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Two big announcements

37signals.com

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Re: Two big announcements

#71

Post by girvo »

eps wrote: post #69
aresant wrote: post #14

1999 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 :)

but some people really enjoy it

Who.

0_o

Re: Two big announcements

#72

Post by girvo »

Now, a question.

If your business has a great product, is it the best idea to follow Basecamp nee 37Signal's trajectory? In other words, build those other products, then later consolidate?

Or take the GitHub route and stick to (basically) one awesome product and leave it at that? I wonder what's a better choice? I lean towards the latter personally.

Re: Two big announcements

#73

Post by stock_toaster »

dror wrote: post #65

We 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…

I would agree that campfire, the web app, is lacking. However, there are some pretty decent "apps" that you can use. I use and like flint[1].

[1]: http://giantcomet.com/flint/mac/

Re: Two big announcements

#74

Post by PhilipA »

Am I the only one who doesn't get why Basecamp is praised so much? I think it is okay, but nothing exceptionally. Also if I didn't knew the product, I would never signup when looking at the frontpage, it looks very outdated, and not very trustworthy. Hopefully a better focus, will make the experience more up-to-date.

Re: Two big announcements

#75

Post by matthewmacleod »

It's a good idea for them to take the plunge and do this, because it pretty much just aligns their official strategy and brand with their actual strategy. Campfire hasn't seen an update in forever, and the rest of the ecosystem also felt like it was already in maintainable mode.

We already migrated away to Hipchat as a result, and I get the impression that others might have been doing the same.

Re: Two big announcements

#77

Post by nbevans »

luigi wrote: post #5

I predict that GitHub will acquire Campfire.

Not sure why anybody would want to acquire Campfire? It's an utterly terrible product. If GitHub wanted to added chat collaboration features they'd write them from scratch based upon WebSockets / Socket.IO... not the legacy polling that Campfire does!

Re: Two big announcements

#78

Post by noelwelsh »

Interesting. I always saw 37Signals as a good example of a diversified portfolio. I notice they're going to keep the side projects (books, job board) which probably have the highest margins and require very little ongoing investment of mental energy. I don't see where the growth in Basecamp is going to come from, but then I don't use the product (tried it once, too limited.)

Also, did Jason Fried step out of a time machine with his IBM Selectric typewriter to compose this? 37Signals have always been on the hipster end of things but the design of this letter is ridiculously so.

Re: Two big announcements

#80

Post by porker »

girvo wrote: post #71
eps wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

but some people really enjoy it Who. 0_o

These: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7012822
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