Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
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Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#2It's not that 37signals are the only ones doing what they do — they're just the best at promoting what they do differently from "conventional" business ideas. With Rework (and Getting Real before it), they're actually making "challenging conventional wisdom" part of their business.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#3It's their narrative for getting attention. That is all.
Someone once mentioned how it was clever they (tiny, unknown little company) always pit themselves against well known things (Microsoft, Apple, VC X) to try and become more legitimate over time.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#4Because they are the self-selected standard bearers for that counter-example and because they evangelize the "getting real" business model. It doesn't mean that they are the only example, there are many.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#5It's their narrative for getting attention. That is all. Someone once mentioned how it was clever they (tiny, unknown little company) always pit themselves against well known things (Microsoft, Apple, VC X) to try and become more legitimate over time.
They also claim that they don't want to grow. That every business has a 'natural' size. That somehow that's better than being massive - again challenging the conventional wisdom that more profit = better. They are masters of PR to geeks. Their business model pretty much relies on them doing constant PR to pit themselves as the hip small but hugely knowledgeable 'startup'.
Even the back cover of Rework reads like a parody of 37signals other stuff.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#6For better or worse, examples of companies like 37Signals are used because their approach is empowering, and their confidence about it is reassuring.
IME most hackers are in a situation where they don't know how/want to deal with investors and don't want to sit around with business types and think up monetization strategies. It's a great feeling that you can just build something with barely any overhead and start making profit early.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#7Pick a fight. - Getting Real.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#8So, "charging from day 1", and "entering a saturated market" are rebellious 37s-isms? Seems like those are the conventional business principles.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#9naaa, it's a simple lesson: If your startup has a developer like DHH who built a widely successful and popular framework used by the entire web, and than won the Google coder of the year prize, than 37 signals ideas are for you.
Unfortunately, it's probably not the case.
Re: Why is 37Signals always the counter-example?
#10Google serves this role a lot for the opposite model. How many times have you heard "don't worry about your business model, just get big and you'll figure it out. It worked for Google." I've heard that from so many respectable Silicon Valley investors, and it's made me cringe each time.
The real question is "why do people who give advice always do so in such black and white terms?"