Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
money.cnn.com
Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#2"Expect to either make a major investment in developing your own financial and tracking software that works with Basecamp to make it do what you need (37Signals provides an open applications development toolset, so this is certainly possible),"
Business opp, anyone?
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#3Interesting article. It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software that are clearly intended. Whether a lack of features and a strict conformance to bare software is a net positive or negative for small business is another conversation, but this does point out a need for features that they are missing.
This also comes along with 37signals' post on the permanent nature of features, and the importance of getting it mostly right from the beginning.
On that topic, the idea of providing business services in the mindset UNIX tools is beginning to be really attractive to me. Provide a limited set of features in a small bundle that plays well with other services, along a similar mindset. A billing component, a collaboration component, etc, such that each one can play with another very well. That should make offering new services more painless and intuitive.
Any takes on a venture? :)
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#4"Expect to either make a major investment in developing your own financial and tracking software that works with Basecamp to make it do what you need (37Signals provides an open applications development toolset, so this is certainly possible)," Business opp, anyone?
Was just thinking the same thing. How hard would it be to use the API to pull data into a csv format? That seems to be what his main gripe was, after all.
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#5Jason Fried sez: we'd prefer that you outgrow our software, because we still have your fucking money. Hah!
In 37Signals' defense, they don't have time to bend over backwards for each and every little customer whim, especially enterprisey-type crap like this customer wanted. You have to be utilitarian or else you're dead.
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#6We've been using Basecamp + Campfire for a few weeks on our project, and I have to say that I really like it so far.
I AM really concerned about the amount of content in our Basecamp site growing out of control -- already, I have to scroll several pages to add a note to an old, seldom used message... we already have fifteen or so writeboards. If there's a way to archive this stuff, it's not readily apparent to me (although I am a bit of a dolt).
For those who have used (and enjoyed) Basecamp, has this been a problem for you as your project expanded?
As an aside, did anyone else find the embedded headlines for other stories in this article dreadfully confusing?
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#7Interesting article. It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software that are clearly intended. Whether a lack of features and a strict conformance to bare software is a net positive or negative for small business is another conversation, but this does point out a need for features that they are missing. This also comes along with 37signals' post on the permanent nature of features, and the importance of getting…
It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software
It pointed out the major flaw in the 37signals philosophy: they're frozen. Sure they moved apps from the desktop to the web and simplified them greatly, two very appealing propositions for many small businesses. But OP presents a clear example of the flaw: What do you do when you have grown and your app can't?
Apply all the perfume you want, but if your app can't scale or be customized, in the end all you have is what you started with: a canned package.
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#8Interesting article. It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software that are clearly intended. Whether a lack of features and a strict conformance to bare software is a net positive or negative for small business is another conversation, but this does point out a need for features that they are missing. This also comes along with 37signals' post on the permanent nature of features, and the importance of getting…
It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software It pointed out the major flaw in the 37signals philosophy : they're frozen. Sure they moved apps from the desktop to the web and simplified them greatly, two very appealing propositions for many small businesses. But OP presents a clear example of the flaw: What do you do when you have grown and your app can't ? Apply all the perfume you want, but if your app can't…
Not to mention you are creating an artificially low barrier of entry to your market. Like what happened when Google AppEngine was released with a /sample/ app that mimicked theirs.
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#9Interesting article. It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software that are clearly intended. Whether a lack of features and a strict conformance to bare software is a net positive or negative for small business is another conversation, but this does point out a need for features that they are missing. This also comes along with 37signals' post on the permanent nature of features, and the importance of getting…
It pointed out a lot of flaws in 37signals software It pointed out the major flaw in the 37signals philosophy : they're frozen. Sure they moved apps from the desktop to the web and simplified them greatly, two very appealing propositions for many small businesses. But OP presents a clear example of the flaw: What do you do when you have grown and your app can't ? Apply all the perfume you want, but if your app can't…
I would have to disagree with you on this matter - Basecamp on its own provides enough features for most users, and their API is powerful enough to allow for nearly limitless expansion. Where I feel the company fails is in promoting this API to consumers. If the company had a directory of third party tools, a job board for Basecamp API developers, and built a few extension tools of their own I feel they could appease the nay-sayers while sticking true to their philosophy
Re: Life at Basecamp - Six Months In
#10"Expect to either make a major investment in developing your own financial and tracking software that works with Basecamp to make it do what you need (37Signals provides an open applications development toolset, so this is certainly possible)," Business opp, anyone?
We're working on it already: streamfocus.com :)