The Frog in the Beaker Parable:
If a frog is placed in a beaker of boiling water, it will immediately jump out to save itself. However, if the frog is placed in a beaker of lukewarm water that is slowly heated, the frog will remain in the water, not noticing the gradual rise in temperature. Eventually, the water will reach a boiling point, and the frog will perish because it failed to react to the slow, incremental change.
Moral of the Story:
The parable serves as a warning against complacency and the failure to act in the face of slow, incremental changes that can lead to disastrous outcomes. It’s a lesson often applied in business, personal life, or societal contexts, emphasizing the importance of staying vigilant, recognizing warning signs, and taking proactive steps to prevent negative outcomes.
My Story:
I spent most of 2024 in a beaker of lukewarm water. If I'm honest with myself, it probably started in sometime in 2023. Perhaps even earlier than that. I had gotten complacent. I was totally unaware it was happening to me.
The first sign I realized something was wrong is when my July 2024 software payment from MyCommerce/Digital River was late. This had happened once before in October 2023. A quick email to support was all that was required. So, I sent off an email. I received a response saying they had put a new ticket system in place. I created an account and opened a ticket. And...crickets. 🦗
August turned into September, which turned into October. And now I'm missing July, August, and September payments.
It was October and I started thinking about some of the other Delphi products I have purchased in the past and the user buying experience. I even sent Ray Konopka an email asking him what shopping cart system he put in place on https://www.raize.com/. Ray was gracious with his time and quickly responded.
It was at that point I realized this was not going to be a weekend just project. I also realized just how widespread the Digital River/MyCommerce/Share-It situation was. I wasn't the only one. 👇😓
https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/digital_river_runs_dry_hasnt/
The solution I wanted was a Merchant of Record (MOR). I wanted someone else to handle all the interactions with customers. I just wanted to put links on my website to a shopping cart page.
Complacency Turned Into a Rabbit Hole 🐇🕳
I narrowed down my search to two MORs; FastSpring and Paddle. I crunched the numbers and decided to go with Paddle. I created an account with Paddle and submitted my website for verification.
Your Website Has Been DENIED!
My website was denied with no specifics other than it did not meet Paddle's standards. So, I signed up with FastSpring. I was also denied by FastSpring.
Turns out that I did not have the adequate GDPR processes in place. I needed to severely update my website. I need to add a Consent Banner and all the necessary webpages; Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy.
The Consent Banner. Oh yeah that little popup thingy that lets visitors accept which cookies they want to allow. And one of those cookies is Google Analytics.
This lead me down the path of implementing Google Tag Manager. I ignored all the warning messages Google Analytics had bee showing me about the change to GTM.
I'm a do it yourself kind of guy so I was looking for a "do it yourself consent banner." I settled on Klaro https://github.com/klaro-org
So I spent three whole weekends implementing Google Tag Manager, Klaro, and updating my website to interact with the new consent banner.
I added the three necessary webpages; Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and resubmitted to both Paddle and FastSpring. It took about a week to 10 days but I was now APPROVED!
Paddle
I started looking around the back-end in Paddle for how to set up a shopping cart with a download button. After several hours of reading the documentation I gave up. I sent an email to my sales rep asking for help. After several back and forth emails, it turns out that what I needed was "Paddle Classic" (a completely different system) from Paddle Billing. I gave up and switched over to FastSpring.
FastSpring
I found FastSpring to be very intuitive. And of course I was thoroughly testing all the pieces. I found a flaw in the "Invoice Email" which directly affects the download link. Unfortunately you cannot modify the email templates until your go live. The process of going live took another week to 10 days.
I finally got everything in place and ready to go just after Thanksgiving.
SEO vs AEO (Ask Engine Optimization)
Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) dead? Maybe? Maybe not? Read this post from Dave Collins at Software Promotions. https://www.softwarepromotions.com/news/seo-is-dead-again/
I also discovered https://www.perplexity.ai/ The first question I asked Perplexity was "Who are ZilchWork's direct competitors?"
I also found this fantastic website, Answer Socrates https://answersocrates.com/
Zilch - Complacent For Almost 7 Years
I haven't just been complacent, I've been asleep at the wheel. I've enjoyed a software product with a funny name "Zilch" for years. I noticed my sales have been steadily declining. I just assumed it was do to the look and feel of my current desktop software begin stuck in the 640 X 480 pixel mode. Wrong!
What I failed to notice was a modern product called Zilch was taking the world by storm. Zilch launched in 2018 (that's almost 7 years ago). It's not for paying off debt like my software... it's for buying products. It puts people in direct contact with products without using credit cards.
Hopefully you can lean from some of my mistakes.
Use the comments and share how you have been complacent!
Enjoy!
Semper Fi
Gunny Mike
https://www.zilchworks.com
