currently 50% higher than it was on 31 Aug, and a 70%-100% increase in sales volume. Every little bit goes a long way but it requires careful planning and analysis of how your visitors use your site.