# Brian Levine (balevine.com) > Brian Levine is a support operations consultant. He helps Support teams, especially small ones, choose, build, and connect their tools: helpdesks, integrations, automations, AI, and internal tools. He writes about running Support teams and builds open source tools for them. Brian has led Support at early-stage tech companies and co-founded Yetto (a helpdesk) and Dashbort (AI analytics for Zendesk). Contact: brian@balevine.com ## About and services - [About](https://balevine.com/about/): Brian Levine went from aerospace engineer to Support leader to co-founder of Yetto and Dashbort. Now he helps Support teams with better tools and processes. - [Services](https://balevine.com/services/): Support operations consulting: one-week Support team audits, integration and automation projects, helpdesk migrations, and fractional Support leadership. - [Projects](https://balevine.com/projects/): Free, open source tools for support operations teams, from test data generators to LLM evaluation apps. ## Blog posts - [Build vs buy](https://balevine.com/2026/10/01/build-vs-buy) (2026-10-01): Should your Support team build internal tools with AI or buy software? Weigh design, security, and maintenance costs, and consider a third option: a contractor. - [Support work is product work](https://balevine.com/2026/06/29/support-work-is-product-work) (2026-06-29): Support is part of product development. To turn customer feedback into product changes, ask your Product Managers what feedback and data they need. - [Game over](https://balevine.com/2026/01/29/game-over) (2026-01-29): Yetto, the helpdesk and support data company, is shutting down. A thank you to the support community that made the last three years so rewarding. - [Implementation metrics are garbage](https://balevine.com/2025/07/17/implementation-metrics-are-garbage) (2025-07-17): AI usage rates are a bad performance metric for Support agents. Review your support metrics and ask which measures you care about and which are proxies. - [The value of Support](https://balevine.com/2025/05/23/the-value-of-support) (2025-05-23): How to show the value of Support: know what you need, who you're convincing, and what data they care about. - [May you live in just-interesting-enough times](https://balevine.com/2025/04/11/may-you-live-in-just-interesting-enough-times) (2025-04-11): Leading a Support team through a crisis: business-first and people-first both fail. Get to know your team ahead of time, then use your power to protect them. - [On taking time away](https://balevine.com/2025/01/09/on-taking-time-away) (2025-01-09): How Support teams can take real time off: rotating shifts, contractors or a BPO, help from other teams, or pausing support. Pros, cons, and how to prepare. - [Don't do it yourself](https://balevine.com/2025/01/08/dont-do-it-yourself) (2025-01-08): What I learned self-hosting my blog on a Raspberry Pi to avoid big tech: owning your corner of the internet is possible, but too much work for most people. - [Proactive support](https://balevine.com/2024/12/11/proactive-support) (2024-12-11): Product and Engineering should bring Support into product talks early. Support knows how customers use your product and can spot problems before you build. - [Get a hobby](https://balevine.com/2024/11/29/get-a-hobby) (2024-11-29): You don't need to monetize your hobbies. Hustle culture made 'you should sell these' a normal compliment, but some things are worth doing just for fun. - [Patterns emerge from practice](https://balevine.com/2024/11/15/patterns-emerge-from-practice) (2024-11-15): Support processes should emerge from practice, not be designed up front. Your helpdesk should be flexible enough to fit the workflows that work for your team. - [Support is a cost center - part 2](https://balevine.com/2024/11/08/support-is-a-cost-center-part-two) (2024-11-08): Should Support own renewals, upsells, or premium support revenue? No. Revenue goals push Support teams into sales tactics that hurt customer satisfaction. - [Support is a cost center](https://balevine.com/2024/11/01/support-is-a-cost-center) (2024-11-01): Support is a cost center, and that's okay. Support leaders should define what good support costs, balance quality with budget, and communicate the team's value. - [People do quit jobs](https://balevine.com/2024/10/14/people-do-quit-jobs) (2024-10-14): People don't only quit managers; they quit jobs too. A great manager may even help you leave a bad job. The real lesson for leaders: look out for your people. - [Automaton and on and on](https://balevine.com/2024/10/11/automaton-and-on-and-on) (2024-10-11): Support automation should go beyond password resets and AI chatbots. Support teams need flexible helpdesk tools to automate grunt work in their own processes. - [Remote work](https://balevine.com/2024/10/07/remote-work) (2024-10-07): Remote, in-office, or hybrid: people work best in different ways. Companies should set clear expectations and people should find a match, not argue for one way. - [Please go outside](https://balevine.com/2024/10/06/please-go-outside) (2024-10-06): A pushback on hustle culture and turning everything into a LinkedIn lesson. Close the laptop and do something fun for its own sake, not to be more productive. - [Operational modes](https://balevine.com/2024/09/08/operational-modes) (2024-09-08): A response to founder mode vs manager mode: there are many ways to run a company, not two. Make decisions based on your context, team, product, and customers. - [Hiring your first Support professional](https://balevine.com/2024/08/22/hiring-your-first-support-professional) (2024-08-22): Founder advice on hiring your first Support professional: hire earlier than you think, define the role clearly, build a balanced support team, then step back. - [Why do we do this?](https://balevine.com/2024/07/30/why-do-we-do-this) (2024-07-30): Why people choose a career in Support: problem solving, service, learning, growth, and flexibility. Many love the work, and that mix builds strong teams. - [Not now, we're too busy](https://balevine.com/2024/06/28/not-now-too-busy) (2024-06-28): Your support team isn't too busy to improve operations. Decide what can slip, know your team's limits, let the backlog grow briefly, and celebrate results. - [The reverse Anna Karenina theory of support](https://balevine.com/2024/06/13/the-reverse-anna-karenina-theory-of-support) (2024-06-13): Unhappy support teams share the same problems: silos, misunderstood roles, poor tools, bad metrics, low autonomy, low pay. Happy teams solve them their own way. - [Conway's Law and Order](https://balevine.com/2024/03/21/conways-law-and-order) (2024-03-21): Conway's Law explains why Support teams dislike their helpdesk: tools built by people who see Support as answering tickets and tracking agents, not research. - [AI can't do your job](https://balevine.com/2024/02/29/ai-cannot-do-your-job) (2024-02-29): AI can't replace your Support team because the job is more than writing replies. Start with the problem, and use AI to augment support work, not cut headcount. - [Building and maintaining sources of truth](https://balevine.com/2024/02/21/sources-of-truth) (2024-02-21): A source of truth is where one data set lives: correct, accessible, and unique. Support teams should audit and automate them instead of copying data around. - [Support is a dead-end job](https://balevine.com/2024/02/14/support-is-a-dead-end-job) (2024-02-14): Support has no real career path, so skilled people leave. Recognize the research and problem solving in Support, pay for it, and build a Support career ladder. - [Data is a curse](https://balevine.com/2023/07/26/data-is-a-curse) (2023-07-26): Support metrics like reply time, handle time, and CSAT mislead in isolation. Read support data alongside other teams' data, and talk to your team. - [Stop doing all hands support](https://balevine.com/2023/06/07/stop-doing-all-hands-support) (2023-06-07): All hands support costs time, lowers support quality, and devalues the Support team. Use team updates, exported support data, and shadow sessions instead. - [Remote founding team](https://balevine.com/2023/05/25/remote-founding-team) (2023-05-25): How a three-person remote founding team works async: clear ownership, 6-week cycles, decisions written in GitHub, and principles any distributed team can use. - [Breaking down silos](https://balevine.com/2023/05/17/breaking-down-silos) (2023-05-17): Support teams get siloed in helpdesk software, and one-way integrations or chat apps don't fix it. Support tools need two-way cross-team collaboration built in. ## Optional - [Full text of every post](https://balevine.com/llms-full.txt): all posts in one Markdown file - [Atom feed](https://balevine.com/feed.xml)