Seems to be a lot of questions about how bootstrapped startups handle customer support.
I'm the cofounder of Eureka Surveys. We're bootstrapped, profitable, and just crossed 1M+ users. We've had an amazing experience hiring customer support in the Philippines. I have a thread about it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/t0mstah/status/1356296043009253382
The tl;dr is that you can hire cheap ($3.50/hr), high quality virtual assistants from the Philippines to handle customer support for you, all from day one. Having CS has really made a difference for us in our business and is one of our main differentiators as we've scaled up the CS team. DM me on Twitter and I can connect you to some excellent VAs looking for jobs!
Lifelong Serial Founder/PM here. The one biggest thing I see missing from most comments (which in general are quite good) is that the role of the PM and the decision framework depends very highly on the stage that your company is in. Are you pre product/market fit? Are you just seeing traction? Are you in hyper growth? This should massively change your decisions.
There are endless frameworks for balancing these choices. For me, they all come down to this:
Value
1. Dollar value; in either revenue unlocked or money saved (and money can be customer support time)
2. Strategic alignment; how is the item aligned with overall vision & goals? If this item is completed, does it make us stronger or dilute our value / competitiveness? This is really where stage of company comes into play.
...vs...
Cost:
1. Time; Estimated time to build/support. This can be a wag from the engineering team.
2. Risk; what is the uncertainty around the time and maintenance estimates?
Using a framework like this allows you to include architecture, technical debt maintenance, etc into your overall planning and decision process. This will help make visible to business stakeholders the true complexity of operating the product and hopefully lead to better PM decisions. Everything is a trade-off.
Remember: one of the most important jobs of a PM is to say NO. You are the process gatekeeper to how the company spends a ton of resources.
I'm the cofounder of Eureka Surveys. We're bootstrapped, profitable, and just crossed 1M+ users. We've had an amazing experience hiring customer support in the Philippines. I have a thread about it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/t0mstah/status/1356296043009253382
The tl;dr is that you can hire cheap ($3.50/hr), high quality virtual assistants from the Philippines to handle customer support for you, all from day one. Having CS has really made a difference for us in our business and is one of our main differentiators as we've scaled up the CS team. DM me on Twitter and I can connect you to some excellent VAs looking for jobs!