Meet Yu-Hua Yang
I’m Yu-Hua Yang and I am the Founder of Makassan. Our tool is an alternative to Intercom’s live chat widget, driven by the feature-rich Papercups open source system.
He accepted SaaSPirate request to an interview on communication and his role in Makassan company. We were privileged to have the chance to got the sort of in-depth discussion you will not find on the internet.
Without any further delay, let’s hear what he has to say!
Hi Yu-Hua Yang, please introduce yourself to our audience and tell us a bit about your industry experience?
Hello, I am a self-taught web developer in the game since 2006. I started with the common (at the time) LAMP stack and built many different websites. Currently I mostly develop in NodeJS, React, and lately started deploying applications with Docker containers. I am very familiar with public cloud infrastructure and how to best leverage them at the minimal cost.
What inspired the creation of Makassan as an alternative to Intercom’s live chat widget?
While browsing reddit on common business complaints, people were saying that Intercom/Crisp were such fantastic tools but too expensive for their small businesses. I looked into this and realized that I can provide a simple no-frills live chat for small businesses at a fraction of the cost.
I felt that sometimes businesses may not need all the bells and whistles of the latest and greatest technology if their own business isn’t really related to software or tech.
Can you provide an overview of how Makassan utilizes Papercups’ open-source system?
Papercups is the open source framework that was developed several years back. The creators also hosted a SaaS product for it but they have since abandoned it. Makassan simply takes the open source code and re-hosted it for people to use at an incredibly low price.
What specific features does Makassan offer that differentiate it from other live chat widgets?
Most live chat widgets have evolved into the same set of features and functionalities, such as customer/session tracking, replying/receiving from different platforms, etc. If you want a full list of features, please visit https://docs.makassan.com
What are the primary advantages of using Makassan for businesses compared to traditional live chat platforms?
I have yet to come across a live chat solution that is as cheap as Makassan. The primary advantage is for businesses to cut their IT budget for live chat services and invest that savings somewhere else. I understand it might be difficult to migrate from Intercom/Crisp as they have locked down your customer workflows; I also understand that people may have already paid annual plans.
What customization options does Makassan provide for tailoring the chat widget to match a company’s branding and design?
You can easily customize the chat widget to the same color and style of your website. Please check out the guide at https://docs.makassan.com/chat
What are some common challenges or pain points that businesses face with live chat widgets, and how does Makassan address them?
There are still many consumer-facing websites that do not have any live chat services, probably because they were quoted a price that is not affordable. Makssan aims to enable every website to have a live chat widget so that they can better engage their customers and increase sales.
What ongoing updates and developments can users expect from Makassan in the future?
Auto-responders, chatbase responses, GenAI chatbot, etc.
What advice would you give to businesses considering Makassan as their live chat solution?
Having a Live chat leads to a 48% increase in revenue per chat hour and a 40% increase in conversion rate. These days, 73% of clients (between ages 18 and 49) say live chat is the most convenient way to communicate with a business. If you have a website that does not have a live chat widget, you are missing out on potential sales.
Makssan offers extremely budget-friendly plans to get you going, with plans starting at $15 a month which is less than a typical meal at a restaurant.
Did you enjoy our interview? Do you have anything to say to our community?
Thank you for including me in the interview series. I wish everyone great success in their online journey to financial wealth.
