Let’s clear the air about this now. I do not like to be put on hold. I don’t like when I am left sitting idle on one end of the phone for a friend, a family member or especially a company. It just isn’t necessary. I called first. Talk to me first. Finish the call. Contact the other person back. So, you can imagine how I felt when I called customer service yesterday of my local ISP to inquire about my ‘No Connection’ screen. I was given no advance notice that work would be done on my cable lines during the business day. It just happened. No explanation. And it never came back on. So I called the company and was put on hold. Not only that but then I was hung up on. So I called a second time and was put on hold until I hung up. 35 minutes. I was appalled. So I called a third time and got through to tech support…but only after being introduced to the best of Muzak. A lineman came out today and fixed the problem. But the whole time he was here I had a bad taste in my mouth for both him and his company because of the customer service I received the day before. I am left with this though. That company may not lose my business yet but I will tell others about my experience and they may end up not getting the business of my friends and colleagues. I asked them only to give me a Minute, hear my problem and offer to fix it. They couldn’t even give me that Minute.

MinuteFix is a California-France-based company. Yes, the wine might seem strangely coincidental, but there’s more to it. With offices in San Jose and Paris, we cover both continents and dig our roots into the technology centers of the western world. MinuteFix this week inaugurated its Parisian office located at 18 Rue Montmartre in the 1st arrondissement in Paris. Overlooking the Eglise Saint-Eustache, Paris’ oldest cathedral, we are now in closer access to European partners, capital and technicians.

We are also in Paris because we believe in revolution. MinuteFix knows no borders when spreading the world’s wealth, all while changing the way people interact with technology. Our economic model is unique; it reflects our desire to touch people’s lives and empower those who could otherwise never participate in a fair, level marketplace. Not unlike those great thinkers and leaders who did their part for equality and justice, many of whom still lie in this great city. We too intend to make an impact on the modern world with what we do best–technology–and we believe Paris is the right place to do it.

All of Disney World’s employees – even their maintenance department – know the business they are in. Their fifteen word mission statement is quite simply, “We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment to people of all ages, everywhere.” Every employee from the maid of the Grand Floridian to the CEO knows it. When a decision needs to be made it is tested against how well it creates happiness for Disney’s guests. This is also true in long-term planning and in everyday encounters with guests. All employees are driven to create happiness for their guests, and they do. Their average guest probably have no clue what the mission statement is, nor care. But they feel it and see its results in hundreds of ways.

MinuteFix will adopt this same sort of idea. Although we don’t have Wonderland Tea Cups or rollercoasters per se, we do have a bit of magic that our customers will be looking for. We have the magic to “heal” their computers and get them off on the right track. We want to create happiness for them though. Not just the happiness in having their problem solved but also the happiness of the MinuteFix experience. We want them to know from second one that they are in good, capable hands. Yes, there may be times we don’t know the exact problem and even some times we may not be able to solve it. However, if we provide a happy experience for them they will stick with us.

I do think there is a little bit of Mickey in us all.

It’s been a month now since I arrived in Paris to setup our offices in this great city. At first, I was concerned that spending much time away from Silicon Valley would detach me from the fast-paced, startup incubator that San Jose is. Everyone speaks the language, everyone gets technology—wifi is as available as Coca-Cola, technology events can keep your calendar booked solid if you so choose. It’s a great place to run a startup like MinuteFix. Any Starbucks barista can advise you on how to build a social network and everyone is buzzing to the same tune. People are not sending SMS messages, but rather Twittering, and blogging has become a house-hold term.

How refreshing it has been to come to Europe. And how healthy it has been for our business. When you are in the Silicon Valley, you tend to forget how the real world works. Things are simple, money flows easily, ideas get funded just from blog buzz. Powerful bloggers can make or break a company. People are young and energetic and tides shift with the wind. Revenue is a foreign word, and fads are fundable. We all want to become valley stars such as Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and Loic Le Meur, who all have a ga-ga fan club maxing out their Facebook friends’ list.

This is not good for business. Entrepreneurs owe it to their investors and customers to not make decisions based on fashion, but must stand on their own two feet and do what’s best for the company’s financial health. Our companies are LLCs, S- and C-corps. They aren’t 501(c)s. In the end, a business must make money, and money is made in two ways: from revenue or through a liquidity event. And unfortunately when liquidity happens in the Valley, it shakes San Francisco harder than the San Andreas Fault. But we forget that to be acquired, it either takes tons of traffic, or the less common—a sound business model.

Getting away from the Valley for a while helps you understand this. Talking with traditional business people—I mean restaurant owners, small retail vendors, and most any entrepreneur who does not know what a blog is—you realize that we don’t run this world, they do. Evan Williams is not God, but the guy down the street sending his kids to school from the profit generated from a restaurant, is. We’re just spoiled and dazzled by the wine that flows at the TechCrunch parties. It’s all in the basics; a business should have more money coming in the door than going out. Venture Capital should not be the ultimate goal, staying away from it, should. Albeit, technology has changed the traditional business model, but at the end, any business runs the same.

Lenn Pryor and I discussed this topic a few months ago over lunch, and his description hit the target: The Valley is like a Vegas casino. Lots of noise, you can hear people winning, but most everyone loses. I do believe that without this type of environment we wouldn’t see the innovation that we do coming out of California. However, if we all thought more about running our startups like real businesses, we’d all be seeing more success.

Conversely, do you know why the French cannot replicate the Silicon Valley environment? Because they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.

It’s just a matter of finding the right balance.

You don’t understand all those 10_ _ forms the IRS makes you fill out each year?
You find and visit a CPA.

The brakes on your car are squeeling?
You find and go to a mechanic.

You don’t know why Windows Vista will not allow you to run Adobe reader 8?
You find and go to MinuteFix.

I like to think that as the Community Manager I am as adept at answering Tech Support questions as the next guy. This is not always the case though. After all, I am only human. I make stupid mistakes and I field questions I just can’t answer. There is nothing worse than going to a friend or colleagues house to “fix” his computer only to find that I can’t. Sometimes it is a hardware issue and I simply don’t have a motherboard in my back pocket. Sometimes it is because I am just stumped. Even worse, sometimes I make stupid mistakes. For days now I have been trying to get Google Talk to play nicely with my Adium setup. Nothing would work though. I kept getting annoying error messages. Come to find out, I was getting those messages and not being able to login because I was entering the wrong password the entire time. I felt so stupid. But the process made me realize something. It isn’t always whether or not we answer the question at hand but moreso how we field it. When we start to get on live chats and actually solve peoples real problems there will need to be a huge emphasis on how we treat them. If I called in with this question and it went unfixed I would be frustrated, yes. However, if the person on the other end treated me with dignity and respect and was professional the entire time, I would turn my focus to the refreshing customer service I had just received. Not only that but I wouldn’t think twice about where to turn when my next problem surfaced.

I LOVE like to read. What else would I do in the bathroom during those unmentionable times? Seriously though. Reading has become something that keeps me on my game. That is why I am on Amazon.com right now purchasing a book by Scott Ginsberg entitled The Power of Approachability. A rather easy read, this book teaches how to become an effective, engaging communicator one conversation at a time. But why do I mention this book? Well, because this guy knows his stuff. He has an insightful blog and an informative website as well that will allow us to breed fans of MinuteFix and not just customers. I hope that we will all focus on not just solving hardware and software issues but really entering into a social interaction in which problems are, in fact, solved. Here’s to becoming a friend to those less savvy than ourselves!

It is obvious at this point that our world has turned into a computer nation. A decade or so ago home computers were billed as “the next best thing since sliced bread.” I think more people have computers than even eat bread. They are rolling off the line with remarkable number. They are everywhere in some form. Newsweek even published the following:

“Three quarters of all Americans have access to the Internet, spending an average of twelve-and-a-half hours a week online…for those between 12 and 18, usage approaches 100 percent. Though e-mail is still the No. 1 activity, the study concludes that the Net has profoundly changed the way we spend money, keep in touch with our friends and get information (Internet users use the medium as their No. 1 source of news, despite worries about credibility).”

Of those numbers it is likely that many will have problems just getting them set up. That is where we come in. I know I can get someone up and running pretty quickly. But how do I get to them? How does the average computer user know to come to me? And once I do speak to them, what compels me to help them. I help them because I am good at it. My talent is computers and my goal is to see that everyone can enjoy their proverbial slice of the 21st century bread.

As co-founder of MinuteFix and leader of the investor group, I want to give a big pat on the back to the company’s founder, Diego Orjuela. Speaking on behalf of the investor group, we are all very impressed with what you, with your AMAZING team (Dan, Drew, Michael, Josh, Daniel and Eric) have been able to accomplish to date. MinuteFix is a service that will not only simplify the lives of consumers, but can also radically change the lives of our technicians as well. Keep up the good work — we can’t wait for the January launch!