Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M • Hacker News Board

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#51

Post by crazypyro » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:31 PM UTC

JunkDNA wrote: post #7

richardwigley wrote: post #2

I would be interested if anyone has used this for project management?

My team tried it several times over the first 1 - 2 years it was out. I have not tried it recently. That said, at that time, we could never get it to stick. It was good for high level stuff, but like all project management software, we ended up constantly working to keep it in sync with reality. This was especially acute when using github because for any stuff that was code-related, we were basically duplicating tick…

Sems like a potential opportunity for either Trello, or a third party?, to provide an easy way of combining github issues/commits with Trello lists.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#52

Post by kayoone » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:34 PM UTC

weavie wrote: post #6

It's incredible how such a simple idea could become so big. I'm sat here trying to think up some grand scheme that's going to make me my millions. Its a great lesson that really all I need is a simple idea. The key is in the execution. Take that simple idea and develop (and market) it to perfection.

simple idea for a free product with excellent execution and a big brand with lots of reach behind it. Quite good formula for success.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#53

Post by johnyzee » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

Cool to see Fog Creek succeed like this. I've been following Joel for almost fifteen years (the now defunct Fog Creek message boards were some of the best on the internet for a couple of years).

From the beginning Joel made a simple assertion: Hire great people, give them a great environment, then sit back and watch them kick ass. He said this before all of this became conventional industry wisdom (and probably played a major role ushering it in). With products like CityDesk, FogBugz, and Copilot failing or seemingly meandering, it didn't really seem like much would come of it. But they kept at it and look at them now. I guess good software does take ten years (give or take) [1].

Of course it didn't hurt that Joel is one of the best bloggers who ever done it, and I'm sure at least Stack Overflow benefited tremendously from being seeded with Joel's captive audience, but they have still executed the hell out of it and continue to do so, and obviously continue to spawn awesome stuff on the side.

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#54

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:38 PM UTC

mhp wrote: post #27

andygcook wrote: post #10

Does anyone know how this type of spin out works? I would imagine FogCreek has an ownership stake in the company for "seed funding" Trello with resources.

It was a 355 spinoff. If you are into reading boring IRS guidelines, you can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_section_3... tldr; imagine a stock split like Google did recently where the shareholders end up with 2 different stocks.

Last time I worked at a company that did that, it was to dump their debts on the old company and scurry off with the more promising projects so they could raise more funding with the new company.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#55

Post by doorhammer » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:40 PM UTC

disclaimer: There's absolutely no real thought about how I'd implement this as I'm saying it.

I like trello a lot. I'm practically obsessed with it.

It works really well for my small teams and my personal life.

A couple people have said it doesn't scale well to larger teams (with necessary ymmv disclaimers).

I wonder if that's because of how inherently formless and simple it is (which I think is its strength). It's a very general metaphor that narrows to lots of specific use cases easily. It'd be interesting if there were more optional constraints you could add to boards/cards/etc to formalize a specific workflow. I'm just shooting from the hip here, not sure what that would look like.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#56

Post by mercnet » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

richardwigley wrote: post #2

I would be interested if anyone has used this for project management?

I use it for personal project managing but I knew it was popular when my girlfriend's sister was showing it to her Dad. She does R&D (chemistry) at a water proofing sealant company. The company has 30 employees and they use it to track projects. I need to get out of my software bubble and realize that a lot of tools can be applied to other industries.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#57

Post by mhp » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:48 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #54

mhp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a 355 spinoff. If you are into reading boring IRS guidelines, you can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_section_3... tldr; imagine a stock split like Google did recently where the shareholders end up with 2 different stocks.

Last time I worked at a company that did that, it was to dump their debts on the old company and scurry off with the more promising projects so they could raise more funding with the new company.

I'm pretty sure the 355 regs prevent you from doing something like that (not that you couldn't just do it anyway, but that you might get caught if you are trying to do something shady).

In our case, we didn't want to give up ownership in Fog Creek (which is profitable) and the investors were happier with a separate entity.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#58

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:54 PM UTC

weego wrote: post #39

[deleted] wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Ad hominem over something entirely pointless. You must be a joy to work with.

[deleted]

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#59

Post by solutionyogi » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:54 PM UTC

johnyzee wrote: post #53

Cool to see Fog Creek succeed like this. I've been following Joel for almost fifteen years (the now defunct Fog Creek message boards were some of the best on the internet for a couple of years). From the beginning Joel made a simple assertion: Hire great people, give them a great environment, then sit back and watch them kick ass. He said this before all of this became conventional industry wisdom (and probably playe…

Completely agree. Before HN became big, JoS forums (especially the Business Of Software forum) were my go to place to connect with fellow technologists. That is where I originally learned about Patrick Mckenzie.

Personally, Joel has been a big inspiration for me. He pretty much shaped how I view software development by writing those all time classic articles.

Re: Trello Spins Out of Fog Creek With $10.3M

#60

Post by patio11 » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 1:59 PM UTC

johnyzee wrote: post #53

Cool to see Fog Creek succeed like this. I've been following Joel for almost fifteen years (the now defunct Fog Creek message boards were some of the best on the internet for a couple of years). From the beginning Joel made a simple assertion: Hire great people, give them a great environment, then sit back and watch them kick ass. He said this before all of this became conventional industry wisdom (and probably playe…

With products like CityDesk, FogBugz, and Copilot failing or seemingly meandering, it didn't really seem like much would come of it.

If you ever get lost trying to go to their office, tell a cabby to take you to the New York Stock Exchange, which they're adjacent to. They do not pay the rent with Broadway shows.