Day 730: Overwhelmed

I feel overwhelmed.

On every single messaging service I use, there’s currently someone who wants my help with Browserflow:

Discord
- N ran into an issue running a flow from another flow, which is a valid but rare use case
- D has questions about how to use the Browserflow API
Twitter
- N wants clarification about Browserflow functionality
Facebook Messenger
- R ran into a spreadsheet bug when importing flows
- D has issues with logging into Discord when using Browserflow Cloud and it’s unclear whether it’s because of Discord or Browserflow or the fact that he’s using an old version that hasn’t been upgraded because the latest versions have removed features he relies on
Email
- E reported having random issues and it wasn’t clear whether it was from running flows locally or in the cloud and when I asked, he mentioned running Browserflow in a Windows VM which raises even more questions
- B commissioned a custom flow and in addition to many other unresolved issues, it might require a piece of functionality I removed a while back to simplify the product and am reluctant to bring back simply for this one weird edge case on a website straight from the depths of hell because it would mean increased product surface = more support requests
Text messages
- K is helping me build flows for customers and ran into an issue when trying to automate using a spreadsheet with hundreds of thousands of rows

I’m having a really hard time handling this load. Because I keep getting new requests and I feel bad about being unable to respond to them due to the backlog of existing requests, I’ve largely stopped checking messages which is not great for my personal life because there are still happy new year messages from friends that I haven’t responded to. It’s paralyzing.

So. Let’s try to figure out what I can do about this.

First off, I want to make it clear that if you’re in the list above (I know many of you are R2R readers) or have asked me a question about Browserflow recently, I’m grateful that you did so and I actually want you to continue reaching out with Browserflow questions. I’m glad that people are taking the time to ask questions and request help because it means that they care about Browserflow and that it’s providing value to them; the alternative where people simply stop using the product or don’t bother to ask for help is not something I want. Me feeling stressed and overwhelmed is a failure of process on my end and not the fault of people going out of their way to report bugs and make feature requests. As Browserflow grows and gets more users, I know this problem will only become exacerbated so this post is me exploring how to deal with this going forward.

Why does this feel stressful? I’m going to list out reasons as they come to mind:

The requests are all over the place. Browserflow is an incredibly large product (you can run it locally or in the cloud, it’s infinitely customizable to support any use case, etc.), which means that there are a million things that can go wrong or be improved. That means that I’m context switching all the time because thinking through a bug with handling spreadsheets is entirely different from how the API is designed which is entirely different from investigating how logging in with Discord works.
I feel like I need to respond promptly to everyone. I’ve been operating under the assumption (which is wholly created by me) that taking over 24 hours to respond to any user is too slow.
I don’t feel comfortable responding with anything other than an answer. As a result, I don’t respond because I intend to do so until I’ve thoroughly investigated their inquiry, which takes longer than expected because I’m doing that for all the other requests that have come in, which leads to greater stress because now I feel like I’m keeping people waiting, which slows down my motivation and ability to work through the requests…

Huh. That did it.

When I identified the assumption in the last bullet about thinking that I can’t respond to people until I have a solution for them rather than a simple update like that I’ll get back to them later, two things happened:

I realized how silly that assumption is
I felt myself completely relax

Suddenly, things didn’t feel out of control and unmanageable.

I could just tell people that there are a lot of requests and that I’ll get to their question eventually, but that I’m working through some other requests. That way, I’ve set expectations and don’t feel like I’m keeping them waiting simply by not responding immediately. I’ve actually done this recently, but it happened in the context of me telling someone asking a ton of questions and needing a lot of support that I only provide that level of support to customers (they were on the free plan). But I can do this as well for customers that I do want to help — it will just be letting them know that there will be a delay.

There’s definitely still some resistance to doing this due to wanting to give them an answer as soon as possible, but keeping them waiting without any response is way worse than letting them know that I’m on it but it will take some time.

Also, it’s important to remind myself that I am not obligated to investigate every single user’s issues / help them debug their flows. This is incredibly difficult for me to internalize because I naturally want to help people and get Browserflow working for them, but I’m simply not able to spend hours helping each user with every little issue when there are so many requests coming in.

I’ve been operating in a completely reactive manner, and it’s been frustrating because it’s made it hard for me to be proactive about making the major improvements I want to make in Browserflow. In putting out little fires left and right all by myself, I’ve been unable to think about how I might be able to build a fire department that will take care of most fires. Maybe that’s through hiring; maybe that’s through better documentation; maybe that’s through product improvements. Regardless of which it is, I need to free up time and mental space for me to come up with longer term solutions.

I need to set better boundaries. It’s okay to tell users that I won’t be able to help them, especially if they’re not paying customers. Yes, I’ll probably lose some customers who expect immediate support, but I did not choose to become an indie maker so that I can be at the whim of any customer who wants my attention at any time of the day.

And lastly, I need to prioritize better. The reason why I’ve felt so frazzled is because every request feels important. But they’re not equal. A minor bug with a feature that almost no one uses shouldn’t trigger the same kind of response as a major issue affecting all users.

Takeaways:

It’s better to respond promptly with an estimate or status update rather than keeping people waiting
Help people, but it’s also okay to say no when appropriate
Figure out business priorities so that requests can be triaged better

Open questions:

Long-term, how do I want to handle support? Hire a support team? Continue doing all the support myself while setting the expectation that real-time support is not always available? Eventually, I want to get the documentation and product experience to the point where the vast majority of things can be looked up, but there will always be users with special needs or people who choose to send an email over reading the documentation. Do I try to win them as customers or go full self-service in only targeting customers who can figure out a solution all by themselves?

lil update: after writing this post, i got a burst of motivation and jumped on a call with a user to help them set up a flow that’s going to save their company a ton of time. felt amazing when it all started working! just gotta figure out a way to scale that