Before getting my driver’s license, I remember thinking manual gearboxes were an anachronism. Why on earth would someone want to row their own gears when automatic boxes could do it for you? Because it’s worse, and worse is charming.

This affection for worse repeats all over. People buy and adore expensive Swiss mechanical watches, even though a cheap Swatch will keep time better and requires no maintenance. Range-finder cameras take fiddling to adjust focus that auto-focus cameras have long since obsoleted. Vinyl records and tube amps still have lots of hardcore fans.

We come up with all sorts of justifications for this affection for worse. Manual gearboxes give you more control. Mechanical watches are about the craftsmanship. Range-finders have great image quality in a small package. Vinyl on tube sounds warmer. It’s mostly bullshit. Endearing bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless.

My pocket psychology take is that we love anachronisms because they’re imperfect. Like humans are imperfect. We form relationships with people who are flawed all the time. Flaws, imperfection, and worse are all part of the human condition. Tools that embody them resonate.

It’s hard to engineer this, though, but it’s worth cherishing when you have it. Don’t be so eager to iron out all the flaws. Maybe those flaws are exactly why people love your product.

Last December, Sam posted the following in our “37signals Newsroom” Basecamp project:

I’ve been trying out an experiment over the past few workdays: when someone asks me for help with something, I show them how it’s done.

In an on-call case, it means copying and pasting the console transcript, cleaning it up a bit, and adding some descriptive comments. ... Other situations call for a different approach. Jamie came to me with a JavaScript problem this afternoon, so we took an hour and paired together on a solution via screen sharing.

Now, the other party might not fully understand the explanation, but I think it’s a positive change to assume that everyone is curious to learn how things work rather than too busy to care. Repeated exposure to these explanations might spark an interest that would otherwise go unexplored.

And obviously there is a practical limit to the amount of time and effort we can put into such explanations. In theory, though, spreading the knowledge means the people who ask you for help are more likely to be able to solve those problems themselves.

So I invite you to try the experiment with me. The next time someone asks you to do something, walk them through your process, or write it up for them to read.

Jason chimed in:

Yes please. This is a great initiative. Whenever someone does something for someone else, let’s make sure it’s taught, too. It’ll be slower in the short term, but faster and better in the long term. 

Since then, we’ve all gotten a little more conscious about teaching one another to fish. Recently, I was frustrated I lacked the skills to update basecamp.com. Mig jumped in and offered to show me some HTML and CSS basics. It’s “one of the most empowering things anyone here at the company could learn,” he told me. “I’d be more than happy to show you the ways.” Rad. Thanks, Mig.

Everyone in the company works at least one day a month answering support tickets, and the support team buddies up with non-support folks to share solutions for the more complex cases. Programmers often share the code they used to solve a problem with support, which encourages support to try to solve similar issues themselves next time. Designers and programmers swap intel all the time. Here’s what Jonas has to say about working with Trevor:

He’s continually helping me get better at programming, and has been super patient and encouraging. He frequently suggests that I tackle certain problems, takes time to help me out when I have questions, and reviews my code when I’m done.

I’ve tried to return the favor a bit by helping him work through some design problems and CSS.

I think this mutual learning approach and easy back-and-forth has had real benefits to the app, too. Even though it seems like it would be counterproductive to take the extra time, I think we’re ultimately more productive because we can work on different projects simultaneously, then chat a few times a day to figure out the remaining tricky stuff.

We weren’t not working this way before, but it wasn’t an institutionalized value or anything. Making a conscious, enthusiastic effort to work with, not for, each other, has expanded our horizons, empowered us with new skills, and made us a more well-rounded company.

I’m a huge geek when it comes to the Apollo space program. I’ve got an autographed photo from the Apollo 11 crew hanging in my office alongside a piece of the parachute line from that mission. My grandmother worked with the NASA team in Huntsville, Alabama, in the 1960s so every time I see her I try to get another story of that era out of her.

Recently I’ve been reading “Chariots for Apollo” from Charles Pellegrino and Joashua Stoff. It’s one of my favorite books on the race to the moon.

One section tells the story of Tommy Attridge, a Grumman test pilot assigned to the lunar module (LM) program. The Grumman Corporation received the contract to build the craft that would carry astronauts down to the lunar surface. However, the LM team kept second guessing themselves with their designs and decisions. Their line of thinking was, “This craft would put a man on the moon so it had to be perfect!”

When he arrived at the Grumman plant in 1967, Attridge focused on one question – “Must we build it better?” And he learned very quickly that better is the enemy of best.

Enter LM-3 (lunar module-3). An engineer finished installing the landing radar on it only to tell Attridge, “We have the best radar in the world today. But tomorrow, I can make it better because just yesterday they invented this new transistor. And if I can put the new transistor in here and add this integrated circuit. You know, now we that we have integrated circuits, we can build it better.”

Tommy answered, “Sure. Why not? We can keep putting a better one in every day. Let’s see if we can’t stretch this thing out till 1990.”

Every new day brings new gadgets and gizmos. Whatever project or product you’re working on, there’s probably something that will make it just a tad bit better tomorrow. And a little bit better the day after that. And a smidge better the following day. But for every thing that makes it better, it means one more day of not shipping.

That engineer ended up going over Attridge’s head to get the landing radar replaced. With the “better” choice came new problems as it kept locking up on itself, which made the new tech worthless. That choice ended up delaying LM-3 so that Apollo 8 launched without it. The Apollo teams found themselves even farther behind in the space race.

It wasn’t as though John Horton, President of LegitScript, never sought outside funding for his company. He just didn’t have any luck.

“They all told us we were dumb for the business idea,” he says, “that it would never work.”

To be fair, the idea was a tough sell.

After years as a prosecutor working on drug cases and a stint as Assistant Deputy Director at the White House Drug Policy Office, Horton was getting ticked at the vast, complex “rogue Internet pharmacy” problem and the lack of any way to combat it. At any time, an estimated 35,000-40,000 sites are offering prescription drugs online. Of those, a mind-boggling 97% are illegitimate — meaning they violate laws or regulations, fail to adhere to medical and safety standards, or engage in fraudulent or deceptive business practices.

Ginormous companies like Visa, Microsoft, and Twitter had no way to ensure they weren’t doing business with cybercriminals. Some were getting slapped with significant fines; others needed a way to stymie the crummy user experience of clicking on ads for bogus sites. That’s where Horton wanted to step in, by monitoring the web for counterfeit drug sales, shutting down illegal operations and providing trustworthy information to consumers.

It was May 2007. Cocky first-time founder that he was, Horton figured he could get things up and running in about six months. Two and a half years later, he had run his personal finances into the ground. Still no one was buying it.

It was the classic scenario where VC firms scratched their heads, and said, ‘So, wait: you want companies to pay you to help them lose customers … and want to give the rest of the information away to the public for free?’ They all told me it would never work and my business plan sucked. So, I decimated my life savings, maxed out my credit cards, sold my car, refinanced my condo, borrowed as much money as I could, and got down to having $350 in the bank and was probably a few weeks away from bankruptcy.

It was at that moment — when dogged perseverance finally met with good timing — that Google saved LegitScript by becoming its first customer. “The reputation is true,” Horton says. “They’re a pretty open, receptive company. It was one of those things where they weren’t quite ready at first, but persistence pays off.”

Persistence continued to pay off and other companies — Microsoft, GoDaddy, Twitter, Visa, various registrars and ISPs, government agencies — began hiring LegitScript to keep their platforms clean, via its combo of automated algorithms and old-fashioned detective work. “We’re basically cybercrime investigators who help major platforms make sure that they aren’t inadvertently profiting from shady or illegal stuff,” Horton says.

LegitScript now has the world’s largest database of Internet pharmacies in over a dozen languages, and its team, currently about 30 strong, continues to grow. Employees speak English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Indonesian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, Turkish, and Dog.

That last language would be the native tongue of Parker, LegitScript’s office dog. The chocolate Lab greets visitors, has her own internal email address (you can discuss the finer points of Milk Bones vs. Yummy Chummies with her here), and is a trusted panelist at all job interviews. “There’s only been one time where she just did not like the person,” Horton recalls. “He seemed like a really good developer, and a couple weeks later, the guy ended up getting arrested.”

Parker’s not the only staff member “doing battle with the bad guys,” as Horton puts it. Due to the nature of the work, which can include tangling with organized crime, LegitScript doesn’t disclose its precise location (the office is somewhere in downtown Portland, Ore.) or reveal other employees’ names. Horton has endured death threats, attacks from rival companies, even a Russian criminal network registering bestiality websites to his home IP.

“The rogue internet pharmacies consider us to be their worst nightmare,” he claims. “We are responsible for making sure they can’t do certain things like advertise with search engines or use major credit cards to accept payment, and we have shut a bunch of them down. These people have invested a lot of time and resources in attacking us and getting us to not do what we do.”

I don’t favor counterfeit versions of anything, but if you have a counterfeit Gucci bag, you don’t eat it.

But Horton has no intention to stop doing what he does. “This is something that can have real consequences for real people,” he says. People overdose; people are hospitalized; people die because some phony pharmacy sold them a sugar pill.

“I don’t favor counterfeit versions of anything, but if you have a counterfeit Gucci bag, you don’t eat it. It shouldn’t happen, but it’s a lot qualitatively different. If it’s Viagra and it just doesn’t work, eh. If it’s an anti-cancer medication and it doesn’t work? You might be dead.”

Fascinating work that makes a positive impact is a pretty good recipe for job satisfaction. “I feel very very lucky,” Horton says. “We get to do something that is not only very interesting, but something that is doing well by doing good.”

Visit LegitScript.
“Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud” is a Signal vs. Noise series highlighting profitable companies with $1 million+ in revenues that didn’t take VC.

In addition to general health coverage and a CSA subscription, 37signals employees get a monthly fitness allowance to put toward whatever helps us stay in shape.

What makes this benefit awesome (and effective) is that we get to choose how to make the most of it for ourselves — it’s inspired by the same ethos behind our practice of hiring Managers of One, then leaving people alone and counting on them to do good work. Unlike company wellness programs that include discounted memberships at a particular gym or other specific incentives, the laissez-faire approach trusts employees to decide what works best for them.

While a few of us rarely spend the money or use just part of it, many of us leverage it toward activities that might otherwise by cost-prohibitive: primarily gym memberships, classes and personal trainers. Michael goes to Fulton Fit House in Chicago; Joan belongs to a capoeira group in Portland; and Eron and I are both CrossFit cult members, in Durham, NC, and Austin, TX, respectively. He recently did his first muscle-up!

Andrea uses her stipend toward horseback riding, and Scott puts his toward entry fees for cycling races—when he’s not racing, he uses it to replace stuff that wears out or breaks (tires, tubes, chains, etc.) in the course of training. Other employees use the money for gear as well: Will just bought some weights; Kristin purchased a yoga mat; and Merissa just started tracking her sleep, activity, and diet with Jawbone’s UP band.

Andrea on horseback, Michael at Fulton Fit House, and Kristin in an extended side angle pose.
Speaking of Merissa, she wins for most inspiring success story: She used the benefit to hire a personal trainer, works out five times per week at a small club near her place, and is now using UP for motivation to be even more active:

Even doing jumping jacks for one minute every hour or so (during my workday) is making a difference. I’ve lost around 70 pounds in the last year. It’s not even about that number, though — it’s about how healthy I am feeling. It’s incredible to work for a company that supports me just as much outside of work as they do at work.

How does your workplace encourage wellness?

Truth be told, we haven’t placed heavy efforts on marketing Basecamp. Customers sign up, pay, and are on their way. For nearly a decade, Basecamp has sold itself.

The problem for us is, with so many industries using Basecamp in different ways, we’re having a tough time figuring out how to talk about the product to new customers. We have an idea of how our customers use Basecamp, but we don’t know for sure.

Harder, still, is that we don’t even know why our customers switch from one product or system to using Basecamp. Hidden within their stories of over-loaded inbox frustrations and bloated corporate software are key insights about what makes Basecamp great for our customers.

We’re after those insights, and we want to share your stories.

Tell us your “Why we switched to Basecamp” story and you may be featured on an upcoming redesign of the basecamp.com landing page.

Share your story at basecamp.com/switch.