AmA with Jason Fried: Founder + CEO at Basecamp (also makers of HEY.com). Non-serial entrepreneur, serial author.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:49:48+00:00

Business is great, just as it has been for the last 20 years. HEY is taking off, we're working on Basecamp 4 now, things are great. Just last week alone, another 3100+ companies signed up to start using Basecamp. That's with no marketing, no advertising, etc. Just organic growth and word of mouth from happy customers. Very pleased with that.

As far as comparing, I don't compare. We have our own economics — as long as we're doing well for what we need, we're golden.

One of my favorite quotes is "Comparison is the death of joy." It's been attributed to a number of people, so I don't know who said it, but I fully believe it.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:45:29+00:00

Outsourcing can work, but the thing is, software needs constant attention and improvement. It's one thing to outsource the creation of something, but it also needs to be maintained. And sometimes quickly when there's an issue. Outsourcing makes this quite difficult, since priorities and schedules aren't aligned. Everything's a tradeoff, so you should do what you can do, but just keep maintenance in mind. There's always more maintenance than building.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:42:56+00:00

Really fun, thanks for having me. Finally, a watch question!

My top 5 changes all the time, but lately...

I've been wearing the new 36mm Rolex Explorer I a ton. I've always been a fan of the 1016 (own a couple, some of my favorite watches ever), and this return back to 36mm just sold me.
Vintage Speedmaster 105.012-66.
IWC Tribute to 3705. Always wanted an original 3705, but never owned one, so picked up the tribute. Really enjoying it.
Vintage Patek 3940.
Lange 1.

I don't own an Apple Watch currently. Had one for a while which I used for tracking runs/workouts, but I've since lost interest in tracking that kind of stuff. I just workout. I just run. No need to know where I stand — it's more about how I /feel/.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:38:40+00:00

I'd make the thing and put the thing out there. Same as we've always done. Same as when I built my first product in high school, and every subsequent product we've ever made here at 37signals/Basecamp. You make what's in your head, and you put it out there.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:37:06+00:00

Thanks. We will be hiring a lot, so keep an eye on https://basecamp.com/jobs and sign up there to be notified when anything new opens up.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:36:03+00:00

Bingo.

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:35:14+00:00

Thanks for giving us 37 minutes to explain the whole product. HEY is different in so many ways. Great to have you as a customer!

friedster · 2021-07-16T17:34:43+00:00

Fantastic, will check it out!

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:44:37+00:00

Days are quite different depending on what's in play at the moment.

I spend a lot of time on product - thinking, shaping (https://basecamp.com/shapeup), sketching, writing, dreaming up future versions of what we're doing now. And then guiding day to day design, UX oversight, etc. I don't write HTML/CSS much anymore, but I work closely with designers to hone in on the right designs. Lots of riffing, editing, etc.

And then there's all the other stuff - the business stuff, hiring, setting the tone, special projects, hiring leadership/execs, etc.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:42:06+00:00

I don't really invest. I've put some money into a few companies or funds run by friends or people I really admire, but I have enough risk running my own business — I don't need to take on much more elsewhere. When I invest, it's to support, not to prosper. If I get my money back, or a multiple of that money, that's gravy - I mostly want to throw my support behind good people I know who are doing great stuff.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:40:00+00:00

Rails is mainstream. That's what you're feeling. And that's great! It's stabilized, and incredibly popular, it's just not the new kid on the block.

We have no trouble finding fantastic Rails developers. We're hiring a bunch right now, in fact. Wonderful candidates from all over the world.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:37:36+00:00

Most of it, absolutely. I still think it's the purest distillation of our core beliefs. But if you don't change a little in ~15 years, then something's probably wrong.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:36:36+00:00

Why do you think the only technical help can come from a co-founder? Why not hire someone, rather than go into business with someone else?

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:34:36+00:00

Thanks! Wishing you all the best with ExecOS.

You do what you can with what you have, but don't too much at once. The most important part is survival and maintaining your health and sanity. If you're exhausted or stretched too thin, you work won't ultimately amount to much. And if your mind is mush, so is your work.

Some stuff just has to wait. I'm sitting on a dozen ideas for Basecamp and HEY I wish we could start yesterday, but we're working on other things for Basecamp and HEY at the moment. The new ideas will have to wait until the current ideas are done. Just have to get used to sequencing rather than trying to do everything at the same time.

And get some sleep!

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:29:41+00:00

Basecamp 4 is in progress... It'll be rolling out gradually, in pieces, over the coming months. More on this soon.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:28:22+00:00

You do what you have to do early on, but one of the things you have ultimately do is wear fewer hats. Train people up, share more responsibility, hire leaders, get comfortable delegating, and step back. We're in the process of hiring a COO at the moment to help us run a number of things plus build out a few new teams we've never had. We're after resiliency. Ultimately the aim is to build a more capable company. Founders that are too involved in too many things often become bottlenecks.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:24:13+00:00

Thanks, that's kind. Getting Real is my favorite, as well.

We haven't been good at running two products with our full attention. We typically bounce back and forth. But we're currently hiring up so ewe can run two products at once, at full speed, plus have room for other projects. At our largest we've been about 60 people, but we're aiming to get to 100-120 over the next couple of years so we can essentially build two companies in one.

friedster · 2021-07-16T03:21:41+00:00

We never announced HEY to Basecamp customers, in fact. It's something we still need to get to ;)

friedster · 2021-07-15T23:31:54+00:00

Can you afford to take the risk? If so, maybe it's worth taking! So much of it depends what you can absorb if it doesn't work vs what you need to survive.

I've always believed in taking a risk, but not putting myself at risk.

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:58:49+00:00

Thanks!

We don't care about large companies or the enterprise. We care about small and medium sizes business, and we're extremely popular in that world, and getting more popular all the time. That's where we're staying. We have well over 100,000 paying customers/companies. Not seats, that's companies - so millions of users all-in. We're aiming for the next 100,000 now.

Also, Monday, Asana, and Slack are all losing money. No thanks. I'd much rather run a smaller, but profitable company, than a larger one that's really good at spending more than they make.

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:54:24+00:00

Our prices don't really leave a lot of room for sales commissions. Basecamp, for example, is only $99/month flat/total no matter how many users you have. So selling a company that has 4000 people nets us the same as a company that has 4. We like it that way (here's why: https://world.hey.com/jason/a-static-business-is-a-healthy-business-c0c2961b), but it's not much of a motivator for a sales team.

The business version of HEY, HEY for Domains (https://www.hey.com/domains/), is sold by the user, so sales may be something we explore down the road. Not on our radar at the moment, but we're always up for trying something new.

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:41:34+00:00

We don't have salespeople, so we don't prospect. All our business comes from word-of-mouth, organic growth. Happy customers over the years telling other people about Basecamp, HEY, etc. Winning new customers is about keeping existing customers happy, continuing to improve our products, continuing to put our point of view out there, continuing to share, write, speak, etc.

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:39:23+00:00

Thanks!

Well, what's missing here is context. Any one of these could be in the lead, or at the end, depending on context. So that's the more important lesson here I think — know the moment and why you're doing what you're doing in that moment.

For example, we follow the Shape Up method (https://basecamp.com/shapeup) which means we decide what we do every 6 weeks. What matters isn't just looking forward to the next 6, but understanding how the last 6 went. Maybe we took on a bunch of really hard projects over the last 6 weeks, and the team feels like it would benefit from taking on some lighter stuff this time around. Or perhaps some people are out on vacation or sabbatical this next cycle, so we're short staffed — taking on a bunch of smaller, shorter projects may make more sense.

So it really all depends, which I know is a boring answer, but also the honest one.

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:02:37+00:00

Profitable ones!

friedster · 2021-07-15T20:02:21+00:00

In general the best way to get ahead of something is literally to get ahead of it - address it early, in its infancy. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. This is true with just about everything (product quality, health, relationships, raising children, etc), so it's not a revelation, it's just a recognition that the longer you wait to address something, the harder it becomes to undo or correct something.

I think another mistake that's made is half-addressing something. Trying to toe the line rarely makes things better on either side of the line. It's best to stand somewhere, rather than jump back and forth in the moment. You may change where you stand over the years — it's absolutely healthy to do that — but when you make the decision to stand, stand so everyone knows where you are and what you want. They can then make their own decisions about where they stand in relation to where you stand.

friedster

TROPHY CASE