The Last.fm debacle with Techcrunch blew up a weekend ago over the RIAA requesting scrobbling data. The whole ordeal was complete with comment battles, swearing and plenty of outsider opinion on the ever so heated debate. While the subject matter has died down, and this post is not centered on Last.fm, a few interesting points were generated during the debate of who is wrong or right. One of these points I saw was the fact that Techcrunch posted the very controversial piece on Last.fm on a Friday evening, a weekend. Many commentors blew up over this fact and accused Techcrunch of being unfair. I beg to differ.
When starting a business it becomes your life and if it doesn’t then it simply will not get up and off the ground. It takes hard work, dedication and the ability to take unexpected swings at the gut to persevere in this world. This has never been more true than starting a business on the world wide web. In this atmosphere anything and everything is called out, damage control on the web? Good luck.
People from all over the globe will be using your product (hopefully). While the product you make is a “niche” product, that niche could serve millions people. Unlike the local hardware store in the town of 15,000 people where weekends are expected and everything closes shop at six, the internet is always on. You can potentially have customers walking in and out of your store during all times of the day. On the internet, your store is always open, and if the store is always open you are expected to be there, on call, at all times.
Now I am not saying that you need to give up everything you’re doing for one customer, but if important issues arise like they did between Last.fm and Techcrunch you should be on call. It doesn’t matter if it is the weekend or not.
The internet never takes a weekend, so why should you?
