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Two big announcements

37signals.com

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Re: Two big announcements

#101

Post by calibraxis »

k1w1 wrote: post #100
calibraxis wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are great alternatives to Basecamp? (I don't use Basecamp but am interested in the space.)

The thing that Basecamp does well is that it is a generic project management tool that can be used for any kind of project - thus its wide appeal. The most interesting alternatives are ones that specialize in particular types of projects. For example, if you are a designer there is Solo and if you are a product manager there is my product Aha! - http://www.aha.io . These alternatives specialize by taking the common e…

Thank you! Checking out Aha! now. Seems Solo may come in handy too sometime...

Re: Two big announcements

#102

Post by FireBeyond »

girvo wrote: post #70
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…

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.

That doesn't really make sense to me - "they can afford to shutter their other products" (or rather, spin them off) because of how good they are?

Or, rather, that there's no significant loss to them due to shuttering, because of the (relative) lack of use.

That said, spinning off would be the -wise- idea. Most likely they'll find a good amount from a buyer based on the name and reputation.

Re: Two big announcements

#103

Post by FireBeyond »

guynamedloren wrote: post #21
philfreo wrote: post #9

Big news! We've been big fans of 37signals for a decade or so and in many ways they have inspired us in building Close.io. I love that they are able to make the hard decision to focus on one thing. We want to take great care of any Highrise customers looking for a new home: http://close.io/highrise Check out http://close.io/ - mention that you were a Highrise customer and I can make sure you'll get a special discount…

Your comment implies Highrise is going to disappear - however, that's not the case. They're either going to sell Highrise (to a buyer who is committed to keeping it running + growing) or continue to run it themselves in maintenance mode.

If the tech world could survive on the promises of companies that have done acquisitions and "committed to keeping [a product] running + growing"...

... well, the web would be a very different place than it is now.

Re: Two big announcements

#104

Post by loomio »

calibraxis wrote: post #90
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…

What are great alternatives to Basecamp? (I don't use Basecamp but am interested in the space.)

Totally depends what you're trying to accomplish. Basecamp can be great for managing a whole project in all its complexity. But often times that's overkill, and too many features get in the way.

We[0] differentiate by keeping it as simple as possible: have discussions and make decisions together, that's it.

Other tools are great for other types of projects, such as Trello[1] for a sort of collaborative to-do list.

[0] http://www.loomio.org [1] http://www.trello.com

Re: Two big announcements

#105

Post by deanpeterson »

They did this for another reason as well. They can't grow past 50 employees or they will have to pay through the nose for Obamacare. If they continue to grow, they would inevitably require more staff besides developers that need expensive healthcare. Obamacare is a great way to keep small companies small.

Re: Two big announcements

#106

Post by midas007 »

HarveyKandola wrote: post #94
veidr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

It's not easy building that project-management app that is usable by both geeks and customers. We ( http://countersoft.com ) are pushing the approach of a single tool for both project tracking (geeks) and ticketing (customers). It's not easy to say the least because customers love to just do everything in email!

There's different use cases. There are high-level / strategy oriented task systems and low-level microtask work systems that tend to have more specialist features for getting shit done baked in. As payware goes, JIRA is a pretty well-rounded high-level one. Gitlab seems fairly popular for dev work because it emulates much of github and is more integrated with source control (getting shit done) than say redmine.

Re: Two big announcements

#107

Post by midas007 »

timedoctor wrote: post #95

HOw is having two versions of Basecamp (old and new) simplification? Also I think Asana is beating Basecamp in terms of having both simplicity and power, although I would say that the Basecamp UI is more simple than Asana, Asana is a lot faster and a lot more powerful and Asana is free for up to 15 users. I think Asana will take a lot of business away from Basecamp over the long term. Having said that, in our busines…

Asana is really good. There are very few surprises and it seems to just get out of your way.

Re: Two big announcements

#108

Post by midas007 »

nacs wrote: post #96
theknown99 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also a pretty dick move when they complained after someone (from Google?) reimplemented campfire in a day, and made them take it down. If your entire product can be copied in a day, it's probably not that great.

I'd think an HN user would know better.. It takes drastically less time to clone a product than to make it from scratch and refine it to perfection.

Execution is somewhat hard, but there needs to be durable competitive advantage: user base, brand, IP, talent, etc. All other things being more-less equal, a few apps will inevitably dominate. (I would acquire Asana and Rally Software which owns FlowDock.)

Re: Two big announcements

#109

Post by midas007 »

matthewrudy wrote: post #91
gkoberger wrote: post #19

Very 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…

I agree, I actually don't use any 37signals products. Basecamp doesn't work for how I organise projects, and Campfire is a poor competitor to HipChat. But I frequently point to them as an example of how to run a company. And they know their customers really well. I guess I'm just not one of their customers.

HipChat was a clone of Campfire that out-did them. It's a smart tactical move to give up on that conceding to Pete, Chris, Gary, et al. which did a superb job on HipChat.

Personally, I enjoy using FlowDock and Hubot.

Re: Two big announcements

#110

Post by midas007 »

HarveyKandola wrote: post #94
veidr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

It's not easy building that project-management app that is usable by both geeks and customers. We ( http://countersoft.com ) are pushing the approach of a single tool for both project tracking (geeks) and ticketing (customers). It's not easy to say the least because customers love to just do everything in email!

The enterprise use-cases have to manage immensely more complexity than F(L)OSS projects, but at the same time, they want the agility and features of those lightweight services. (Without forgetting to CYA: document and hide as much information as possible.)

But in a sense a ticketing system is a double-ended marketplace of work: supply (fixer, be it IT, marketing, sales, admin) and demand (customers, be it internal or external).

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