FogBugz...
And Eric Sink's SourceGear. [1] [1] http://www.sourcegear.com/
Was the footnote notation REALLY necessary?
YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
71–80 of 94 posts
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#72the fortune 5,000,000 company I work at subscribes to GoToMeeting.com - .. desktop sharing.. teleconferencing for product demos and meetings
Second vote for gotomeeting. I use it a lot and have never had nothing but good feelings for it. Does what it does and does it well.
doesn't work on mac. :(
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
They don't; they have good products and tell a compelling story.
There are plenty of good products that people probably wouldn't pay for these days: web servers, unix-like OS's, and scripting languages; just to name a few. Once upon a time, companies made a lot of money selling Unixes, and for a period of time, there were commercial web servers.
and for a period of time, there were commercial web servers
That period of time includes the present.
companies made a lot of money selling Unixes
They still do, with Apple being the most obvious.
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hundreds of users, you say!
Hundreds of users, you say! Oh, the sarcasm! Perhaps if you'd actually watched the talk before commenting on it, you'd have gotten the point and wouldn't be so unknowingly ironic. ;) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168378
Tell me right now that the talk establishes that GitHub and Lighthouse are financially successful (cash flow positive after investment) and I will:
* Apologize
* Watch the video
I don't think I'm going to have to do either.
The point I'm trying to make is, just because geeks love something (like, inexplicably, GitHub) doesn't mean it's necessarily a financial success. Also: hundreds of end-users? A tiny customer base.
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#75blinksale.com followed a 37s path-- consulting firm that eventually gave up consulting, I believe.
Harvest is time tracking app, with invoicing, that I really like (not unlike Blinksale). I think it's the only subscription software that my business pays for. AFAIK it was started by two designers, and my guess is that they're doing well, because they keep adding new features and raising their prices. :)
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hundreds of users, you say! Oh, the sarcasm! Perhaps if you'd actually watched the talk before commenting on it, you'd have gotten the point and wouldn't be so unknowingly ironic. ;) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=168378
Tell me right now that the talk establishes that GitHub and Lighthouse are financially successful (cash flow positive after investment) and I will: * Apologize * Watch the video I don't think I'm going to have to do either. The point I'm trying to make is, just because geeks love something (like, inexplicably, GitHub) doesn't mean it's necessarily a financial success. Also: hundreds of end-users? A tiny customer base…
It doesn't really matter much to me if you watch the video or not. I did want to take the opportunity, however, to give you a taste of your own medicine after this incident: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135296. ;)
All that aside, the whole point of the talk was that one can live very well off one's web application even if it's only moderately successful. I think the example he gave was 2,000 small business users at $40/month ~= $1,000,000/year in gross revenue. Or 400 users at the same rate if you don't mind only grossing $200,000 a year.
His argument was that you don't need to stress about investors, 12-hour days, and viral loops as long as you're willing to "settle" for a pleasant, financially viable, and capital efficient business with a niche of users who really appreciate your approach to solving their problems. That's the irony of making fun of an app in this thread for only having several hundred users.
You probably would enjoy the video; I certainly did.
(Incidentally, GitHub and Lighthouse didn't require massive capital investments [1] and I'm pretty sure that they're hosted "for free" on Engine Yard. Having a few hundred users would practically guarantee that they're cashflow positive.)
[1] http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/4/21/chatting-with-chris-wa...
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
So - for the analysis part of the question: why? What makes them different?
I would say what makes them different is the thing that makes them different enough to pay premium for a laptop/computer in the first place: These people place a value on quality. Add to that that I'd venture 80% of the windows users have never "bought" software (except games). Windows is either pirated or comes with the computer... office is acquired from work, some other programs are freeware/never paid for sharewa…
It's also a different culture. No one could possibly claim that vim or emacs aren't "quality" software. UNIX/Linux users also place value on quality, but the form of value is just different--historically the value you pay for something like vim or emacs is you send patches, you add syntax support for your favorite new language, you file coherent bug reports, etc. It's not in dollars, but it has a price. So, there's this somewhat smug notion that Mac users are arbiters of quality and taste and the only honest computer users in existence...but there are different means of valuing software than money.
And, saying that Windows users are universally pirates is simply disingenuous. Paint Shop Pro made millions as a small software development shop, and then sold to Corel for millions and became part of a big development shop. This wouldn't have been possible if Windows users never paid for software from small shops. In fact, I suspect one could find more Windows-based small development shops making a good living than similar Mac-based shops just based on the size of the respective markets. (I'd never want to do it...but it's a viable model.)
I'm just saying, "don't be a smug Mac weenie". Many people are making a good living building and selling software on many different platforms.
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me right now that the talk establishes that GitHub and Lighthouse are financially successful (cash flow positive after investment) and I will: * Apologize * Watch the video I don't think I'm going to have to do either. The point I'm trying to make is, just because geeks love something (like, inexplicably, GitHub) doesn't mean it's necessarily a financial success. Also: hundreds of end-users? A tiny customer base…
It doesn't really matter much to me if you watch the video or not. I did want to take the opportunity, however, to give you a taste of your own medicine after this incident: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135296 . ;) All that aside, the whole point of the talk was that one can live very well off one's web application even if it's only moderately successful. I think the example he gave was 2,000 small business us…
You're probably right about all of this. I'm obviously in DHH's camp: after several VC-funded startups, including an abortive attempt to weasel VC for our current venture, we're bootstrapping and aiming to build what we want, not what VC's tell us they want.
It's the orthodoxy that gets me. "You can't cite DHH's speech without watching it in its entirety! You can't talk to your team about DHH without everyone sitting down and watching it! What would PG think?" And yet, at the same time, we're willing to toss around totally unsubstantiated factoids about the success of brand new Rails apps as proof of a business model.
Rant off.
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty of good products that people probably wouldn't pay for these days: web servers, unix-like OS's, and scripting languages; just to name a few. Once upon a time, companies made a lot of money selling Unixes, and for a period of time, there were commercial web servers.
and for a period of time, there were commercial web servers That period of time includes the present. companies made a lot of money selling Unixes They still do, with Apple being the most obvious.
That is not what he meant because if OS X were just a traditional Unix-alike with traditional Unix-like GUI software consumers would not buy Macs.
Re: YC Analysis: "37signals/DHH style" companies?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me right now that the talk establishes that GitHub and Lighthouse are financially successful (cash flow positive after investment) and I will: * Apologize * Watch the video I don't think I'm going to have to do either. The point I'm trying to make is, just because geeks love something (like, inexplicably, GitHub) doesn't mean it's necessarily a financial success. Also: hundreds of end-users? A tiny customer base…
It doesn't really matter much to me if you watch the video or not. I did want to take the opportunity, however, to give you a taste of your own medicine after this incident: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=135296 . ;) All that aside, the whole point of the talk was that one can live very well off one's web application even if it's only moderately successful. I think the example he gave was 2,000 small business us…
You could generally get 100 million free users for every 2000 40/month customers. Price curves, check them out!
Very, very, hard. See my 1% comment.