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The signs are all here: There’s now an incubator on every corner, even your uncle is donning angel wings, and IPO expectations for Facebook are exceeding the hype for a new Twilight movie. But that’s all circumstantial evidence. What we needed was some public testimony to really put eve…
Twitter started out life as a wonderfully inclusive society. There were very few rules and the ones there were the people loved. Thou shall be brief, retweet to respect. Under this constrained freedom, Twitter prospered and grew rapidly for the joy of all. Budding entrepreneurs built apps that m…
I’m sure all fields have terrible reporting, but the shit that’s coming out of the tech world must be eligible for some sort of cake. Taste this slice of delicious nonsense that made the Forbes site today in Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: We’ve Moved Past The Cloud: Salesforce.com remai…
In the right dose, ambition works wonders. It inspires you to achieve more, to stretch yourself beyond the comfort zone, and provides the motivation to keep going when the going gets tough. Rightfully so, ambition is universally revered. But ambition also has a dark, addictive side that’s …
Are there any recruiters working in technology who get it? Anyone putting in just a minimum of effort to appear even half-way competent? If so, they need to speak up. The reputation of their profession is being soiled by completely clueless hacks. Here’s a pitch I just got this morning: …
The startup world is full of people addicted to work. The addiction often carries a heavy toll of lost friendships, broken relationships, bad health, and a dearth of other interests. All that matters is the next high from work. The next deal, the next milestone, the next round of funding. If you…
Every day, approximately 4,000 dabbawallahs deliver 160,000 home-cooked lunches from the kitchens of suburban wives and mothers direct to Mumbai’s workers in “the world’s most ingenious meal distribution system.” (Hey UPS, how’s that for logistics?) Dabbawallahs p…
The how, where, why, and when we communicate. Long form asynchronous? Real-time chat? In-person? Video? Verbal? Written? Via email? In Basecamp? How do we keep everyone in the loop without everyone getting tangled in everyone else’s business? It’s all in here.
A few years ago we launched the 37signals Job Board to answer a question we heard all the time: “Do you know where we can find a programmer or a designer? We need to hire one but we don’t know where to find one.” Since then, over 5,700 jobs have been posted, and many positions hav…
Today we launch Basecamp Classic Mobile for phones and devices with WebKit browsers. This includes the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, Motorola Droid X, Motorola Droid 2, Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Incredible, HTC Evo, Palm Pre 2, BlackBerry Torch, or any other device running iOS 4+, Android 2.1+, webOS 2, …
Our Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud series profiles companies that have over one million dollars in revenues, didn’t take VC, and are profitable.
Paul Graham thinks that startup founders need to sell their companies to get freedom and security: They want enough money that (a) they don’t have to worry about running out of money and (b) they can spend their time how they want. Running your own business offers neither. You certainly don…
Since the beginning, Basecamp has been marketed as a collaboration tool for small businesses (or small groups inside larger businesses). However, over the years we’ve also heard from many thousands of people who use Basecamp outside of work. They’ve turned to Basecamp to help them ma…
An intense debate about business models, bubbles, capitalism, quality of life, market share vs. profit share, running a business vs. selling a business, and a variety of other related topics from episode 46 of This Week in Startups. This is really good stuff. (There’s 47 minutes of mater…
At our company-wide get together last December we decided that 2008 was going to be a year of workplace experiments. Among other things, we discussed how we could make 37signals one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy. Here’s are a few of the things we…
Verifiable (shut down August 1, 2010) Stuart Roseman shut down Verifiable, a crowdsourced charting and data analysis site, to start SaneBox, a product that automatically identifies important email and separates them in a user’s inbox. Below, he explains how he knew when it was time to pull t…
REWORK, our new book on starting, building, and growing — or not growing — a business was released one week ago today. The book is selling out around the country and rocketed to #3 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. Thanks to everyone who picked up a copy and spread the word. But…
Microsoft has filed suit against Salesforce for infringing the following patent: Method and system for mapping between logical data and physical data System and method for providing and displaying a web page having an embedded menu Method and system for stacking toolbars in a computer display Aut…
A good portion of this industry is still trying to figure out how to make money for the first time (hint: charge people). But for those who’ve mastered that, I want to talk about the next step: making money twice (or three or four times). Making money off original content isn’t hard …
Sortfolio, our visual directory of web designers, has been helping companies find web design firms (and helping web design firms find clients) since October of 2009. Sortfolio works It’s been working quite well for people. In a recent survey we conducted, 45% generated new business th…
Not all publications are on a financial deathwatch. Cook’s Illustrated takes no ads and charges for access to its recipes online. According to “Let’s Invent an iTunes for News,” the publication has 900,000 print subscribers (and 100,000 newsstand buyers) and is thriving online with …
The tech world is obsessed with what’s next. It has become so used to the constant flow of new products and new companies that newness itself has been placed on a pedestal. But outside of a few breakthroughs here and there, most things that are good are good because they got there slowly. …
A few weeks ago, Paul Graham wrote a great essay about doing things that don’t scale. As usual, it’s clearly argued, well written, and full of solid advice. If your first instinct as a product developer or entrepreneur is to automate everything you can, I recommend reading Paul’s …
I’m not going to lie. I was never a Microsoft fan. Not even when I was using Windows (that I begrudgingly moved to after the Amiga). But at least you used to have some awe and respect for the gorilla that was Microsoft. Bill Gates might have been an evil genius, but at least he was a genius. …
On Tuesday I posted Get Satisfaction, Or Else. The post detailed how we felt Get Satisfaction misled our customers into thinking the Get Satisfaction site was an official place to get 37signals customer service and support. The post brought out passionate responses on both sides of the issue. Fi…
“Oh, that’s not my job,” is the sound of doom. Maybe not imminent doom, but doom indeed. It’s the magic inflection point when a company becomes too big (even if only psychologically) for any single employee to give a rat’s ass about job numero uno: Making shit work. …
Braintree’s Bryan Johnson will answer your questions in the comments section. In 2003, Bryan Johnson (right) was hired for a commission-only job selling credit card services to businesses. “I was broke,” says Johnson. “The job was brutal. Business owners were tired of the industry’s decep…
Techies, VCs, and the press are always swooning over the glory of the Bay area. This is where all the excitement, the money, and the people are, they say. And that’s true to the extent that your great big idea fits the current cultural mold of that environment. If you’re looking to b…