Rework

Last episode of the year and we're talking about startups. The new dry cleaner down the street doesn't call itself a startup. The pizza place on the corner doesn't call itself a startup. They're new businesses, that's all! So, what's so special about your tech company that you need a fancy word for it? Startups make you think of unlimited growth, huge investments, no expenses to worry about. This mindset can be unhealthy and detrimental to your new business.Show Notes02:57 - Request for Proposal (Investopedia)10:02 - Greater fool theory (Wikipedia)15:57 - R.I.P. Good Times (Sequoia Capital)23:00 - Hotwire

Before you start your great new business you'll NEED to hire some people, raise some money, rent an office, buy some ads, etc. etc. OF COURSE YOU DON'T. These are all just the trappings entrepreneurs tell themselves they need, when in reality, all you need is to start making something.Show Notes00:03 - Budweiser Wassup Commercial (YouTube)01:28 - Dungeons & Dragons05:34 - Coudal Partners07:36 - Minimum Viable Product (Wikipedia)09:00 - Gumroad09:03 - Stripe09:22 - Squarespace09:24 - Mailchimp17:33 - Basecamp Merch23:07 - Fingerspitzengefühl (Wikipedia)

Taking outside money to start your business may seem like a good idea, but there are a ton of strings attached... You give up control. Cashing out becomes the #1 priority. It's addictive. It's usually a bad deal. Customers become less important than investors... You get the idea. Outside money should never be plan A.Show Notes03:15 - How WhatsApp Makes Money (Investopedia)13:28 - 37signals changing name to Basecamp, shedding products (Chicago Tribune)22:40 - The deal Jeff Bezos got on Basecamp (Signal v. Noise)

Last episode we discussed how important it is to stand for something and you'd think writing your values down in a mission statement would be a great way to let people know exactly what you stand for. Well, you'd be wrong. Mission statements are almost always vapid, boring, platitudes that end up saying nothing at all. Even worse, they often turn people away entirely!Show Notes00:11 - Lex Fridman (YouTube)02:38 - The Soup Nazi - Seinfeld (Wikipedia)04:18 - 37signals manifesto05:08 - 1981 FedEx commercial (YouTube)05:17 - About Us (FedEx)05:45 - Values (Basecamp Employee Handbook)10:04 - Elevator pitch (Wikipedia)12:17 - About Us (Enterprise)15:41 - Nudge Nudge Wink Wink - Monty Python (YouTube)19:56 - What's the point of a Reservation - Seinfeld (YouTube)

Whenever you start something, especially a business it's important to know why you're doing what you're doing. Having strong opinions, standing for something, can help tremendously when it comes to making crucial decisions and creating super-fans.Show Notes03:27 - Embrace Constraints (Getting Real)04:09 - Signal v. Noise04:18 - It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work04:44 - Signal v. Noise is closed.08:24 - Citizens United v. FEC (Wikipedia)09:31 - Oracle11:07 - Pinkberry11:35 - Pinkberry sold to Cold Stone owner (CNBC)12:38 - Basecamp Launches (Signal v. Noise)14:38 - r/faxmachines (reddit)22:07 - Badass: Making Users Awesome - Kathy Sierra (Bookshop.org)25:53 - Tesla Model S Plaid

"There're just not enough hours in the day!" This is probably the most common excuse people give for not starting something. Well, guess what. There most definitely are a few hours you could probably squeeze in here and there. And, we're not saying you have to quit your day job to do it!Show Notes02:10 - Fortnite02:21 - Tetris Effect07:57 - Set Boundaries (Shape Up)09:37 - Jerry Maguire "Who's Coming With Me?" (YouTube)15:13 - How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation - Anne Helen Peterson (BuzzFeed News)19:40 - Gary Vaynerchuk23:43 - Stripe

This week Jason and David discuss the essay titled "Start Making Something." It's only when you start building something the real insights come. Until then, all you have is just an idea. We also talk about Stanley Kubrick films and Jason introduces groundbreaking concepts like perforated pizza and "The Mysterious Cat."Show Notes06:04 - Getting Real17:22 - Collections20:44 - Stanley Kubrick (IMDb)20:57 - 2001: A Space Odyssey (IMDb)21:10 - Music Box Theater22:10 - The Shining (IMDb)22:24 - The reason why Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick film 'The Shining' (Far Out)

Basecamp was originally designed as a way to manage 37signals' client work and its success can be credited to the fact that it was designed to scratch a very specific itch by the people with that were itching. Now, we're not saying that building something for others is necessarily a bad way to go about things, but building for your own needs has huge advantages.Show Notes 06:15 - "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products." - Steve Jobs in Triumph of the Nerds (PBS)12:53 - Hotwire13:57 - Not invented here (Wikipedia)14:26 - Mary Kay Ash (Wikipedia)18:12 - Second-system effect (Wikipedia)21:35 - Minimum viable product (Wikipedia)21:42 - Making sense of MVP - Henrik Kniberg23:55 - The Homer (Simpsons Wiki)

This week we discuss the importance of doing meaningful work. At least meaningful to you. What you do is your legacy, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to change the world. You just need to be doing something that changes YOUR world.Show Notes03:28 - Bullshit Jobs: A Theory - David Graeber (Bookshop.org)04:37 - Drudge Report04:38 - craigslist05:01 - Flip Video (Wikipedia)05:29 - iPod touch07:46 - Rails08:55 - Ta-da List11:45 - Stoicism (Wikipedia)13:47 - Aol.16:44 - stripe17:31 - Braintree18:07 - shopify19:01 - Paul Graham19:36 - Viaweb (Wikipedia)20:34 - Squarespace21:21 - Stratechery

"Entrepreneur" sounds really fancy. Like a member of some exclusive club. But, what we're really talking about is just someone who starts something. Is it time to retire this word? Is there a better word to replace it? Can a business podcast go 30 minutes without talking about Steve Jobs, luxury cars, and watches?Show Notes09:42 - Andon (Wikipedia)11:23 - Nürburgring 24 Hours (Wikipedia)17:14 - The E Myth Revisited - Micahael E. Gerber (Bookshop.org)20:51 - Monolith Titan Conical Espresso Grinder23:19 - Saddleback Leather23:34 - How to Knock Off a Saddleback Leather Co. Briefcase (YouTube)

Working long hours, putting in overtime, logging on on the weekends, have become badges of honor, but there's a big difference between work and getting stuff done. This week Jason and David push back against this idea of workaholism.Show Notes01:37 - Six-week cycles (Shape Up)02:46 - On Apple's monopoly power to destroy HEY (Signal v. Noise)09:10 - Oura Ring10:47 - Test-driven development (Wikipedia)12:50 - An Inside Look at Google's Best Employee Perks (Inc.)17:12 - Paid Time Off (Basecamp Employee Handbook)24:19 - Summer Hours (Basecamp Employee Handbook)

Basecamp has always prided itself on staying small and lean. But, with two major products, we're going to change that. The question when looking to grow, however, is "why?"Show Notes03:08 - Highrise03:09 - Campfire03:10 - Backpack07:18 - Software as a service (SaaS)09:41 - Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency - Tom DeMarco13:33 - Hill Charts14:23 - Ryan Singer17:52 - Citizen Kane18:15 - "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey

People put too much stock in making long-term plans, but let's call them what they really are: guesses. On this episode we discuss deadlines, business plans, world domination, and Dungeons & Dragons.Show Notes01:06 - Dungeons & Dragons01:20 - Mind Flayer02:00 - Six-week cycles (Shape Up)05:54 - The meaning of a bet (Shape Up)07:23 - Shape Up08:32 - Setting the appetite (Shape Up)09:57 - "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower12:29 - Carlos Segura - Segura, Inc.12:43 - S Corporations15:24 - The deal Jeff Bezos got on Basecamp (Signal v. Noise)16:51 - Blue Origin19:04 - “The reason that most of us are unhappy most of the time is that we set our goals—not for the person we’re going to be when we reach them—we set our goals for the person we are when we set them.” - Jim Coudal quoting Dan Gilbert (Creative Mornings Chicago)19:12 - Coudal Partners19:12 - Field Notes20:59 - Key Performance Indicator (KPI)21:01 - Objectives and Key Results (OKR)

"Fail early and often." You hear this all the time in the tech start-up world. Failure has long been held up as a badge of honor for new start-ups. This week Jason and David take on this idea and make a pitch for learning from your successes instead of your mistakes.Show Notes06:22 - Backpack06:29 - Highrise10:39 - Adobe Creative Cloud12:27 - Campfire12:31 - Slack16:28 - HEY for Domains18:16 - Work at Basecamp20:33 - Hire good writers (Getting Real)20:38 - Hire managers of one (Signal v. Noise)23:09 - Microsoft Project27:04 - Remote: Office Not Required

We continue our revisit of Rework with the essay, "Ignore the Real World." Topics include new ideas failing, risk avoidance, and Marvel movies.Show Notes09:13 - HEY16:49 - Black Widow19:54 - Ruby on Rails

In this episode we dive deep into the introduction and chapter 1 of Rework, The New Reality.Show Notes02:09 - It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work02:14 - Remote: Office Not Required05:15 - Zoom05:35 - rework@37signals.com07:52 - JavaScript11:18 - HEY11:53 - Ruby on Rails12:37 - Shopify13:07 - GitHub13:07 - Airbnb13:08 - Twitch18:05 - Stripe Atlas18:37 - Squarespace20:50 - Upwork28:11 - FAANG30:50 - Bookshop.org

Rework is coming back for season 2 this September! In the meantime here's a little bonus to tide you over. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, during the dot com bubble, Basecamp cofounders, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson both had run-ins with venture-backed tech startups. These experiences would form many of the ideas later published in Rework.Show Notes03:27 - Leo Burnett03:54 - Daily Rush04:03 - 37signals04:15 - Quokka (the animal)04:54 - The Around Alone11:38 - Basecamp18:18 - Ernest Kim18:18 - Carlos Segura19:12 - Copenhagen Business School19:40 - Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Michael Porter21:34 - Bitcoin21:34 - Ethereum21:34 - NFT22:34 - Skype22:35 - Zendesk22:39 - Ruby on Rails24:24 - Ammon Haggerty24:40 - Josh Ulm24:59 - John Johnson25:36 - An Oral History of Quokka, The Company That (Almost) Shook Up Sports - Sportico

Tibet Sprague is a "communitarian technologist" with a vision for building companies and communities outside of investor-driven, for-profit systems. His current project is Hylo, an online platform for collaboration that's governed by its users.Show Notes"Truss the Process" and "Success is Surviving," our episodes on pay equity - 00:18"Coops: The Next Generation" and "Exit to Community," our episodes about cooperatives - 00:21Hylo - 00:29Tibet Sprague on Twitter - 1:08Terran Collective - 1:30NRG acquired One Block Off the Grid (renamed Pure Energies Group) in 2014 - 4:10Holo - 7:48Announcement about Holo giving Hylo to Terran Collective - 9:08Sociocracy for All - 17:30"Mass vaccination site in Gary draws Chicago-area residents" (Chicago Tribune) - 24:32"Gary, Indiana" from The Music Man - 24:42Tibet's List of ResourcesProsocialReinventing OrganizationsFree, Fair, and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the CommonsEmergent StrategyMore bo

How Basecamp's Michael Berger approached accessibility during the development of HEY, including collaborating with a blind Basecamp user on accessible features that ultimately improved the experience for everyone.Show NotesMichael Berger on Twitter - 00:52Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - 3:49 Apple's Voiceover - 5:32JAWS - 5:39NVDA - 5:41Scott Ballard-Ridley on Twitter - 12:47HEY for Work - 18:32Ruby on Rails Core Team - 23:33thoughtbot - 23:44Aspiritech - 24:12CSUN Assistive Technology Conference - 26:29HEY's Accessibility page | Michael's write-up of his work on HEY - 29:51Wailin's tweet complaining that Shaun doesn't insert enough airhorn - 30:10Adam Stoddard on Twitter - 30:43Manos: The Hands of HEY - 30:50

When Robin Petravic and Cathy Bailey bought Heath Ceramics from the company's founders in 2003, they promised to keep the dinnerware maker and its manufacturing workforce in its home base of Sausalito, California. The pandemic provided an opportunity for Heath to recommit to this pledge and create a Living Wage Initiative, which in turn prompted a radical overhaul of the company's 401(k) program. Robin Petravic comes on Rework to talk about walking the walk on equity, resilience, and equipping Heath for the next 200 years.Robin and Cathy wrote about the Living Wage Initiative in Heath's January newsletter.Show NotesHeath Ceramics website | Instagram - 1:02"Edith Heath: A Rebellion in Clay" (KCET, 2019) - 1:14"A New Year, 166 New Owners" - 6:30"Marin County's intensive effort drove down a COVID surge among Latino residents" (San Jose Mercury News) - 10:46MIT Living Wage Calculator - 15:46Eau de Space - 25:16