Jason Fried
CEO, Basecamp
Discussion
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
Hi all! Jason here. Excited to be answering your questions today so let's kick things off!
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Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
Really enjoyed reading REWORK. It's probably one of the best & most down-to-earth business books out there. And REMOTE and GETTING REAL are listed very high on my 'to read' list. Are you currently working on another book?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@tomstocklein Thank you thank you! In fact we are about to start on our next book. We're aiming for a late 2017 publication date if all goes well. I hope to be publishing a pre-book manifesto by the end of this year. It'll be an intro to the major ideas that'll be coming in the book. Should be a good one - we're feeling great about the topic and I think the timing is right. So stay tuned!
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
Hi Jason thanks for being here today! How can founders maintain a strong company culture, whist having a distributed team? How important is this if the team is largely remote?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@ems_hodge I think it's important regardless of local or remote, but of course it can be a little more challenging if you have a local and remote culture at the same time.
In the end, people are people, so you have to understand what motivates them. Not as a bunch, but as individuals. And then you work to play to each person's strengths as best you can.
We do a few things we do to make sure people are mixing emotionally and not just on a pure work level... Once a month Basecamp 3's automatic check-in feature asks everyone in the company what books they're reading. This is a wonderful way for everyone to get a sense of what people are into, what their personal interests are, what moves them, etc. On Monday mornings, Basecamp asks everyone "What did you do this weekend?" People share pictures of their gardens they worked on, home improvement projects, dishes they cooked, walks with their pets, their kid's first steps, etc. It's another wonderful way for people to share things that are going on in their own lives. This is all optional, of course. People can share as much or as little as they'd like. Another one Basecamp 3 asks is "See anything that's inspired you lately?" People share all sorts of things. It's great.
Also, remember that culture is a by-product of consistent behavior. It's not something you write down, it's not a mantra, it's not a method. It's what you do over and over and over. It's values you act on repeatedly. That's your culture.
Luís Otávio Ribeiro
@luisofribeiro · Product, Catarse
During 17 years, you have seen the rise and fall of differents project management tools. What is the Basecamp approach to deal with competition?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@luisofribeiro We do the best we can. There's no other way. We do the best we can if we have competition, and we do the best we can if we don't have competition. We are not competitor focused - we are focused on Basecamp and our customers. You can't worry about things you can't control, and you can't control what competitors do. You can only control what you do, so you do your best.
Leo Bassam
@loaibassam · Founder, CEO at Plutio.com
@jasonfried brilliant piece of advice right here
Jonny Miller
@jonnym1ller · Cofounder @Maptia
Hey Jason – love REWORK and will shortly be purchasing 52x copies to give out to the Escape the City Startup Tribe here in London. I was especially intrigued by your idea of creating incentives for Basecamp employees to get 8 hours sleep a night (mentioned in your conversation with Kevin Rose) and curious to hear about any other quirky or creative culture hacks have you dreamt up (or heard of elsewhere) and that you might be tempted to test out?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@jonnym1ller Thanks Jonny! Yeah that was a fun interview with Kevin. He's so easy to talk to. No hacks - just reminding people that 40 hours is enough, get some sleep, etc. Basics. We also encourage people to take more time off on the summer with 4 day weeks May - Sept. And we also offer paid 30-day sabbaticals every 3 years. Get away from work! Clear your head! That sort of stuff.
Jonny Miller
@jonnym1ller · Cofounder @Maptia
@jasonfried Thanks, and I agree it's easy to get carried away with the fun stuff. Keeping it simple and prioritising sleep + rest makes sense!
Rokon Ahammed
@ahammed027 · Visualising The Future..
Jason, what most difficult challenges you faced during your Basecamp launching and how you overcome those?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@ahammed027 The most difficult challenge when building anything is knowing when to stop building. When to ship. Everything's incomplete, and your ideal vision is rarely fully realized by 1.0. But while you're building, the rest of the world is using version 0 - your product isn't in their hands yet. So remembering that 1.0 is way better than 0.0, and that from release onwards you can continue to improve and adjust and add and tweak... But you can't get to that process until you ship v1.
Ali R. Tariq
@alirtariq · Product Designer, Manulife RED Lab
Hey Jason - thanks for spending some time with us! 37Signals' success and evolution into today's Basecamp is referred to by many as an inspirational example of how to stay focused, listen to what customers want, and bootstrap your way to great financial success. Considering the journey you've been on, how different do you think Basecamp would have been if you had been a VC-backed company? And what do you think is the most important factor someone should consider before they embark on their bootstrapped journey into entrepreneurship?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@alirtariq If Basecamp was VC-backed there's no question it would be a very different company. I certainly wouldn't be running it. I doubt David would either. That's not to say it wouldn't be more or less successful - that's impossible to know, and "success" has many definitions. But surely very different.
For me, VC or bootstrapping is all about what kind of habits you want to form. If you want to get good at spending money, taking VC is a good route. If you want to get good at making money, bootstrapping's going to give you a better shot at developing those skills. And I think those skills - making money skills - are the right ones to develop.
Rik van Kerckhoven
@rik_van_kerckhoven · Founder, PartyWatch
What is the future of e-mail going to be like?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@rik_van_kerckhoven Probably like the past. Email is an amazing invention. I'd say one of the top 3 in the past 100 years. Email is email. Email clients will make the experience a bit different. Google Inbox has done a great job turning email into something you act on, not just reply to. That's an innovation. But it's still all email underneath. Recipients, subject, and a body So pure, so perfect. Beat that.
Prialto
@prialto · Marketing Manager, Prialto
@jasonfried @rik_van_kerckhoven Jocelyn Glei's new book "Unsubscribe" has great insights about how to manage our email inboxes more effectively, since email is a huge pain point for almost everyone doing business today. Check out our Cliff Notes version of her book here: https://blog.prialto.com/refocus...
Farbod Saraf
@farbodsaraf · Co-founder Everboard.io
Why 37signals? Do you blieve in Aliens? And what are some of your favorite books?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@farbodsaraf Read this: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3.... Yes I believe there's life elsewhere. Books... Lot's of them, but I'll leave you with the one I just finished: "Endurance". It's about Ernest Shackleton's incredible attempt to cross the Antarctic continent back in the early 1900s: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IC8.... Amazing story of perseverance and leadership against all odds. Riveting book.
Andrew Bass
@andrewdbass · Startup junkie and improving hacker
Jason, you consistently produce amazing thoughts. What do you feel is different about your way of thinking than the way of the general population?
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Jason Fried
@jasonfried · CEO, Basecamp
@andrewdbass That's kind of you, thanks. Mr. Blackburn, my high school science teacher, told me "Have no respect for authority in itself, for there are always authorities that are wrong." That really stuck with me. I've always looked at things objectively. And if I see room for improvement, I try to improve them. I don't do things one way because that's how you're supposed to do them. I do them the way that makes sense to me. Once you realize their way doesn't have to be your way, it opens you up to entirely new perspectives on how to live, work, and be. I try to share my ideas from that perspective.
