37signals

The only feature I can think of that we ever removed (I might be wrong) is OpenID, because almost no-one used it and it was really confusing. Time tracking is still there in Basecamp Classic, and that's not going away. If you rely on time tracking in Basecamp Classic you can continue to do so. See this from the announcement page FAQ: Q: What about Basecamp Classic? "We are fully committed to running Basecamp Classic forever." - http://37signals.com/

Something fundamentally missing from both versions - trust signals. Why does a user want to trust this software? You go to http://www.seomoz.org/, you see Zillow, Home Depot, Yelp and etc "love their software". Same with 37signals - WB and Kellogg's are using Basecamp? http://37signals.com/ Why isn't my company? It is not explicity apparent that anyone loves this software, especially nobody they know or have heard of, so why should they use it? It doesn't have to be who uses it, but could also be "featured on" if you (Patio11) got coverage and co-linked to the service there as well, which I bet is more prominent. Of course, families don't care about Techcrunch - relevant news is needed.

I'm not a Rubyist, but 37signals' (clickable: http://37signals.com/) new design is really great to me. It's clean and extremely functional.

For some kinds of content, you want that skim-and-skip effect, for example the display of reviews on RottenTomatoes (which is in two columns nowadays, but used to be either three or four, I forget). I think it's really the execution here that's problematic. Compare those examples, with say, http://37signals.com/, which has a similar look, but where each piece has been fit together by hand, rather than by an algorithm just stuffing everything where it seems to fit best. I know that hand-arranging is often not possible, especially with dynamic content, but that's my take on it.

Of course not. It's called newsletters, like to one you can subscribe to here: http://www.37signals.com/

i think a lot of the advice the 37signals guys give would be good to hear. their basecamp wasn't the first or "best" of its kinda but the founding team makes great arguments as to why it was the best that could be offered. check out http://37signals.com/ and the samples from their book REWORK or maybe check out DHH's site http://www.loudthinking.com/. while i wouldn't agree with all of his thoughts (at all), he does speak to/about the importance of persistence and various manifestations of ingenuity that are possible to make a product/business succeed. at the same time, let's be realistic here--if you think that they will be able to offer a better product across the board or that the product that you're developing is quite niche and that they will own the products community, you might even now start thinking of ways that the work you've put into this tool can be redirected without being significantly diluted/compromised. just a couple thoughts. good luck.

What breaks is always the weakest link, this will vary based on your own organization structure, it may be ops, it may be engineering, it may be culture, it may be management, but most certainly all of it will be tightly coupled to your communication. Try and identify what is the weakest link, then avoid over correcting a symptom, double down on communication and ensure that your values, principles, and alignment are well understood across the org. I really like 37signals as a reference guideline, build your variation of that and talk about it every day[1] [1] https://37signals.com/

Most of these criticisms don't stand up to scrutiny, but I can understand how you'd arrive at this opinion based on the blog post alone. In reality, this change primarily applies to the engineering team and will be phased in over several years. The company as a whole will continue to run Windows, macOS and Linux. There's also a get-out clause for any developers who just can't get along with Linux and prefer to stick with their beloved Mac. Source: the podcast episode linked from the DHH post (https://37signals.com/podcast/moving-to-omarchy/).

In case you are interested in Shape Up and want read more about it, Ryan Singer - the inventor of the methodology - has written a really great book about how they have been, and currently are, building and shipping products and features at 37signals. The book is called "Shape Up" (doh) and the electronic version is totally free: https://basecamp.com/shapeup I would also really recommend the rest of the books, lots of great thoughts on development and management from actual experience. Also free: https://37signals.com/books

Automattic: The company behind Wordpress. https://automattic.com/ 37signals: The company behind Basecamp and Hey. With a founder being the Ruby on Rails creator. https://37signals.com/

The books by 37 signals (Rework) come to mind: https://37signals.com/books/ Especially "It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work" - directions towards greater productivity through greater QoL and not in the Silicon Valley Nursery Color Complex way.

It also seems worse than that based on other replies in this post. Twilio has only had one profitable quarter in its entire existence. Both the business model and strategy are clearly broken. I do wonder (read: hope) if this means the next wave of tech companies will be more private/lifestyle focused. 37Signals had a great article about this: https://37signals.com/why-we-choose-profit/ Not every company needs to be a market leader, what's wrong with having a drastically smaller size (say <200 people, a number plucked from thin air) and decent revenue?

Pretty much binge listened to these this year: - Startups for the Rest of Us (https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/): Great podcast for any aspiring entrepreneur and bootstrapper. - The Knowledge Project (https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/): Great interview podcast around a variety of topics - The REWORK podcast (https://37signals.com/podcast/): Probably don't need lots of introduction here. Read the books in the past, but its great to actually hear Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson to actually talk about those things.

The web framework part is basically sponsored by 37signals https://37signals.com/32 Maybe that's why Ruby is best known for Ruby on Rails.

Came across 37 signals yesterday (https://37signals.com/) which might be a nice exception to this. I say might because they count from 0, so technically it’s 38 signals ;).

I forgot they had changed their name. They were 37Signals when they were HN's darling. This is the company everyone was in love with: https://37signals.com/manifesto

"ReWork" https://37signals.com/rework and "Smart & Gets Things Done" are worthwhile.

This book[1] answers nearly all the questions a company would have about going remote. Might be a worthy read for the OP. As you pointed out thought, remote or local, doesn't say much, there are other things that are more important. [1] https://37signals.com/remote/

I was under HN influence when I started my solo product. I had designed it as bootstrapped: There is an opportunity, I fulfill it, then I don't go after the x1000 scaling. It worked at the end of year 1, and we're 2.5 years later, and I'm happy, not millionaire, but I have my own work schedule. There are several kinds of startups. The article mentions huge ones. Or you can start a consultancy, very classic business, low risk. Or you can bootstrap[1]. Use the one that fits your profile. Other than that, I approve the cautionary tale of the article. [1] http://37signals.com/bootstrapped

50%+ of Income on rent is just ridiculous. Seems like someone needs to read 37signals' book Remote: http://37signals.com/remote/ Some great companies like StackExchange or GitHub read it long ago...

This is why "work remote" jobs are so fantastic if you can get them. You don't have to worry as much about politics. In an office environment you have to worry about if you're getting along well enough with people on a personal level and this nebulous "I enjoy working with him or not" factor might make or break your career. At an office job you need to put in hard work to "become friends" with everyone otherwise some people will bear a grudge. Sometimes this is not easy depending on the situation. There are too many "social factors" in office jobs which can make or break you and that have nothing at all to do with your ability to "get shit done". Not so with remote working. All that matters is your ability to be productive. https://37signals.com/remote/ weworkremote.com

Lol. People, why the hate? 90% of the 'issues' raised in the comment thread including that by alexcroox can be answered by reading the post. Here, in case you missed it http://37signals.com/ The other 10% are outright misleading. BTW, Alex Croox, once you start a business, you must run it forever right? Well, I have decided to build my flow around all your project here alexcrooks.me Don't shut any down hommie.

Embarrassingly dumb. Especially considering the fact that they changed their name today: http://37signals.com/.

No crisis. Business has never been better. The reasons are all honest and all clearly spelled out at http://37signals.com. We just don't want to hire a bunch more people and we don't want to have to spread ourselves too thin. Focus is where it's at and we want to regain it.

I'm currently redesigning a backend interface, and it's the 1st time since I've started my Front-End career (7 years ago) that I'm not using Photoshop at all. I'm just using Bootstrap, Sublime Text, and Chrome. For many projects of course, it won't be sufficient: clients want (and probably need) a stunning Photoshop mockup to provide feedback and boost their self-assurance. But if you combine a simple CSS framework (even if it's just for a grid system), Chrome's inspector, a selection of Google Fonts, and some sense of "flat" aesthetics, you can come up with a more than decent, and sometimes amazing, design. Plus, it takes 70% less time, especially considering it's usable right now. 37signals mentioned this "skipping Photoshop" attitude in 2008 [1], but I never quite managed to put it into practice until recently. [1] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop

Love this comment. Great UI is about words. Reminded me of this: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3404-reminder-design-is-still-about-wor…

Rails is a great framework. But posts like this and the one discussing how the team made product decisions around their caching strategy [0] and the horrible hacks that they did to make it work, for me are telltale signs that Rails is not the right tool for building web apps anymore. Web development is evolving, as it ever has, and I believe that the next step is pushing the view layer to the client, and caching data, not html, on every step of the way. The major hurdle here is SEO, but I hope that when the right framework comes, it will offer an elegant solution to this problem. [0] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3112-how-basecamp-next-got-to-be-so-dam…

Nice! I was thinking of adding a feature like this to my animated-guitar-tabs site Soundslice (http://www.soundslice.com/). I've got time-synced data for each note in a song, with string and fret values, so I'm planning to do stuff like "cliche lick" detection. Searching by riff would be a great addition. I talk about this a little bit toward the end of this tech presentation I gave: http://37signals.com/talks/soundslice I definitely echo what some other comments have said -- if you made it based on intervals instead of "hard-coded" notes, it'd be a lot more flexible! That seems to be how our own brains store music -- if somebody sings "Happy Birthday," for example, you can instantly join in, regardless of what key it's in. Unless you're tone deaf... :-)

For what it's worth, apparently the Basecamp team was hitting ~50ms request times with their new (well, now it's not that new) design: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3112-how-basecamp-next-got-to-be-so-dam… All technology has its trade-offs. Rails can be plenty fast, it just all depends on how you're using it.

http://37signals.com/remote/ >REMOTE, the new book by 37signals, shows both employers and employees how they can work together, remotely, from any desk, in any space, in any place, anytime, anywhere. Maybe attacking Microsoft for the exposure works as a marketing strategy, but it's a particularly bizarre one considering their own take on remote work. Scott Hanselman had an excellent take on the whole thing yesterday: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WorkingRemotelyConsideredDystopian.aspx