Backpack’s first birthday 08 May 2006
21 comments Latest by PArora
About a year ago we launched Backpack. Backpack was our third product (Basecamp was first and Ta-da List was second).
So far over 150,000 people have signed up for a Backpack account. Over 2,500,000 to-do items have been added to 500,000 Backpack pages. People have also created over 500,000 notes and set nearly 400,000 reminders. It’s a real thrill to hear from people who have made Backpack a part of their lives. Thanks for your continued support.
Backpack started over a conversation at lunch in Seattle at the end of 2004. After Getting Real with a variety of internal revisions, we launched Backpack about 5 months later. Like everything we build, we built Backpack because we needed Backpack. We use Backpack every day.
Backpack was also our first product with an API. We’ve since launched an API for Basecamp as well. We have one planned for Campfire later this year too. At this time Backpack is also our only product with a mobile version.
We love Backpack and others do too. We’re excited about some enhancements coming this year — including a calendar. We’ll also be tightening up the UI in a few places and making some other changes to keep the improvements coming.
So, here’s to Backpack! Happy birthday friend.
21 comments so far (Jump to latest)
Suthers 08 May 06
Happy Birthday!
Aaron B. 08 May 06
Happy Birthday, indeed. Backpack is the one 37 Signals application that I absolutely must have every day. I could go without Basecamp and Campfire, but Backpack ties together both my business and personal projects with ease.
Thanks for a great product!
Baysharam 08 May 06
Ok, great. When can we expect Sunrise?
Joshua Kaufman 08 May 06
I heart Backpack. Happy Birthday!
Kendall 08 May 06
Congrats guys. and Happy Birthday to Backpack.
SH 08 May 06
Happy Birthday to my very best friend in the world ever. I have no idea how I lived without you.
Andrew 08 May 06
Yay. Congrats, guys. Backpack has changed the way many people live and work.
Britt 08 May 06
Happy Birthday! Backpack always has an open tab in my browser. Looking forward to the calendar.
David E. Bowman 08 May 06
Backpack is simple, functional, and fantastic. Thank you for making such a useful and usable tool. Happy Birthday!
D 08 May 06
Happy! Happy!
Fri�rik J�nsson 08 May 06
Happy birthday Backpack! I can’t wait for your calendar feature, now that you’ve confirmed the suspicion that arose from your Campfire example :-)
37signals is a revolution.
Scott 08 May 06
Congrats Gents! Your products have hit a home run in my opinion. Perhaps a bigger win is the ideas you share.
keep it up
cheers
scott
MMI 08 May 06
Happy Birthday BP! Awsome product, I use it every day for a small web form project I developed with a partner halfway across the country. It allowed us to beat some competitors to release, by making us much more organized.
Todo lists for features each of us to implement.
Separate lists for future features.
We used notes to discuss questions (campfire wasn’t out yet)
Keep track of feature requests Emailed from users.
Writeboards to create marketing copy
Basecamp would probably work better for a lot of people, but with just two of us you can’t beat the simplicity of backpack.
I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Dave C 08 May 06
Congrats!
Getting something out there early and revising based on customer feedback is still the most effective way to build great products. 37s didn’t invent this approach, but you guys sure put the sizzle into it.
Let’s see what the next year brings!
Christopher Fahey 08 May 06
So, out of the 2,500,000 to-do items, how many were completed?
Robert 09 May 06
@Christopher Fahey:
Yes! I’m amazed this wasn’t the very next stat after mentioning it.
Also, a veritable treasure trove if 37S ever want to data-mine… always an advantage of a managed service.
But congrats, great product.
Daniel Draper 09 May 06
We use backpack for a *keep-it-real* bug tracker. Just like an earlier poster we have only a couple of people working on it so for us its perfect! I bet you guys could write a great full-blown bug tracker.
Just out of interest, how many of those 150,000 are paying?
JF 09 May 06
Just out of interest, how many of those 150,000 are paying?
We’re a private company. We don’t share revenue figures.
Crankier than i oughta be 09 May 06
Guys, let’s not anthropomorphize a piece of software. Did you buy it presents and bake it a cake, too?
PArora 09 May 06
Happy Birthday Backpack, as one year has passed and you grow and mature, we await new features in you.