Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

37signals becomes Basecamp

37signals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 144 posts

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#121

Post by jasonfried »

taude wrote: post #65
netcan wrote: post #49

Software is a hard business. Novel becomes trivial fast. Competitive edge can become a standard "best" practice fast and a product or business which was revolutionary and profitable one decade can seem naive the next. Basecamp needs to move to keep up. They have their commitment to "not too much software" and simplicity which is great but has some tradeoffs. In any case, collaboration between people working on things…

And that space has a ton of competitors in it now, too. Some heavy hitters like Podio, Asana, Zoho. I don't see any reason why some of 37's other products can't get rolled up into Basecamp as features/modules though.

Anything is possible with software - especially horrible complexity. Rolling more things into something isn't the way forward. We're committed to getting simpler over time, not harder. Not more stuff, but the right stuff.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#122

Post by jasonfried »

RafiqM wrote: post #8
thescrewdriver wrote: post #7

Am I the only one who had never heard of 37signals before?

Wow, as one of the "pioneers" of the SaaS model, and a highly successful bootstrapped startup for 10+ years, I would have to say... yes, I would imagine you are one of very few people in this community who would have never heard of 37signals.

FWIW, I meet people all the time who don't know "37signals". They're in the tech world too.

But when I mention Basecamp, they say "Oh Basecamp!! Of course! We love Basecamp!"

World-wide, Basecamp is much bigger brand than 37signals.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#123

Post by jasonfried »

keeptrying wrote: post #34

This smells like they are going to try to pull a Atlassian. And they will also go take VC money ... Going to be fun to watch :)

Yes, it will be fun to watch, but no VC money. Not our thing. We have all the money we need to do everything and anything we want to do.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#125

Post by jasonfried »

level09 wrote: post #40

is it just me or they are saying 'in other words' that only basecamp succeeded and most other products failed ? otherwise why not just bring in more devs instead of focusing on one product.

Campfire and Highrise are not failures at all. They generate millions a year in profits. They just aren't our focus anymore. We want to focus all of our energy on one thing, not multiple things. Nothing more than that. No hidden agendas or hidden news.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#126

Post by keehun »

Can anyone name a trust-worthy competitors? I've done some searching and most competitors seem to be still branded with "Web 2.0" bubbles and the apps left rotting in its own feces the last 5 years.

I'm genuinely looking for competitors to Basecamp for small businesses. Zoho?

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#127

Post by pooshoot »

"When we meet people, and they ask us what we do, we say we work for 37signals. If they aren't in the tech world, they'll squint and say "what's that?". When we say "we're the folks who make Basecamp", their eyes light up and open wide. "Basecamp! Oh I love Basecamp!..."

I haven't seen someone so proud of their mediocre-at-best product. Basecamp leaves A LOT to be desired. We switched to Jira and couldn't be happier.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#128

Post by camus2 »

hrvbr wrote: post #54
jaimebuelta wrote: post #30

It still escapes me why this recent trend of naming companies with the names of products "for brand recognition" (the other obvious example is 10gen to become MongoDB Inc.) It would be interesting to see other companies do that in the past: - "Microsoft is going to become Windows Inc" - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" - "The new name of the company will be Air Jordan & Co. Nike no more!"

Big companies do it too: EADS has become Airbus Group.

Airbus existed before merging with other companies to create EADS.

Re: 37signals becomes Basecamp

#129

Post by protomyth »

gvb wrote: post #118
jaimebuelta wrote: post #30

It still escapes me why this recent trend of naming companies with the names of products "for brand recognition" (the other obvious example is 10gen to become MongoDB Inc.) It would be interesting to see other companies do that in the past: - "Microsoft is going to become Windows Inc" - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" - "The new name of the company will be Air Jordan & Co. Nike no more!"

> - "Apple Computers will be known from now on as iPod Ltd" "It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977, and was renamed as Apple Inc. on January 9, 2007 to reflect its shifted focus towards consumer electronics." Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc .

They got rid of a word, and it proves jaimebuelta's point even more since they ditched the word that actually related to the product they sell.
Post reply on HN