Josh Williams 28 Jun 06
This is so very true. We occasionally get asked if Blinksale will grow with a business as they add more employees and salespeople. As in say, over 100 employees. And the answer is no. We built Blinksale to service smaller companies. If I had 100 employees I wouldn’t be using Blinksale. This isn’t a knock on our own software. It was simply not intended to do that. And the nice thing is that somewhere, out there, someone is making invoicing software for larger companies. It may be ugly and hard to use, but someone is making it. Just not us. And that’s okay. For every person that outgrows Blinksale, we add plenty for whom Blinksale is just right.

Phil 28 Jun 06
Why can’t something be simple but offer more for bigger companies as well? I agree with your philosophy of keeping Basecamp the way it is, but why not create another product (“Summit”) that does the more advanced things in a simple clean way? Then not only would you continue to sell to the same audience basecamp appeals to, but also sell to people who need more in the first place, and those who grew out? Software is not like a pair of jeans, for many people it requires training and getting used to the way something works (even when its simple) and it’s a pain to simple grow out of it and move on to something completely different. We love your products and are throwing the money at you, why not build it for us? :)

Liz Fraley 28 Jun 06
In many ways, I agree with Dan Bricklin: There’s no reason that software cannot last 200 years http://www.bricklin.com/200yearsoftware.htm

John Critz 29 Jun 06
The problem with the “it’s just a simple little feature, why can’t you add it” perspective is that you’re not thinking about the hundreds of other feature requests people have for the way they do business. Sure it’s probably a valid request and would save you some time, but only you and maybe a handful of others. So it’s usually not worth the development time or cluttering of the app. for a handful of people to benefit from it.

Reality vs. drawings and words

Mark 29 Jun 06
Far too many times, especially with home builders, clients are taken to a “design center” to look at swatches and samples of carpeting, paint, bricks, tile, marble…to have installed in their own homes. The problem is, there is an insant disconnect between what the customer sees and agrees to, and how it comes out in reality. The spaces aren’t the same, the play of light and shadows on the materials is different, the sunlight bouncing off the material is different than the fluorescents of the design center.

Chris 29 Jun 06
Another great facility used to help reduce the cycle for the client to understand something is quick builds. We deploy to the target environment on a nightly basis so that our client can get her hands on the latest and greatest of “what she knows”, which is the application. Instead of saying hey isn’t this great, you’ll see it in a month or so you see it the next day. Again, if there are issues or the client doesn’t like the way something feels, we know right away.