From the outside, it often seems like certain companies or products just blow up unannounced and become huge overnight. In reality, it rarely works like that. It certainly didn’t for us.
When we launched Basecamp five years ago, I think we had less than 2,000 people subscribed to our RSS feed. Add a few thousand more who were just checking the site manually and it’s probably reasonable to guess that our initial audience was below 5,000 people.
By today’s standards, that’s tiny! And that audience had even taken a few years to build. But it was what we had and it was plenty to launch a very successful suite of products.
It wasn’t enough to make us blow up overnight, though. To get today’s levels we’ve relied on the compound interest of attention. Every year a steady stream of new readers and customers have joined the flock while still keeping the bulk from the year before.
That’s why it annoys me dearly when our advice is discounted with “that only works for you because you’ve got this massive success to roll from”. That “massive” success was built convert by convert. Nobody handed it to us. We’re sharing exactly how we got there and hoping that our experiences and discoveries will help get you to where you want to be as well.
So stop thinking that you can’t get there because you don’t have a huge audience already. Start building that audience today. Start getting people interested in what you have to say. Then in a few years time you’ll get to chuckle about your overnight success as well.
JP Richardson
on 11 Mar 09My other favorite blog (CodingHorror) mentions this exact same thing. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001207.html I love reading stories like this, it helps me to keep this in perspective while I’m building my business.
Thanks!
-JP
DHH
on 11 Mar 09Great post by Jeff. I especially like the notion that since success takes years you have to love the process of what you do. Not just the result. That’s absolutely key.
Tim
on 11 Mar 09I’m curious to know, does 37signals now does thing different because you have the masses attention?
Bryan
on 11 Mar 09Seriously good advice. DHH, we have not heard from you in awhile but you have put out two great posts recently… As as small company, I have found both to be inspiring for us small companies trying to make it through these times. Thanks, for the great posts. Is there going to be another 37 Signals Live with you and Jason anytime soon?
DHH
on 11 Mar 09Tim, we change tactics all the time, so simply as function of time between now and then we do things differently. But I think the core values remain exactly the same for the majority case.
Bryan, thank you. I appreciate that. I just needed to get my blogging mojo back ;). And yes, we expect to do another Live next week. Then hopefully we’ll get into a regular rhythm of doing them every week or every other week.
Cameron
on 11 Mar 09I’ve always been curious to know, what other web apps does 37signals use apart form your own?
matt
on 11 Mar 09Amen. The media loves to spin everything as instant, easy success and that is rarely the case.
Nathaniel Talbott
on 11 Mar 09It’s always encouraging to hear this from someone on the other side of the “overnight success” divide. I was mulling on the same ideas when I wrote the Sprint or Marathon? post on the Terralien blog, but I’m not an overnight success yet so I can’t talk as authoritatively.
One related question I have is: you guys talk a lot about how you build applications, but I don’t hear much (maybe I’ve just missed it) about how you run the blog. Ya’ll are incredibly consistent with blogging, both in terms of putting out posts on a regular basis and saying interesting things. I’d love to get more insight in to how you run that part of the business, as it can definitely be a challenge.
Paul Leader
on 11 Mar 09David, another great post that’s spot on.
My current project (Graphomatic) has a whole 10 users, but it’s really new, and I fully expect it to take a long time before I can retire off the back of it (fingers crossed).
The media love stories of overnight success, and multi-millionaire kids who started their business in their bedroom one year and flying corporate jets the next. The reality for most is that these things take a long time, and a lot of patience.
The reason I read SvN is because you guys have made it, and done it the hard way, not just got VC funding and sold out two years later. That’s what I’m trying to do, build something long term.
Paul
DHH
on 11 Mar 09Cameron, just off the top of my head, we use Survey Monkey, Campaign Monitor, New Relic RPM, Websitepulse, Typepad, and I’m sure a bunch more. Personally, I’m also a fan of Dropbox, Mint, and Flickr.
Nathaniel, we treat it as part of the business. Writing a blog post is work. It’s not just something you do when everything else is done. It has to be treated as equal work. As important as doing a new feature. It’s all about assigning priority.
Scott Miller
on 11 Mar 09Another great post / reminder. I have observed that really rapid growth in revenue is not always “quality” revenue. Meaning, customers that initially buy / sign up en mass, are usually following some fad and as a result, will more easily defect and chase the next hottest product / service when it comes along.
The “slow build” which is evidenced in your model, implies a customer base that has gradually adopted the solution and is not chasing the newest thing in technology.
These customers make the business much more valuable by yielding high renewal rates, predictive revenue and low business risk.
BTW, would love to know what your renewal rate is for subscriptions if you feel so inclined to divulge. If not, completely understand.
Hat’s off to 37 for building a solid foundation for your business.
John Gallagher
on 11 Mar 09Excellent stuff. It’s so easy when you’ve never built a user base before to get carried away with estimates and guesses at how much you’re going to be making or how many people will be using your product a year from now when you’ve only just started development. And recently that’s the trap that I’ve fallen into.
I’m finding it difficult getting a balance between building and discussing my app. I feel like I should be getting my head down over the next month and focussing on the programming, but at the same time I don’t want to neglect the sprouts of interest that my project is starting to garner. On the other hand, I don’t want to get into the way of just talking about what I’m going to do and not executing the vision. It’s a tough one.
One point I’d like to make is the time it takes for your message to catch on and for success to come in the tech world is tiny compared to some other fields. I see the figure of 3 years fairly often for a software business to see some measure of real success. That may seem like a really long time to impatient people like me, but it’s really not. Look at the band Elbow – they’ve been touring and making music for more than 10 years before they’ve hit the mainstream. Pulp were playing together for 13 years before they started to become successful. A huge number of great films will never, ever see the light of day and of the tiny number that do get screened and distributed, it takes many years to even get the film out there. Terence Malik spent 20 years researching and making The Thin Red Line. Of course, this is different to what’s being discussed – an artist deliberating over the manufacture is not the same as the product catching on.
So that 3-5 years wait for success is pretty quick by many artistic standards. And of course, whilst you’re “waiting” for that success, you can always improve your product or service until it’s world class quality.
Elbow Fan As Well
on 11 Mar 09@John Gallagher… One day like this a year’d see me right
thismat
on 12 Mar 09DHH,
I’ve noticed that as the biggest criticism people have when talking about 37s’ success, and it’s always bugged me.
One thing I love about SVN is that the content isn’t about lowering your standards, it’s about raising them and working hard towards your goals.
The quality of SVN has been extremely high lately as well, I’m stoked to see someone promoting the idea you can be successful with dedication, especially during a time that everyone seems to just be doom and gloom about everything.
Patrick McLaren
on 12 Mar 09I have a question for all, if anyone would like to suggest a solution.
Whilst I have what I think are some great ideas, I nearly always find myself subconsiously planning ways to monetize these ventures.
Out of guilt, I force myself to focus my attention elsewhere until the thoughts on revenue dissappear, but sooner or later will be back again.
Do I leave these ideas and wait for something that enthuses me with just the possibilities of the venture in itself?
Alex White
on 12 Mar 09I couldn’t agree more, David.
The rock band with the hit single that blew up overnight? They’ve been playing together since high school and touring in a van for the last 2 years. The Olympian that’s breaking records every event? She’s been competing since she was 6 and training 8 hours a day for the last 4 years. The business man all of a sudden making headlines? He’s on his 4th business (3 have failed) and hasn’t taken a vacation in 5 years.
There are no shortcuts to success. Invest time in yourself. Seth Godin posted a while back about an effort diet. Kind of like the point of “enjoying the process.” Find 2 hours each day to dedicate to personal and professional growth.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” This quote is as true as when it was first said by a Roman philosopher in mid-first century AD. Before or after work and on weekends, every single day, read everything there is to read about the field, hobby or area you are most passionate about. This is not easy! The easy thing to do is to come home from work and watch LOST (as Gary Vaynerchuk said).
Almost every big success involves a certain degree of luck. Craft your own effort diet and start making your own luck and as you said in your post…in a few years time, you’ll be an overnight success too.
Arjen Schat
on 12 Mar 09This is so funny. This is the second post in a week about getting successful and stop being lazy from David. And in the new-writing-style; anticipate readers’ objections. It is a great idea to experiment with articles and writing style on this blog. And you can see it works, almost all comments are from people that agree. Thanks for the lessons in writing David.
Paul Spence
on 13 Mar 09This topic certainly resonates with us. When we spun off our new domain management site a few months ago we were under no illusions about how long the journey would take as we built credibility and trust with our user base in a highly competitive industry.
And when you are just starting out, every online sale and each piece of positive customer feedback is a thrill, because it verifies that you are on the right track.
But as they say about cheese-making in this part of the world – “good things take time”.
LOLer
on 13 Mar 09I’m probably the only one who’s going to disagree here!!!
If you take into account the the graph that’s used on coddinghorror to prove their point (the rise of twitter to fame is a long one, over a year), you’re also missing the REAL point which is that when it started, Twitter never has an Alexa rank less than 4000. That’s hardly ‘humble’ beginnings.
Comparing web startups to olympic athletes or rock bands is a terrible analogy, even though it sounds rational. The thing is, that athlete got a chance to fame through an organized competition ‘picking’ the best x athlete overnight. You don’t have such competitions in startups. And that rock band didn’t ‘explode’ by magic. It was an ALREADY large label which made it big. Startups don’t have that either, unless you count ‘acquisition’.
If your company has been at rank 100,000 on Alexa for 4 years straight, you better take a long hard look at what you’re doing, because it’s not about to ‘magically’ jump to rank #33 just because you ‘hung in there’.
Get real.
Anonymous Coward
on 13 Mar 09LOLer: Twitter isn’t a success yet unless you consider a success a company deep in debt with spiraling costs and the need to constantly raise VC to stay afloat.
Andrew
on 14 Mar 09“Good to Great” by Jim Collins is full of examples of “overnight successes” that were years in the making. People only take notice once you’ve achieved success, often taking for granted to l-o-n-g process it took for you to get there.
Barry Moltz
on 16 Mar 09yes Jason, most overnight success takes 7 to 10 years. Ask The Miller Family that sold to Staples- took over 40 years!
Dennis Ray
on 16 Mar 09Thanks for the great post. I also viewed your presentation from last year’s Startup School which was excellent. While I’m late to the party I’m working hard to learn to build web apps that provide value to the “Fortune Five Million.” I look forward to more insights.
Sean
on 16 Mar 09It’s all about the hustle – dont stop till you get enough!
Martin Leblanc
on 16 Mar 09Det er godt arbejde David :-)
Sanchit Thakur
on 17 Mar 09Very Inspiring indeed.. I wish the sky for you.
Carrie Underwood
on 17 Mar 09I came across this website (www.saveaugusto.tk ) and read the sad story of this Brazilian student calling out for help… I know so does a lot of people, but due to the nature of his problems and his courage to put his life on the internet like he did, I decided to help. He was so happy with my donation that he replied right away I almost cried :( It feels good to help others :)
Matt
on 18 Mar 09One of my most popular posts to this day describes how long WordPress’ overnight success took:
http://ma.tt/2007/05/meaningful-overnight-relationship/
This discussion is closed.