You’re reading Signal v. Noise, a publication about the web by Basecamp since 1999. Happy !
The official REWORK book site is now up at 37signals.com/rework. There you’ll find the full list of essays included in the book, a look at the front and back covers, six of Mike Rohde’s illustrations from the book, pre-order links at major retailers, and early reviews from folks like Tony Hsieh, Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, and Kathy Sierra. The book comes out on March 9, 2010.
We’re looking to hire a junior system administrator to help manage our growing infrastructure. Have a look at the jobs board posting if you think you might fit the bill.
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David’s 2008 Startup School talk
Another trip to the archives. This time we listen to one of David’s most popular talks. At a conference largely dedicated to talk of venture capitalism, he discusses how you can grow a company without looking for funding. Along the way, he explains the story of Basecamp and how 37signals has grown as a company. (We’ll be back with brand new content on the next episode.)
See related links for this episode. Previous episodes available at 37signals.com/podcast. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.
A quote from the “Have an Enemy” essay in Getting Real:
Pick a fight
Sometimes the best way to know what your app should be is to know what it shouldn’t be. Figure out your app’s enemy and you’ll shine a light on where you need to go.
I was reminded of this idea while watching It Might Get Loud, a neat documentary that brings together Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White for a jam session and discussion. Along the way, it reveals how each developed his style of guitar playing.
Starting with the enemy
As each of these guys talked about how they came up with their trademark sound, it became clear that they began defining themselves by what they didn’t want to sound like. They started out by having an enemy.
Jimmy Page was a session guy playing on other people’s records and he was sick of it. Everything was too strict. Tempos were rigid. There were no dynamics. Everything sounded homogenous. It was limp muzak.
And that’s why he created Led Zeppelin. He wanted a band that could use both light and dark shades. He wanted to be able to speed up and/or get louder in the middle of a song. He wanted to stretch out on tracks for a long time. He wanted to use a bow and get crazy.
When U2 formed, The Edge wanted to be the opposite of the noodly, self-indulgent prog bands that were ruling the day. He wanted to play as little as possible. He used echoes to do most of the heavy lifting. He figured out ways to play chords with as few notes as possible.
The White Stripes came out of Jack White’s view that technology is the enemy of creativity. He didn’t want to use lots of effects pedals, brand new guitars, or tons of studio tracks. He wanted to create something raw and in-the-moment.
Each one of these guys succeeded in creating a unique, soulful sound by first defining what they did NOT want to sound like. That enemy told them where to go.
What are you sick of?
Embedded in all this is a reminder of how there’s fashion everywhere. It’s not just clothing, it’s also there in music, business, and tons of other things. People flock to whatever the hot trend of the day is. And when everyone chases the same thing, that means there’s an opportunity if you go in a different direction.
What’s everyone doing right now that you think sucks? What’s in fashion in your arena that you think is stupid? What do you think has outlived its place in the spotlight? Then start defining yourself by opposing that thing.
Yesterday we alluded to a new Sortfolio promotion we’ll be running across The Deck Network. The promotion started yesterday and will run for at least the next 60 days.
We purchased a slot on The Deck for Sortfolio. That gives us somewhere between 2,500,000 and 3,000,000 ad impressions across over a 30 day period. We used to run a static ad in that spot, but what we’re doing now is splitting the ad display 25% static and 75% dynamic. The dynamic ads feature our Sortfolio Pro customers.
25% of the time, our ad will look like this:
75% of the time, our ad will be generated dynamically and feature a Sortfolio Pro listing ($99/month). Currently about 140 companies have Pro listings. The ad will feature a crop of their primary screenshot as well as a link directly to their Sortfolio page. Here are a few examples:
This means the companies paying $99/month to be highlighted on Sortfolio are also getting roughly 15,000 highlighted ad impressions across The Deck Network too.
This means your web design company could get prime exposure on sites like Daring Fireball, A List Apart, 43 Folders, Kottke.org, The Morning News, Ze Frank, Twitteriffic (in app), Design Observer, etc. There are currently 40 high profile sites that run Deck ads.
We hope this added high-profile exposure leads to more business for your web design firm. If you aren’t listed on Sortfolio yet, get listed today. It’s free to list your company, but if you want have a chance at having a featured ad run across The Deck Network, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro plan.
Important: if something is important, say why and to whom. Use sparingly.
Back in mid November we got an email from someone claiming that we were infringing on their “Haystack” trademark. To their credit, the email was kind and calm. No legalese, no pointed cease and desist, nothing harsh — just a “Hey guys, we’ve got a problem here…” email.
They felt our use of Haystack was infringing on their registered Haystack trademark in the “business information services” category.
Over the next few weeks we traded a few emails back and forth. We didn’t agree with their claim, but we didn’t want to get into a protracted legal battle either. Any time you can avoid lawyers is a good time. They agreed.
We discussed purchasing the trademark from them, but we couldn’t agree on a price. So in the end we decided we’d just rename our Haystack service. We were only a few months in, and we’re in this for the long term, so renaming early wouldn’t be a huge deal. We’d cut our losses and move on. The sooner the better.
So today we announce that Haystack is now called Sortfolio. We kept the haystack.com domain name so the old haystack.com URLs redirect instantly to the new sortfolio.com URLs. No broken URLs, no interruption in service.
We poured a lot of promotional effort into Haystack during the first month. Lots of folks have been getting lots of work. Unfortunately we had to go quiet during the trademark negotiations. We didn’t want to promote a name we might have had to change.
Now that we’re back in the clear, and Sortfolio is live, we can begin our promotional campaign again. We’ve got some big stuff planned including a special, innovative promotion we’ll be running on The Deck starting in a few days.
We will also be giving all current paying Sortfolio customers a free month to say we’re sorry for having to pull back on promo for about 45 days. Details on this will be emailed to our paying customers shortly.
So, if you’re looking for a web designer, or you’re a web designer looking for work, check out Sortfolio today. Continued success to everyone.
Every time I see the Burj Dubai tower over the surrounding skyline, I think of Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Totally different buildings, but similar skyline standouts.
