Extremely vague useless title.
Two big announcements
61–70 of 113 posts
Re: Two big announcements
#62Great success.
Though my guess is all the people who applauded 37signals for their product strategy, will now again applaud 37signals.
And there will be a book "The One Product Company".
Re: Two big announcements
#63Surprised they didn't do this sooner.
Re: Two big announcements
#64Very interesting announcement. I'm sure they're making the right decision, and I'm even more sure they did a ton of user testing. However, it's weird to lose the 37 Signals brand. I actually don't like Basecamp as a product, but I love 37 Signals. I treat their books like a bible, and read their blog posts religiously. Somehow, they seemed like more like a philosophy than just a product, and Basecamp (and Rails and t…
Exactly how I feel.
2 years ago, I watched DHH's Startup School presentation on YouTube, and it completely changed the way I perceived what a "startup" could be.
Today, my partner and I are recently ramen profitable on our first SaaS product, and growing. It's extremely exciting - we're seeing the fruits of a project that we love actually paying our bills. "Exciting" probably isn't even the right word... we're building our way to financial freedom and liberation from the rat race.
Our business is our livelihood now, and you can find evidence of 37Signal's influence in every nook and cranny of it. Their writings and philosophy have affected our business and our lives deeply, so a deep emotional connection to the name is an obvious consequence.
It feels funny, but as Jason clearly alludes to at the end of the post, a lot of their moves have. I'm looking forward to following along as the future of Basecamp unfolds.
Re: Two big announcements
#65We use basecamp and campfire at work. Basecamp is mediocre, not horrible and not great. Campfire sucks compared to similar tools that I've used in the past.
Seems to me that they've been successful mostly because of their involvement in the Ruby and startup world, rather than making great products. Nothing wrong with that, but it's good to be clear about the distinction between a company that makes great product and a company that's good at marketing itself.
Re: Two big announcements
#66There are so many project management apps out there, the competition is fierce. For a proj mgmt app to succeed, there either has to be USP and massive value. For example, Asana is especially good. I haven't tried Basecamp recently but it wasn't as lightweight, low-cost and nice as Asana.
I am extremely interested in this space, both as a user and as a developer[1].
As it happens, I use (and pay for) both Asana and Basecamp. I use Asana internally with my own staff, and I use Basecamp externally with clients.
My clients tend to be non-technical businesses with custom software needs -- and most of them would be like "WHAT. THE. FUCK. HELLLP~!" if I asked them to use Asana. Keyboard shortcuts, context menus, sliding popovers, disclosure widgets, multiple views onto the same data/work-graph, aiiiighhhhh!
On the other hand, Basecamp has really nailed their niche -- the project management app that really is simple enough for 'average folks'. Making that choice completely alienates the tech-savvy power user that most of their competitors seem to be targeting (e.g. Flow, Wrike, Teamwork PM, Azendoo, Dooster, Teambox, TeamLab, Do.com, FMYI, to name just a few that I have evaluated and rejected).
Which 37Signals, oops I mean Basecamp, is obviously OK with, given Basecamp's massive user base and success. Basecamp is a pretty cool software story, and actually a pretty cool piece of software, even though it is too limited and underpowered for me to use it as my own primary project manager.
[1] I develop software (among other roles) for a living, but I develop project-management web app software mostly just in my fantasies and rage-imagination... spending many hours in a week in these apps really makes a person want to develop the One True Project Management app, though.
Re: Two big announcements
#67Understandable move, focus on the one big product. And as far as company name is concerned, nobody outside our tech bubble has ever heard of "37 Signals".
The Q & A does highlight the reality distortion field around the cult-like status of 37 Signals though:
> Q: This is a really unusual strategy (..)
No. No it isn't. But if Jason Fried claims it is, I'm sure that will be echo-ed on HN.
(Not trying to be super negative, I consider 37 Signals a major source of inspiration, and I'm a Basecamp user.)
Re: Two big announcements
#681999 founded. 2004 first product launched. 5 years after the company and team came together. 5 years of time to hone the skills and struggle. Oh yah, and another 10 years to grow to 43 people. Simple reminder of the commitment to patience it can actually take to build a remarkable business.
They were a consulting company initially, not really focused on finding and building a product.
Re: Two big announcements
#691999 founded. 2004 first product launched. 5 years after the company and team came together. 5 years of time to hone the skills and struggle. Oh yah, and another 10 years to grow to 43 people. Simple reminder of the commitment to patience it can actually take to build a remarkable business.
What struggle?
They were formed to design websites and that's what they did for 5 years. Though I guess you can view web design as a "struggle" with all that IE6 testing and what not, but some people really enjoy it :)
Re: Two big announcements
#70We use basecamp and campfire at work. Basecamp is mediocre, not horrible and not great. Campfire sucks compared to similar tools that I've used in the past. Seems to me that they've been successful mostly because of their involvement in the Ruby and startup world, rather than making great products. Nothing wrong with that, but it's good to be clear about the distinction between a company that makes great product and…
A lot of people (myself included) would disagree with you there. The fact that they can afford to do something like the OP is announcing is sort of proving that... I've not used any project management tool that I've liked as much as Basecamp, and I've used heaps of them.
Campfire is pretty bad though, yeah.