CoolApp or not to CoolApp

A Techbro Drama in Four Acts

So we started working with a new client on Monday this week. On Tuesday, the very next day, they fired us. 

This team of three techbros, let's call them "CoolApp", had signed off on our contract, agreed to our 3 month roadmap of deliverables, and paid us one month's advance on Sunday night.

So what happened? It's as mystifying to us as it no doubt will be to you. 

Act the First: Before Monday

CoolApp's FounderGuy finds us online and wants to work with us. We have a couple of meetings talking about CoolApp and its future and how we can help them with brand visuals and messaging. We love the product and its potential to revolutionize the sector, but we feel the name is generic and difficult to pronounce correctly. So we suggest a quick renaming exercise for free as a gesture of good will. We come back the next day with some options which FounderGuy loves so much that he immediately buys a domain name under SuggestedName. We meet MarketingGuy and OperationsGuy. We share ideas for campaigns around SuggestedName and what our work process looked like.

We send them a branding road map for the first three months, and they sign up to work with us. And everyone is thrilled!

Act the Second: Monday

We find out that an IIMuncle has just threatened to quit FounderGuy’s board of advisors if CoolApp dared to call themselves SuggestedName. Instead of asking IIMuncle to go climb a tree, FounderGuy askes us to think of more names. So the first order of business on Monday, the first day for work, is discussing ideas that both our teams have brought to the table. We all love AnotherName and we are back to thinking up video scripts and brand stories around it. Alas, AnotherName is vetoed as well, so we’re requested to get on a call to help them figure out what to do. Now here's where things get interesting.

Act the Third: Tuesday Morning

Instead of just telling us they're going with CoolApp now, MarketingGuy asks us what we think about going back to CoolApp.

We have not changed our minds in the interim and tell them we still think it's generic, difficult to pronounce correctly, and does not capture the unique revolutionary potential of the app. (fyi, none of us signed an NDA, I'm just respecting client-agency confidentiality here). MarketingGuy goes on for a bit about how, actually, CoolApp is the best name and they should stick with it, and that the current logo (which was a quick interim one that they had made) is actually perfect and that’s no need to change anything. So we say,

“If CoolApp is what you want to go with, let us know, but please make a decision. And at the very least let us redesign the logo because there are basic structural and typographical errors in the wordmark and icon.”

A few hours go by, and we get a request for an immediate meeting with MarketingGuy, and OperationsGuy for backup. OperationsGuy (who is clearly still single and has never been in a real relationship) starts with an analogy,

"It's hard to explain our experience so I'll go with an analogy. It's like going out on a date with a girl who was introduced to you by a friend, and everything goes great. And then you get married, but now the first day of the marriage is starting and you realize it's hard."

And we're on call, struggling not to let the "WTF" show on our faces. We have so many thoughts and questions like :

"Are we the girl in this analogy?"

"Marriage is hard, and takes work, why would you think otherwise?"

"Why would you marry someone after a first date? (and besides we had three dates before you married us)" 

"So you're saying that your first day working with us is like the first day of a marriage?" 

The confusion and the second-hand embarrassment we felt cannot be overstated. OperationsGuy is so blinded by the privileges of the patriarchy that he’s not only thinking the things he’s saying, but also completely ok with saying out loud the ridiculous things he’s thinking!

Then OperationsGuy says,

"I respect that you don't like CoolApp's name, but if you don't like it then your work for us will be affected."

And we say,

"No, it won't affect our work and enthusiasm, because we're professionals and we genuinely think you have a great product. At the end of the day the name matters less than the user experience. So if you make a decision on the name and stick with it, we can build your brand story to the best of our abilities."

And he says, and I'm paraphrasing here,

"Oh yes it will. And we don't want to bring you onboard if you're not excited about CoolApp. Let's cancel this marriage, and you can return the advance."

And we say,

"Noooo, that's not how we work. We've turned down other clients and blocked our time for the month for you, now give us a brand name to work with and we can finish off this month for you."

And he’s so shocked that we’re not budging that he says

"Ok. We'll come back with a plan for the month."

Act the Fourth: Tuesday Evening

Fortunately, this whole time, we have been documenting all our calls on an "as discussed on our call" email thread. We call out OperationsGuy for his sexist analogy, and he replies with a non-apology followed by a straight-up lie and a reverse victim-offender. Here it is word-for-word:

"I apologise if my words offended you in any way."

"The reason we questioned the engagement is because we were taken aback by how things went once we decided not to go ahead with 'SuggestedName'. I will also clarify that we are not asking or expecting you to like the name."

My guy, you literally fired us because the fact that we disliked "CoolApp" made you feel like a beleaguered husband on the first day of his wildly stereotypical marriage to a nagging wife. And second, we do not care what you call your app. You asked us for our expert opinion on the brand name/logo and we gave it to you, that's all. What you do with it is up to you.

FounderGuy, who has been absent for the video calls, comes in on the email thread all placating and both-sidesing. He says,

"What OperationsGuy said was wrong, but we must pause to understand each other’s viewpoint. There is no need to proceed with the engagement for this month to justify the payment made. We are ok to let go of the payment."

Excuse my language, but WTF?

FounderGuy was doubling down on the firing, instead of accepting that OperationsGuy was out-of-line— both with his analogy, and his belief that we would give less than our best because of their decision to go back to “CoolApp”.  FounderGuy wanted to “let go of the payment” rather than deal with the consequences of his team member’s behaviour.

And this was the guy who hemmed and hawed about paying us the advance in the first place — saying that he would "give us his word" that he would pay, and then pleading that they were bootstrapped and had no money in the bank. If we had trusted FounderGuy and started without an advance then we would have been in a fix after they fired us.

Lessons learned:

1. Never trust a techbro who says "I give you my word."

2. Never work with clients who are ok with mediocrity and do not want to be challenged to be better. Their ego will always be bigger than their desire to make their product or service the best it can be. 

3. Techbros need gentle handling— calling their logo mediocre, which we did, will get you fired.

Things that we will continue to do for our clients:

(Just as we did for CoolApp)

1. We will give some of our opinions, expertise, and advice for free, whether or not you end up signing with us.

2. We will meet and walk you through all the deliverables we can offer, and share our considered thoughts and opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of the brand. Then document and agree upon a written road map before we sign the contract.

3. We will always take an advance payment from you to block our time for you. It's a promise from both sides to be committed to the collaboration. 

4. We will never lock you into contracts, you are free to renegotiate the terms of our service and even disengage from our services at the end of each month no matter how long our proposed engagement with you.

Closing Thoughts:

This experience has shaken my belief in the fundamental goodness of cis-men in the patriarchy— and my experience is not even as bad as the things some women, non-binary, and trans people go through in the workplace. Just shows you how sheltered my life has been and how lucky I have been with the men in my immediate life circumstances. One of these fine men commented on the CoolApp drama,

"Sounds like they thought hiring you would be like buying a fancy gym pass. They thought once they paid for it, they would get all the benefits instantly. They didn't realize that they would have to work out, sweat, and be in discomfort, in order to do the hard work of interrogating their product and its place in the world."