We’re looking for someone who loves numbers, loves business, and loves mixing the two. This is your thing.
They might call you an analyst, a business intelligence specialist, a data scientist, an economist, or a statistician. We want to call you part of our team.
You’ll be responsible for reviewing daily sales, upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations. You’ll spot trends, establish and review analytics, monitor conversions, propose, implement, and measure strategies to increase revenues, grow profits, and improve margins. Using data and numbers, you’ll tell us things we didn’t know about our customers.
Our data currently comes from disparate sources including our own databases, raw usage logs, Google Analytics, and occasional qualitative surveys. You’ll be able to look at all of these sources, suggest new sources or metrics we should track, and make sense of it all. We have an abundance of intuition at 37signals. Now we want the data to back it up or prove it wrong.
You’ll be who we go to when we have a question like “How many customers that signed up 6 months ago are still around?” or “What’s the average lifetime value of a Basecamp customer who started on a free account then upgraded to a Premium plan?” or “Which upgrade paths generate the most revenue over a 24 month period?” or “What are the key drivers that encourage people to upgrade their Highrise account?” or “What sort of usage patterns lead to long-term customers?” or “Which customers are likely to cancel their account in the next 7 days?” or “In the long term would it be worth picking up 20% more free customers at the expense of 5% pay customers?”
We’ll use these answers to make decisions that will have significant impact on the business. You’ll love this stuff like we love design, programming, customer service, and product development.
You’ve done this job before and you’ve made a difference. Your insight, your reporting, and your findings have had an positive impact on someone’s bottom line. You also have a strong background in statistical analysis. We usually don’t care about schooling, but in this role it’ll be a distinct plus to see a relevant degree on the resumé.
How to apply
Email a cover letter and work experience to [email protected]. Please put “[BI]” in the the subject so we can filter these applications.
In addition, please include answers to the following three questions:
- Explain the process of determining the value of a visitor to the basecamphq.com home page.
- How would you figure out which industry to target for a Highrise marketing campaign?
- How would you segment our customer base and what can we do with that information?
We look forward to hearing from you.
Dharmesh Shah
on 29 Oct 10Every SaaS business needs one of these. When you get the right one, they’re always accretive.
Once you get this person on board, ping me. I’ve got someone on the HubSpot team that they’d likely enjoy talking to and learning from.
Stephen Jenkins
on 29 Oct 10Jason, you might want to add that an MBA is a required, ensuring you only getting the best and brightest.
MMWWHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
Jeff Mackey
on 29 Oct 10This is how all job descriptions should be written.
Sukh
on 29 Oct 10Well written job description, but mixed roles can dilute quality of the candidate itself.
You need a finance guy, someone who likes numbers, someone who can look at the current portfolio and suggest areas that need work, and areas that are doing well. They are very good with data but not the best strategically (since they are not so tuned to the product) – which is not a bad thing because they look at data without bias.
John Spigarelli
on 29 Oct 10Agreed nicely written, business expectations sans the jargon is refreshing.
Kennedy
on 29 Oct 10@37signals
You know you’ve grown too large when you need to hire a “business analyst”.
I only say that with love.
Marbey Hidalgo
on 29 Oct 10@Kennedy
I disagree that a business analyst signals you’ve grown “too large”. Per the three questions above, I’m assuming that this analyst would manage the “customer acquisition” process which means 37Signals is trying to PREVENT the process from becoming too complex or unmanageable.
@Sukh
I would stay away from a Finance person and focus on an operations person: sales analyst or operations analyst background – it is, and always will be, about the work. the performance measures that a finance person would bring to the table may produce a maximum number of potential clients for a certain market but that would defeat the purpose of 37signals core principles: High Quality Clients (not necessarily a lot of clients) that effectively extend the products to become a part of their business.
Mark
on 29 Oct 10I agree it’s a nicely written posting, but I think the job title is a bit of a slap to potential candidates, especially when given what you’re asking of them. Business Analysts (especially that particular title) are a dime a dozen. A better filter for qualified candidates would be Director of Marketing or similar.
Kevin Bombino
on 29 Oct 10@Mark
I don’t think anyone they end up hiring is going to be the type of person who cares what their title is. We’ve never had titles and probably won’t ever. I think 37s actually talks about that in Rework or somewhere on the blog.
Stacy
on 29 Oct 10Imagine where 37s would be today if this person was one of the first 5 people they hired.
Anon
on 29 Oct 10@Marbey Hidalgo
Re: the business analyst
Let’s just say that you pay that person $60k per year + healthcare & office equipment with is another $10k per year.
Do you really believe that someone who costs $70k/year can help you save enough money for 37signals to simply offset that persons employment expenses?
Also keep in mind that the mid price for most of 37signals services is $50. That’s A LOT of transactional savings to offset $70,000 PER YEAR.
Just saying
Hutch
on 30 Oct 10@37Signals Is this position open to candidates that will work remotely?
dterra
on 30 Oct 10I am confused. Why is 37signals making all these changes? BaseCamp pricing, now an “analyst”, hiring more people every month. Something big is coming? This is not what I expected from reading your book.
LS
on 30 Oct 10Sounds like you need to hire a CFO
JF
on 30 Oct 10Do you really believe that someone who costs $70k/year can help you save enough money for 37signals to simply offset that persons employment expenses?
Absolutely. We would expect significantly more return than someone’s salary.
I am confused. Why is 37signals making all these changes? BaseCamp pricing, now an “analyst”, hiring more people every month. Something big is coming? This is not what I expected from reading your book.
There’s nothing to be confused about. We’re not hiring every month. We are hiring a few people right now – another customer service person and an analyst (a new role at the company). The Basecamp pricing isn’t any different – we’re just experimenting with the plan mix we’re showing at signup. We’ve done this before. It won’t be the last time either. Experimentation is at the core of our business. We’re always trying new things.
An MBA, eeek!
on 30 Oct 10http://www.chicagobooth.edu/corp/hire/
Paul
on 30 Oct 10@JF what’s the deadline?
JF
on 30 Oct 10Paul: There’s no deadline. When we find the right person then the search is over.
shanks
on 30 Oct 10is it open for folks outside US. Would you hire an analyst who works remotely.
JF
on 30 Oct 10Shanks: It’s open to the best person in the world for the job. We’d prefer local, but the best are everywhere.
hasenj
on 31 Oct 10Whatever happened to this? http://37signals.com/02
Ian
on 31 Oct 10I knew that one day 37s will say: now we making a new experiment: corporation – we love to try new things.
David
on 31 Oct 10While the MBA certainly isn’t a guarantee of talent, there are a lot of great, smart people at business schools. It’s a bit lazy to generalize.
I may be a Chicago Booth student who’s taking traditional Finance and Accounting classes, but I’ve also written code, designed applications, and started a client services business.
RstJ
on 01 Nov 10“How many customers that signed up 6 months ago are still around?”
—This is a basic SQL query. I can’t believe you don’t already know this.
“What’s the average lifetime value of a Basecamp customer who started on a free account then upgraded to a Premium plan?”—Less than someone who started out as a paying customer. If you don’t believe me, run the numbers.
“Which upgrade paths generate the most revenue over a 24 month period?”
—Two years ago it was Nov 2008. You’re not going to make any serious comparisons between today’s activity and the activity in the middle of a worldwide economic collapse. Look at relevant numbers! Like the last two weeks.
“What are the key drivers that encourage people to upgrade their Highrise account?”
— Unless you’ve surveyed the users, you’ll have nothing but your own predispositions to go by. Don’t guess, go find out. Your customers will be happy to tell you.
“What sort of usage patterns lead to long-term customers?”
Heavy continuous use.
“Which customers are likely to cancel their account in the next 7 days?”
The one’s who don’t use it very often.
“In the long term would it be worth picking up 20% more free customers at the expense of 5% pay customers?”
Is someone suggesting that attracting more free customers will cost you paying customers? If that’s really true, wouldn’t that suggest you stop looking for more free customers?
1.Explain the process of determining the value of a visitor to the basecamphq.com home page.
—Unless they’re a paying customer, their “value” is zero.
2.How would you figure out which industry to target for a Highrise marketing campaign?
-- By looking at who is using it right now. Then start calling them for sales leads.3.How would you segment our customer base and what can we do with that information?
—Into paying customers and everybody else. What you can do is align your budget with your paying base, then start upselling that base and looking for the referrals that will grow your business.
Marbey Hidalgo
on 01 Nov 10@Anon
I absolutely believe that their investment in an analyst is will be highly profitable. Remember that costs (in your example $$$s) is only one component of 37Signal’s products. There are major pieces to consider for each of the product lines such as Overall “Quality” (however that’s defined), Delivery to Client/Customer (may be measured by “Uptime”), etc. Heck, I’m quite sure there are measures that are pooled together that have absolutely no $$$ amount as the primary performance indicator!
Yes, $$$’s are important and still not as important as the overall value to the clients that they’re willing to pay for; a great analyst will be key to shaping that service/product.
JF
on 01 Nov 10To add, a big part of this job revolves around improving our products, not just improving our bottom line. We’re looking for data on customer behavior, trends, patterns, etc. What customers do when and why. What steps they take, where they go, what they use, how the interact with multiple products, etc. Lots to learn.
An applicant
on 02 Nov 10Jason, I applied some days ago (during the weekend) but I didn’t get any email back.
Are you going to let people know that their applications arrived safely to your filter?
Joe Harris
on 02 Nov 10I thought 1200 words was a bit much for a comment. So I made it a blog post.
In brief: “As far as I can tell they want to hire a split personality. Someone who’ll A) create a reliable infrastructure for common analysis requirements, B) build high quality models of business processes and C) do deep diving ‘hard stats’ analytics that can throw up unexpected insights. Good luck to them. Such people do exist, simple probability essentially dictates that that is the case. And 37signals seems to have a magnetic attraction for talent so I wouldn’t bet against it. On the other hand one of their koans is not hiring rockstars. This sounds like a rockstar to me.”
joeharris76.blogspot.com/2010/11/thoughts-on-37signals-requirements-for.html
Tim
on 03 Nov 10I am located in Oz, but will apply. I basically do this now (for a Tier 2 telco).
@ Anon 29 Oct 10 I am getting paid 6 figures in AUD (we don’t get health care here, but add 9% on for superannuation, and 4 weeks paid A/L, 10 days sick leave accrued p.a. but nothing else).
I absolutely can tell you I save the company in the order of 10x my wage YoY through data and trending.
Will apply shortly JF. Thanks for the chance.
Craig Schroeder
on 03 Nov 10Wow, I couldn’t have described what I do (for a major publishing corp) any better than this post does. I put my app in… Look forward to hearing back!
A Hopeful Applicant
on 03 Nov 10I think the idea behind the job description is clearly to give an expectation. They said that the data can be retrieved from those locations currently. If we’ve learned anything from 37Signals, then we’ve learned that they are open to change. That’s not to say you can’t implement another way of gathering information. That will be your job…
Just because they say that they don’t want a “rockstar” doesn’t mean that they don’t want some rockstar qualities.
You have to be able to adapt to the position, the tools that you have at your disposal, and rely on your skills and instincts. If you don’t have a tool that you need, get it. Or build it as they have proven over the years.
They want someone dedicated to not only the position, but the company as a whole. They are the pinnacle of teamwork and they want someone who can continue that trend.
@RstJ and @Joe Harris – You’re probably right that you’re not right for the job. You guys put in WAY too much time articulating why you the job or the job description is stupid and worthless. In my opinion, I think that they want someone who can come up with solutions (or at least put a valiant effort towards it) rather than come up with reasons that it can’t or shouldn’t be done…
David O.
on 03 Nov 10This is a smart move. Just recently Expedia discovered through analytics that one data field in their checkout form was confusing some customers and costing Expedia about 12 million in profits yearly. They found a solution that help them and their customers.
Randy Janzen
on 03 Nov 10It would be interesting to see what a “Financial Engineer” from a prop trading firm would do with all the data. Those guys have crazy statistical analysis and mathematical modeling skills.
Ezrie
on 03 Nov 10@RstJ
Perhaps a bit simplistic, but I think you are on the ball.
Joe Harris
on 03 Nov 10@A Hopeful Applicant – I don’t think I said it was worthless at all. I was reflecting on the requirement from years of experience doing this kind of thing (sifting meaning from piles of data). I actually said that they’ve described 2 roles not often combined in a single person.
So let me give an actual suggestion: > First, do the basics, make sure the data is organised and reliable. > Second, establish your metrics, build a performance baseline. > Third, outsource the hard analytics on a “pay for performance” basis. > Finally, if that works, then think about bringing analytic talent in-house.
It’s hard to describe the indignity of hiring a genius and then forcing them to spend 95% of their time just pushing the data around.
David Omoyele
on 03 Nov 10@Joe Harris
There is no indignity in this job description. Every genius in the realm of science has to spend many hours collecting and analyzing data. The alternative to the scientific method is intuition, and they have an abundance of intuition at 37signals.
Paul
on 04 Nov 10I wrote a few days ago that I would send my aplication today. Yesterday I received an email that the position was filled and thank you for your application. It is not fair to publish a job advert without a deadline. People want to prepare some serious applications and you don’t give enough time for it or not inform how much time they have.
Please make rules clear for the next time.
JF
on 04 Nov 10The position has been filled.
We’ll take a public deadline into consideration next time. I don’t believe we’ve had a deadline on a position before, so it didn’t occur to us to have one this time. We’ll definitely think about it next time.
We typically get a bunch of applications, review them over a few weeks, bring some people in for interviews, and make a decision, but this time we found our match very early in the process.
Gerard
on 04 Nov 10Congrats on filling the position.
Personally I would not qualify for the position, so no need to apply. But the speed with which the position was filled might leave a bad taste in some people’s mouths. A bit more communication on it next time would not hurt.
Data Scientist
on 04 Nov 10It certainly left a bad taste with me.
I admire this company and believe I would bring some unique skills and experience to this role. I spent this week designing a portfolio for this specific job, with a plan to submit it during my lunch break today. I thought that was a reasonable time frame. I logged in this morning to check the job description one last time only to find out the position has been filled.
David O.
on 04 Nov 10Rstj: Two years ago it was Nov 2008. You’re not going to make any serious comparisons between today’s activity and the activity in the middle of a worldwide economic collapse. Look at relevant numbers! Like the last two weeks.
They did not require the time period to be two years ago but a 24 month period, they can always look at the time period before the recession.
Rstj: The one’s who don’t use it very often.
Intuitively this is the obvious answer, but data may show people who are heavy users canceling. The heavy use may be a result of the potential customer’s team trying to figure out how well the software works for their needs and finding it inadequate. They just want the data to back up their intuition.
Rstj:Unless they’re a paying customer, their “value” is zero.
That’s not correct, the visitor can contribute to seo if the bounce rate is low. The visitor may not be a paying customers but could be a qualifed canindate for one of the jobs listed on 37signals’ job board. Last but not least it’s possible for visitor to become a paying customer of one the advertisers on the Deck ad network.
about the bad taste
on 04 Nov 10I was considering applying too but I don’t see how they could have handle things any better. The person that filled the position was so compelling that they did not want to consider anyone else. There is a saying “the early bird catches the worm” and in this case that is true. Even if they had a deadline and consider all the applicants about the same time, the chance that someone else will get the job is slim. Remember they believe this person is a great fit for their team and is supposedly so good they would not consider anyone else. I think they handle things appropriately. Would you rather them not be straight forward and waste your time ?
Dude
on 04 Nov 1037s completed the complete hiring process for a BA in 5 days?
That’s gotta be this weeks contender for this weeks WW of the week (Wow or Whoops?).
This discussion is closed.