We use Basecamp and Highrise because I haven't seen anything better. And by better I don't mean "has more features".
The products are simple and obvious in their nature. That is why we use them.
Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#12Less features than what? You criticize their products, yet offer no viable alternative. A better question would be "why do you use X instead of Y", where X is a particular 37 signals product, and Y is an alternative that you like better.
Personally, I use Backpack after trying (and not liking) a whole bunch of other solutions for todo lists. I tried
- Outlook
- Pen and paper
- Simple text file
- Command line todo tool (Lifehacker)
- Remember the milk
- Google tasks
and I'm probably forgetting something, it's been a while.
I use Backpack because it's:
- Incredibly simple and intuitive to use
- Offers organization system that makes sense (pages, notes and lists - I use nothing else)
- It's easy and fast to find anything I want
- I can use it everywhere - on my phone, desktop, and the web. I use the web-based client at work and at home, also Mac desktop widget at home, and Satchel on my iPhone. The synching is seamless everywhere.
I'm not going to dignify the "RoR hype" with a response.
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#13If you're so curious, perhaps your time would be better spent actually trying their applications, rather than "watching various videos and seeing the growth".
I am already a Basecamp user and am happy with how it's worked for my startup in the past. I know why I use the software but I wanted to understand other customers motivation. Thanks for the advice though.
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#14Less features than what? You criticize their products, yet offer no viable alternative. A better question would be "why do you use X instead of Y", where X is a particular 37 signals product, and Y is an alternative that you like better. Personally, I use Backpack after trying (and not liking) a whole bunch of other solutions for todo lists. I tried - Outlook - Pen and paper - Simple text file - Command line todo too…
I did not offer an alternative because I expect that existing customers are already familiar with them and have made their decision to pay for their software logically. I also was talking about their set of products and how the philosophy ('getting real') of their company influences the characteristics of their web applications (less features, interface first, monthly charges, etc.).
Thanks for the reasons you use Basecamp, I found them quite useful and succinct.
If you were offended by the 'RoR hype' statement, I'm sorry. It just comes to my attention that with the origin of RoR being at 37 signals that they probably get a fair amount of traffic from those who are dedicated to the framework and I'm sure some of those visitors convert to customers...i'm just not sure how much :)
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#15If you're so curious, perhaps your time would be better spent actually trying their applications, rather than "watching various videos and seeing the growth".
I didn't read the OP's question as hostile, or suggesting their applications are rubbish. I think it's a valid question - clearly some people are willing to pay money for inferior products, because they value other things. Trust? support? name brand? Love RoR and want to support people using RoR? Analysing what those things are seems a good idea if you're trying to emulate it, and you can't do that by "Trying the app…
Just because _you_ can replicate something on a weekend doesn't mean other people can (or want to).
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#16If you're so curious, perhaps your time would be better spent actually trying their applications, rather than "watching various videos and seeing the growth".
I didn't read the OP's question as hostile, or suggesting their applications are rubbish. I think it's a valid question - clearly some people are willing to pay money for inferior products, because they value other things. Trust? support? name brand? Love RoR and want to support people using RoR? Analysing what those things are seems a good idea if you're trying to emulate it, and you can't do that by "Trying the app…
thanks axod! I feel like this is a valid forum to ask this question. I think some of their products can be emulated quickly in feature sets but it usually is their design and user experience that sets them apart. also i believe their audience is either small businesses (fortune 5,000,000 :D) that don't have resources or ones that would rather not allocate the resources to develop similar solutions.
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#17I've been using Basecamp since 2005 - simple, responsive UI, stable. If you haven't read their manifesto on keeping things simple, you should - the 'lack' of features is intentional.
thanks rrival, i actually own the 'getting real' book and have a fairly good understanding of how their philosophy affects the outcome of their products. i especially like the mindset when your developing a web application of asking yourself 'would i pay for this product?'.
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#18If you're so curious, perhaps your time would be better spent actually trying their applications, rather than "watching various videos and seeing the growth".
I didn't read the OP's question as hostile, or suggesting their applications are rubbish. I think it's a valid question - clearly some people are willing to pay money for inferior products, because they value other things. Trust? support? name brand? Love RoR and want to support people using RoR? Analysing what those things are seems a good idea if you're trying to emulate it, and you can't do that by "Trying the app…
You make a good argument that follows logically from your initial assumption - that "clearly some people are willing to pay money for inferior products." So I'll just challenge that assumption ;-) By and large, I think you and the OP are defining inferior products as synonymous with less fully featured products. But it's not that simple (witness the iPhone, still lacking cut & paste).
For example, compare Highrise with Salesforce. My company (a 50 person consulting firm) is moving away from SF to HR right now, even though SF has many, many more features. Why? Because HR has all of the features we need, and most of the features we like (but don't absolutely require). And we are much, much more productive when using HR. It's easier to use. I don't have to think much when filling in information. The reports take me about 5 seconds to read and comprehend. This time savings is very valuable to me and my company - I've got better things to do than think about how to use a CRM application. The features Salesforce possesses that HR lacks, by contrast, don't have any value.
You'll get it if you just look at things through a slightly different lens. You might be getting tripped up by the confusion of effort and size with value. Value is what software has to a customer - effort is the cost software has to developers. And size is just a number. It would be nice if these three number always correlated. But unfortunately, that isn't the case.
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#19Because 1) the product is good enough for my needs and 2) because I know them and 3) I expect them to still be there in 5 years. There are probably tons of other similar products out there with the same simplicity and reliability (or even better), but why would I want to change to something that is not extremely better?
Re: Why do you use 37Signals products? Simplicity, UI, Hype?
#20The minimalism and design sensibility is nice, but the real reason we use them is that they're (a) hosted and (b) a reliable, proven company. You could launch a 10x better Basecamp or Campfire, but I don't believe you're going to be in business a year from now, so I'll stick with 37s.