When Founders Do Customer Support
When Founders Do Customer Support
Pain, growth, and the moment you realize emotional distance is not cold, it is survival, especially when your cat is judging you like a tiny furry manager.
It is 2:17 AM and my laptop is the only light in the room
The room is quiet in that heavy end-of-day way, and the only glow comes from my screen, which is doing a great job pretending this is normal. I have been staring at a bug for forty-seven minutes, and it is the kind of bug that only appears when a user bulk publishes to Instagram under very specific conditions that somehow never occur in testing.
My desk looks like a crime scene: five browser tabs open, three test accounts half broken, a Slack thread full of theories, and a Loom video I recorded earlier where I sound calm while my internal voice is doing sprint intervals.
Small plug, big relief
Postly is built for founders and teams who want scheduling, bulk publishing, and cross-platform workflows that do not turn into midnight emergencies, because your evenings should be boring in the best way.
When “Can you help?” feels like a threat to your nervous system
On paper, customer support sounds simple, because the story goes like this: a user has a problem, you help them solve it, they are grateful, and everyone moves on with their day. In reality, it feels like a strange emotional obstacle course where you are part detective, part therapist, and part emergency responder, all while pretending you are totally fine.
A user once messaged in absolute panic about what they called a business-ending bug while cross-posting from TikTok to Instagram, and the second I read it my chest tightened and my mind sprinted to worst-case scenarios.
Three days later, the reply arrived like a gentle punch: “Oh, it resolved itself.” Cool. Great. Amazing. My nervous system did not get the memo.
Why every complaint feels personal when you are the one who built it
When you build something from scratch, there is no emotional buffer between you and the product, which means there is no “that is not my department,” and no clean separation between feedback and identity. Every bug feels like a personal failure, and every angry message feels like someone questioning your judgment, your competence, and sometimes your character.
The good reviews lift you for days, but the negative ones tend to stick forever, especially the ones that twist effort and goodwill into something malicious.
Want fewer support spirals
Postly helps you plan, schedule, and publish across platforms with cleaner workflows, clearer feedback, and less guesswork when things fail, which means fewer late-night detective missions.
The hard truth I learned too late
Founders care too much to do customer support forever, and that is not a character flaw, it is just math. Good support requires emotional distance, the ability to stay calm when someone is upset, to ask for logs without panic, and to repeat the same explanation for the hundredth time without feeling personally attacked.
That distance is not cold, it is healthy, and it is powerful, because you can actually help without bleeding all over the keyboard.
Ghosting hurts more than anger
Anger is at least something you can work with, because it comes with energy and urgency and, usually, details. The hardest moments come when users demand urgent help and then disappear completely, which leaves you trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing while being blamed for not finishing fast enough.
The part that makes it worth it
Despite all of that, there is something real and valuable hidden inside the chaos, because some of the best improvements we have ever made came directly from our angriest users. They did not uninstall quietly, they did not churn without explanation, they cared enough to be loud, and that matters.
Angry users are often hopeful users who simply do not know how to say it gently, so you listen, you filter, and you build.
What I wish someone had told me earlier
Gratitude helps more than defensiveness, even when the feedback stings, because it keeps you grounded and it keeps the conversation human.
Not all feedback is signal, because sometimes it is emotion looking for a place to land, and your job is to find the usable part without absorbing the rest.
You need a clear north star, because trying to please everyone will pull your product apart, and clarity beats chaos every single time.
Protect your heart, because staying close to users is good, but staying emotionally exposed forever is not a badge of honor, it is a slow leak.
Stay close to your users, but do not stay raw forever, and when it is time, hire people who can carry the emotional weight without breaking, because you cannot build the future if you are constantly recovering from the inbox.
Build, ship, sleep better
If you are juggling publishing across Instagram, TikTok, and more, Postly is designed to keep your workflow steady, so support is calmer, publishing is cleaner, and 2:17 AM stays reserved for sleeping.
A small ask
To founders, customer support will grow you, humble you, and slowly exhaust you if you are not careful, so be intentional about when to stay close and when to create distance. To users, there is a real person behind that chat bubble, and sometimes it is the person who built the whole thing, so a little patience and kindness go much further than you realize.
And yes, I am still running on coffee, stubborn optimism, and the belief that building things this way is still worth it, even at 2:17 in the morning.