🗞 What's New: The booming call center industry

The call center industry attracted $400 million in funding this past year:

• Although automated systems are becoming increasingly popular, phone calls are still customers' favorite way to communicate with businesses. One top market for founders is gyms: 35% of calls to gyms go unanswered, creating a prime opportunity in the call center niche.
• People get distracted every 40 seconds when working on a computer that's connected to the internet, according to researchers. This guide can help busy founders increase time efficiency.
• The open source license debate rages on as companies continue to change their models to protect their open source code. Startup attorney Chris Brown shows how failing to address intellectual property ownership can cost you big.

Want to share something with over 75,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📞 The Booming Call Center Industry

from the Hustle Newsletter by Julia Janks

The call center industry attracted ~$400M in funding over the last year. That's ~15% of the industry's total $3B in cumulative funding in just one year.

Call centers aren't so boring

The Signal: Our research surfaced a recent report which estimates that the outsourced call center market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% from 2020-2027.

Source: StrategyR

The number is slightly higher than the 5.6% anticipated for in-house call centers over the same period, and much higher than the 4.7% growth that the outsourced industry has experienced since 2013.

The opportunities: While AI, chatbots, and other disruptive technologies are providing more communication channels than ever, phone calls remain consumers' favorite way to connect with businesses.

Source: Vonage Global Customer Engagement Report, August 2020

We spoke to a number of other Trendsters in the space about where they see opportunities, including TJ Larkin, founder of Game Plan Leads, who confirmed that phone calls are a powerful sales tool.

Lead generation: Last year, TJ bought a call center in India and started Game Plan Leads. The company initially focused on selling live transfer calls to insurance agents, but has since expanded into other niche industries, including solar roofing and mortgages.

The business operates on a pay-per-lead model, charging $20-$25 per insurance lead and up to ~$200 per solar lead. TJ also sees a lot of opportunity in a percentage-of-sale model (earning a percentage of the total sale if the lead converts), especially in higher-ticket industries, like solar.

One cohort where TJ sees potential is the 65+ demographic. With 10K people in the US turning 65 every day, TJ believes there are call center and lead-generation opportunities in niches such as retirement villages, Medicare, and even burial insurance.

Integration and software: We also spoke to Chad Capp and Todd Huna, the co-founders of HelloGym. The company started as an overflow answering service for gym franchises and has since evolved into a turnkey customer service platform for gyms, including inbound and outbound calls, lead generation, appointment bookings, and analytics.

Source: HelloGym

By targeting gym franchises, the company is able to expand quickly and provide a tailored solution at scale. You could leverage the same model to grow niche call centers in other industries with a ton of franchises, including home repairs, cleaning services, real estate, package shipping, printing services, and more.

HelloGym custom-built their gym management software to provide a fully integrated solution to their customers. The founders see a lot of opportunity for others to do the same in other niche service industries like HVAC, construction, and health care practitioners (i.e. chiropractors or any other niche with a bunch of solo practitioners or small offices who want to outsource the front-desk functionality).

Institutional money also sees opportunity in call center software.

The call center industry attracted ~$400M in funding over the last year. That's ~15% of the industry's total $3B in cumulative funding in just one year, most of which has been allocated to call center software companies. Noteworthy deals include:

• Talkdesk in July 2020 ($143M at a $3B valuation): Provides cloud-based contact-center software for enterprise clients.
• Dialpad in October 2020 ($100M at a $1.2B valuation): Provides voice, video, and contact-center software and services.
• Aircall in May 2020 ($65M): Provides cloud-based call center software that integrates with CRM, productivity, and help-desk tools.

Source: Crunchbase

Call me maybe?

High-growth industries: Todd Huna of HelloGym told us that ~35% of calls to gyms will go unanswered. Of those unanswered calls, ~75% will not leave a voicemail. This presents a massive cost in missed leads, especially in industries like HVAC where the average lifetime value of a customer is ~$15K.

Even if you don't want to provide a fully integrated service like HelloGym, there is still an opportunity to provide outsourced call center services or call overflow services to other high-growth industries. For instance, spaces such as food delivery, ghost kitchens, and e-commerce (highly specialized in small/medium D2C brands) are benefiting from massive COVID tail winds.

Would you consider entering the call center space? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Subscribe to the Hustle Newsletter for more.

📰 In the News

from the Volv newsletter by Priyanka Vazirani

🏛 Amazon and Apple might have to shed assets under this bipartisan US House bill.

📉 Hedge funds lost $6B in May by shorting meme stocks like AMC.

🏦 Here's how Starbucks functions like a bank.

🏝 Coinbase works with 401(k) firm to bring crypto to retirement plans.

🎮 You will soon be able to play Xbox games on your TV without a console.

Check out Volv for more 9-second news digests.

⏰ Your Guide to Increased Time Efficiency

by James Fleischmann

Research shows that people get distracted every 40 seconds when working on a computer that's connected to the internet. Our inability to focus takes a large toll on our ability to be productive, and as founders, time is incredibly precious. These tips can help you be more efficient!

Mentality

• Be okay with doing less: Doing more work isn't necessarily more valuable. Be very discerning about what you do and what you don't do.
• Say no more often.
• Gamify your work to make it more fun.

Structure

• The Ivy Lee Method is a 100-year-old strategy that instructs you to write down the next day's six most important tasks and rank them.
• The 1-3-5 Method has you plan for one major task, three medium tasks, and five minor tasks every day.
• Gretchen Rubin's One-Minute Rule recommends going through and completing every single task that takes a minute or less.
• Bullet Journaling asks you to bullet out tasks, events, and notes in an organized and efficient way. This method has a very large following.

Workflow

• Set SMART goals.
• Don't multitask. Studies show that multitasking doesn't work.
• Use the Pomodoro technique: This recommends staying focused by working in shorter bursts and taking frequent breaks. It creates urgency, reduces the length of time that you've got to focus, and gives you much-needed breaks. Work for 25 minutes, then take a five minute break. After completing four "Pomodoros," take a longer break.

Tools

Use tools to your advantage. There are tons of productivity and time-management tools out there. In the Products section of Indie Hackers alone, there are hundreds of productivity products. Here are some popular ones:

• Todoist is a solid to-do list app.
• Timeivy tracks how much time you spend on apps and websites each day.
• Focusmate gives you access to accountability buddies.
• ClickUp does it all: Tasks, docs, chat, goals, etc. The app boldly guarantees that you'll save one day per week. We can't verify that, but it sounds impressive.
• Brain.fm provides music that improves focus.
• Focus is a website and app blocker.

What are your top time management tips? Please share in the comments!

Discuss this story.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

💰 From $0 to $146K in 180 days with no funding. Posted by Muntasir Rashid.

📆 Why is it taking me a year to launch? Posted by Dashiell Bark-Huss.

😩 Three self-sabotaging acts of every indie hacker. Posted by Darius Mora.

🛠 Resources for building a design startup in 15 months. Posted by Mansurul Haque.

💲 Devs, how do you monetize your packages? Posted by Michal Kardys.

🤩 Makers, show the world what you've made! Posted by Cezar.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

📑 Startup Attorney Chris Brown Talks Intellectual Property

from the Indie Economy newsletter by Bobby Burch

Elasticsearch became the latest company to rock the open source licensing boat when it changed its licensing model in an attempt to protect its open source code. When it comes to protection, one mistake can set you back thousands.

Whether you're an indie hacker collaborating on projects, hiring freelancers, or working as a freelancer, there are some intellectual property basics that you should know. Pixel Law founder and attorney Chris Brown shares more below.

What is a copyright?

Copyright is a form of intellectual property that protects creative works, including code, music, literature, art, business documents, graphic design, and more. It grants a creator exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute something.

Why do you focus on startups and freelancers?

It’s so rewarding to know that my legal services will have a huge impact on the success of my freelance and startup clients. They are often new to entrepreneurship, and I can help point them in the right direction, not only from a legal perspective, but also from a perspective of building a sustainable business. I get a lot of joy out of helping these kinds of founders.

Is this a relatively niche area of the law?

Although there are a lot of “small business attorneys” out there, I find my practice to be fairly niche.

I'm hyper-focused on the legal issues that founders are likely to face when starting a company, and I have a lot of experience starting and selling companies myself. This real-world experience has helped me to provide very practical advice to my clients. Moreover, my experiences make it easier for founders to hire me because they can tell I’ve seen the same problems they are facing before.

Misconceptions in copyright law

The biggest misconception in copyright law is identifying who owns the copyright to an original work.

Paying someone for a piece of work doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll own the copyright. It’s important to note that the original creator of the work will be the owner of the copyright to that work unless some exception applies.

The three most common exceptions occur when:

1. The work is created by an employee within the employee’s scope of employment,
2. The creator expressly assigns the copyright in writing, or
3. The creator creates a “work made for hire,” which is a very narrow concept under the Copyright Act.

Common copyright mistakes

The biggest mistake a creator can make is failing to address copyright ownership in their contract. This is especially true for freelancers and small agencies. You should always include an intellectual property provision in your contracts, and make it very clear who will own what.

Copyright ownership includes a vast bundle of rights, and if you don’t own something you think you own, you won’t be able to use the work. An entire business can fall apart if it turns out the business doesn’t own the copyright in their app or website, for example.

Copyright infringement claims

Copyright infringement claims can be complex. To begin, if you want to bring a copyright lawsuit in a federal court, you must first register your work. If you think someone is infringing on your work, it is often a good idea to start the registration process if you haven’t already done so.

The next step is deciding how to reach out. Often you’ll start with sending demand letters rather than filing a lawsuit because lawsuits are expensive, time-consuming (some can take years), and involve additional risks of counterclaims. In either event, you should always speak with a copyright litigation attorney for advice.

Why register a copyright?

If your core business is selling creative works that are easy to duplicate, such as movies, music, books, etc., then it is a great idea to register your copyright in those works. Registration gives you greater legal rights, the ability to sue in federal court, higher damages, rights to attorney fees, and more. If your core business is selling creative works, then you need to take steps to protect those works.

On the other hand, if you are merely creating an e-book to support your service business, registration, although helpful, is not as important. This is because you can still claim ownership of the copyright to your works, even without registration.

If an informal group of devs collaborate on an app, who owns the copyright?

It may be deemed a joint work, but you may not like that approach because then any one of the joint owners could exploit the work.

If it isn’t considered a joint work, then it would be very confusing to determine who the owner is. In that situation, they should either sign some kind of joint venture agreement and outline copyright ownership and use restrictions, or they should create an LLC or other corporation, and transfer ownership to that entity.

If you develop AI, and it creates a work of art, who owns the copyright?

This is a great question. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows.

But there is a somewhat related dispute involving a monkey that took a picture with a photographer’s camera. There were lawsuits about it and everything. But I think it settled out of court, so the courts never answered the question of whether a non-human can own a copyright.

Top tip for freelancers?

My advice is to cover copyright ownership in the contract!

Trends in copyright law

There’s an entire movement that involves Creative Commons licenses, open source code, and the like. My advice here is that indie hackers should carefully consider what those concepts mean before (a) creating works and licensing them with those kinds of licenses, or (b) using any such works in their works.

Founders and freelancers need to keep in mind that copyrights protect creative works, which is a very broad category. But there are other areas of intellectual property such as trademarks to protect branding elements, trade secrets to protect confidential information, and patents to protect inventions. Those four areas of IP are very related, but also very different from one another.

You can find Chris on Twitter, Instagram, or at his website.

What are your top intellectual property concerns? Share in the comments.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Indie Economy for more.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Nathalie Zwimpfer for the illustrations, and to Julia Janks, Priyanka Vazirani, James Fleischmann, and Bobby Burch for contributing posts. —Channing