Tory 18 Oct 05

�We�re not building this company to sell this company.�

Would you ever sell it?

JF 18 Oct 05

Would you ever sell it?

If the right offer was made, sure, but it’s not something we’re actively looking to do.

Nick 18 Oct 05

Great interview, but man do I have a hard time listening to Greg’s voice.

Mike Moscow 18 Oct 05

Dude, if anyone offered me million(s) for ANYTHING I conceived - I’d take it!

I really enjoy my career, job, etc. but I would LOOOOOVE to not have to get up in the mornings….

Emily 18 Oct 05

Great interview.

Think if all company presidents answered the support calls? It would give a whole new meaning to “escalating the problem.” Fantastic advice on a number of levels (don’t have to play the telephone game, stay close to the customer, etc.) Companies should advertise that “our president answers all support calls” - maybe people would think a little more to diagnose their own problems before firing off a quick support email (cough cough Safari problem). It benefits everyone.

I’m excited about the CRM app….

Our non-profit needs SOMETHING/ANYTHING very BADLY (nothing out there exists that really works right - or is priced right), and for a while I thought I was going to have to design it…now I can just wait :) wink. I have confidence already that this will be better than what’s out there.

Brad 18 Oct 05

great interview. I can only assume one of the 2 new people starting at 37s soon is me. Maybe you just lost my email address or something. must be it.

Don Wilson 18 Oct 05

“We’re looking to bring in two more programmers”

Too bad I develop PHP apps or that would be quite interesting working with you guys. :)

Mike 18 Oct 05

Jason,

I very much enjoyed the podcast. I’ve been listening to Venture Voice for a bit now, and have really been inspired by the folks Greg has been able to interview. He really has a way of asking the questions I’d really like to have the answers to… although I had hoped he would have asked you more questions about Ruby On Rails in your interview.

Anyway, I’m glad you were able to speak with him. I guess I threw my suggestion in to interview 37 signals about the same time as a few other people close to him… and it was cool to hear your story. Now if only Greg would follow up with you after you release a few of these upcoming projects ;)

Nick - I agree Greg’s voice is a bit strange, and I have chuckled at his accent a few times… but his interviews always make up for it.

Jason Seeber 18 Oct 05

Hey, no mention of ClickWorld! in that interview? Wasn’t that your first-ever web-app, Jason?

Jamie 18 Oct 05

What happened to EK? Is he still at BigHa?

and so it was written... 18 Oct 05

EK LIVES!

Martin 18 Oct 05

Good grief this podcast is unbelievably irritating to listen to - all the natural pauses in the interview have been (automatically?) edited out and the rest of it sounds like it’s been time compressed.

But…if you can bear to listen to it Jason is of course very interesting. I’m very excited to hear that a CRM solution is in the works as we’ll be looking for one in the next few months. So far crmdesk.com looks like the best solution for us but I’d love to see 37signals’ take on CRM.

MMI 18 Oct 05

Oh crap… CRM is close to the industry I’m in. I was right smack dab in the middle of developing a new drastically simplified version of our product too.

Rob Poitras 19 Oct 05

I didn’t like the interviewer at all. It seemed like he was off-tempo with Jason.
I am really looking forward to the book. Looking forward to the crm, but also enjoying basecamp right now.

release it today! 19 Oct 05

MMI - you better F’n hurry.

Jordan 19 Oct 05

Great interview, interesting, but i’d have cut my ears off if i’d had to listen to that interviewer’s voice for just one second longer.

phil 19 Oct 05

Good interview. I agreed with most of what you said… but I have to say the part about the bunch of you being apart is good. I can’t disagree more.

I sometimes like to work at home when I’m heads-down on something. But there is no substitute for being able to communicate interactively, with a whiteboard, a laptop/projector, and with multiple people in the same room. Conf calls, IM, email are better than nothing…. but face to face interation can’t be beat.

Anonymous Coward 19 Oct 05

Is every audio file posted on the internet called a podcast now?

James 19 Oct 05

Did they edit out every single pause Jason ever takes? Kind of freaky, like watching a movie where someone is stuck underwater while you hold your breath with them.

JF 19 Oct 05

Yeah, there were definitely a lot of pauses clipped out. You’ll have to ask them why.

Brian Sweeting 19 Oct 05

You mentioned self-publishing the “getting real” book as a PDF. You might want to look into something like LuLu (http://www.lulu.com/). They handle the transactions, print books on demand, manage downloads, track sales, and pay royalties. I heard about them on NPR a few months ago.

ryan 19 Oct 05

i was hoping to hear how you hooked up with david, especially before he was out of school etc. was he a recommendation? good people are hard to find. great people even more so.

Ray Irving 19 Oct 05

Great interview that. Learning more and more, and putting it into practical use in the projects I am working on.

One thing Jason, you insinuated in the interview (if I understood it correctly) that you wanted to work less hours on 37 signals stuff, and that possibly more hours means less productivity.

You could be correct on both of those, BUT, are you not thoroughly exhilarated with all that you are doing at the moment? This stuff is groundbreaking. I emailed you last week about a cancer nursing project that I was working on. The BaseCamp product has changed the way me and my fellow volunteers work, and your views / opinions on ‘software development’ have struck us to the core - massively improving what we do and plan to do.

So, have you got better things to do with your time than 37signals? I’d like to swap places with you if you do. Surely anyone who is running a small business has to enjoy it as much as they would a hobby, and not think of it as a job.

Sorry for the babble!

Cheers

Ray

Megan Holbrook 19 Oct 05

You might want to look into something like LuLu (http://www.lulu.com/).

Sorry to go off-topic, but since LuLu was mentioned, I thought I’d pass on a quote from a friend and author from the web405 list serv who has /raved/ about lulu.com - he loves the service and the quality of the products they produce: “Turns out [lulu.com] was founded by one of the Red Hat founders — this is his ‘i’m rich now, so i’m going to reinvent the publishing industry with disruptive technology’ company … so it’s a labor of love, rather than something founded to squeeze a nickel out of everyone they touch. They are the ONLY self-pub company that does NOT view the author as the customer — the author is a partner. This is interesting because they only make money when you make money — 20% of royalties (you keep 80%). This means their motifvations are 100% aligned with yours.
Fallout is: quality of books is high, service is high, etc.”

I found this to be pretty high praise indeed.