Michael Fester

@Eduardopto @TechCrunch exactly, and that’s why we don’t stop at automation. that hard 5% is where our team steps in. we don’t just route the ticket, we own it end-to-end. as an agency, we handle the judgment calls.

@TechCrunch Replacing tier-1 support is the easy part. The hard part is the 5% of tickets that need judgment across 3 prior conversations and someone willing to own the outcome. That is still a human problem.

A married founder duo’s company, 14.ai, is replacing customer support teams at startups techcrunch.com/2026/03/02/a-m…

We spent 1 year trying to figure this out the hard way then wrote a book about it. A practical guide to TikTok Shop, from posting content to driving commerce. We work with eight-figure brands on this stuff daily. This is everything we know. Limited early copies, comment or DM if you want a free one.

Every week, we handle 1000s of "where's my package" tickets. Here's what USPS doesn't want you to know: You get a tracking update that says "In Transit, Arriving Late." Then nothing. For days. Sometimes weeks. You call USPS. 129 minute wait time. They tell you to file a Missing Mail Search. You file it, get a confirmation email and a "Search ID," then nothing again. You give them the Search ID and they say "We've received your request and are currently searching for your mail." They can see exactly where your package is. Which truck it was on and which facility it's sitting in. But that information is "Not available to the public." So you wait. And the system auto-generates fake updates like "still moving through the network" even when it's not moving at all. Meanwhile, the seller has to decide: refund now and eat the cost? Wait and hope? Ship a replacement? We run customer support for e-commerce brands. Last week one of our clients had a package vanish. "Male Health Supplements" heading to Fort Worth. Our protocol: 1. Filed the Missing Mail Search through our USPS business account (not the customer's problem to figure out) 2. Asked the customer if they want a refund or replacement? Their choice. 3. Added the customer's address to the search so if USPS finds it, it goes straight to them as a nice surprise 4. Kept the brand informed without making them chase USPS 5. Total time for the customer: one message. One trick if you're working with USPS: You can file Missing Mail searches as the shipper through a USPS business account. You get more visibility, faster responses, and you can manage it on behalf of your customers. We onboard every client into ours so when packages vanish, we handle it. Not your customer.

So glad we can finally share this now that things have settled. Joshua showed up on Saturday night, Dec 20 at 7pm, right as the great SF power outage hit. For his work trial. This was our first in-person interaction. There was no wifi so we couldn't do any work. Ok, let's grab dinner instead. But every restaurant was closed. No power. No Toast iPads. No food. We wandered until we found a neighborhood with wifi just so we could call an Uber. Ubered to a hotel downtown that actually had power. (Shoutout CitizenM.) Ate sushi. Worked in the hotel until 10pm when the power came back. Then back to the crib. Definitely not a traditional work trial. But the most eventful moments in life usually mean something bigger. I don't believe in coincidences. Josh rolled with every curveball that night. No complaints and great vibes. That told us everything we needed to know. Josh killed the trial and officially started with us last week. Welcome aboard, Joshua. We're so happy to have you.

The @ycombinator hiring board might be the most underrated part of the entire program. We posted a role and had 200+ applicants in under 48 hours. And the quality is insane compared to every other job board we've used. People who apply through YC are already plugged into the startup world. Step one is knowing what "Y Combinator" is. They're not looking for corporate hours, they're hungry to build something. LinkedIn is 80% spam and 15% agencies. This might be worth the application alone.

We hire AI engineers to answer our customers' support tickets until they automate them. Most companies hire the cheapest labor possible to answer support tickets forever. Brilliant engineers hate repetitive work, and have agency to do something about it. They'll answer "where is my order" maybe 5 times before they can't stand it anymore and automate it. The people improving the AI are the same people who live in the trenches answering tickets. Hire people too restless to answer the same ticket twice.

I scheduled the demo. I’m not risking it.

One of the best parts of being a founder is doing grunt work at the ground level. When we onboard a new customer, I become their chatbot support agent for a few days. I'm in there answering tickets manually, learning their business, understanding how their customers actually ask questions. We do this to train our model, but I'm always surprised at how many high-level takeaways I end up with after being boots on the ground. So if you see my face around on the chatbot, don't ask anything weird 😉

Is my head really this shiny? Will Phillips came through HQ to document a day in the life. He did a beautiful job and made us look really cool. Check it out. youtube.com/watch?v=FedPUt…

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of customer service. We onboarded a new consumer brand during it. Behind the scenes in Nashville.

@kitlangton 😅

@michaelfester I may have thought of the name before making it…

Features aside, that is a banger name 🤩

Most common Thanksgiving support tickets we saw this year: "Someone brought store-bought rolls acting like they cooked" “Why does every dish have raisins in it?" “This turkey is dry.” “Cousin walk group is giggling at the Jell-O.” "Football volume too loud" / "Football volume too quiet" “Who put me next to the cousin who breathes like a leaf blower?” "Mother-in-law asked when we're having kids again" - Recurring issue. "Someone's kid is showing me YouTube videos" "Dad asleep on couch by 4pm" Closing all tickets. See everyone in 364 days

@schickling 👩‍🍳

@michaelfester 🫶

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so today felt like the right time to say thank you. Only in SF would a random night dinner turn into a deep dive on functional programming while eating ravioli . This is what we're most grateful for! The community that's formed around what we're building, people who take time out of their week to share ideas, challenge our thinking, and geek out over things that excite us. So to everyone: thank you. This wouldn't be nearly as fun (or delicious) without you. Happy Thanksgiving. 🦃

@MichaelArnaldi yes!!

@michaelfester That was fun!

We made it into US (F25 batch) Our group partner is Jerome Powell.

Emphasis on "many": we've been conditioned (from past tooling) to think of these kinds of problems as "how do I model this as a flowchart?" (in code, with a UI builder, ...). But in many cases, a plain text doc (like an SOP) works better (easier to read, edit, and evolve). It also unlocks new possibilities where the "let's build another flowchart" mindset was the real blocker. Capturing human processes is hard and subtle and the expressiveness of the tool can be game changer.

@michaelfester real shit agree with 2 points Ship fast, get data and look at it. Understand it For the workflow parts I disagree When at scale having deterministic or even somewhat flows is a lot more reliable and cheaper in the long run

Excited to announce a game-changing employee benefit: We now offer free hitchhiking to work. Any employee can now simply go outside, stick their thumb out, and someone will probably pick them up, completely free, and drop them off somewhere near the office. Early results are promising: 47% of employees arrive within 2 hours of their intended start time, and we're seeing incredible cross-pollination as team members network with long-haul truckers and doordash drivers. Talent is our greatest asset.

Announcing our Telegram integration. Your support agent now replies faster than your dealer. We’re working with fintech customers running support through Telegram, adding it to our growing bag of platforms. Excited to share more soon...