This story is part of our Making Business Human series. For more on the series and our mission, check out this post!

Creating connections between customers and businesses is at the core of Olark. Since day one, the heart of our product has been about humanizing websites through chat. Our mission can really be boiled down to  a single, short statement: Make Business Human.

Hi! I’m Barbara. I’ve been chatting at Olark for over four years now, and I’ve been in various forms of customer service for almost 20.

In addition to that I’m a wife, a mom and a human with my own interesting life. Just kidding - my family and work make up most of (and the best parts of) my interesting life.

When I first started working at Olark I wanted to chat. All work day, all chat. My boss wasn't sure that was such a good idea.

You may have noticed the new Olark homepage with the credo, "Make your business human." As part of this new look and feel, we've asked our friends to share how they make their business human. Today we hear from Nathan Kontny of Highrise.

I'm sure you've heard: It's never been easier to start a business. But with all that ease, there's even more and more competition. It's harder to stand out, even harder to stay relevant. What do we do?