At our last company-wide get together, we had our first “roast” of 37signals products. We invited everyone there to get up in front of the room and rip on something in a 37signals app: a flow that was confusing, a form that could be streamlined, a UI that was ugly, copy that didn’t make sense, etc.

It was enlightening. In large part, that’s because it forced a shift in perspective. Instead of feeling bad about pointing out a flaw, it became your job. And that gave everyone an excuse to rip on something without worrying about hurt feelings, seeming too negative, or the issue being something outside the scope of what you normally work on. Everyone understood the spirit of the roast and felt free to take a jab.

For example, there was a Javascript bug that came along with importing Writeboards into Basecamp. It had been around for a while, but we hadn’t gotten around to it since customers hadn’t complained about it. But the pain of seeing it in action during the roast spurred us to fix it anyway. Without that discussion, it might have just lingered on.

If you’re looking for an honest conversation that might reveal things you’re not seeing already, try a roast.

View all of the jobs and internships at the 37signals Job Board.

Programming Jobs

Google is looking for a Software Engineer in Pittsburgh, PA.

Yelp is looking for an Engineering Manager in San Francisco, CA.

Twitpic is looking for a Software / Systems Engineer in United States.

Chicago Public Media is looking for a PHP/Drupal Web Developer in Chicago, IL (near Loop).

View all Programming Job listings.

Design Jobs

Teach For America is looking for a Senior Interface Designer in New York, NY.

Gilt Groupe is looking for a Visual Designer in New York, NY.

National Public Radio is looking for a Lead User Experience Architect in Washington, DC.

Sears is looking for a UX/UI Designer in Hoffman Estates, IL.

View all Design Job listings.

The Job Board also has iPhone Developer Jobs, Customer Service/Support Jobs, Business/Exec Jobs, and more.

When you start cutting corners, customers can’t always tell. But employees usually can. And that can be just as bad.

In this Mixergy interview, Jim McCarthy, the co-founder of Goldstar, talks about his days working at Noah’s Bagels and recalls a corner cutting moment that revealed a deeper change in the culture there:

The culture of Noah’s began to change…There was a point where the management of Noah’s said, “Only 7% of our customers keep kosher.” But having kosher in the store means we can’t have a ham sandwich or even a turkey and cheese sandwich. So the logic went, “OK. If we lose the 7%, because we’re not kosher, we’ll replace it by selling these other things.”

I remember at the time thinking, “That’s not how it is going to work,” and saying, “That’s now how it is going to work,” and it did not, in fact work. Because you’ve taken the 7% of people who love you, think of you in a way that brings goose bumps to them, and told them to, “Go to hell.” You’ve told them to leave your store. And more importantly, you’ve said to the employees, “Remember how we used to stand for something other than just selling bagels and cream cheese? We don’t stand for that any more.”

That type of “employees will notice even if customers don’t” thinking came in part from a story McCarthy had heard about Starbucks’ Howard Shultz:

There was a point, I think in the 80′s, where somebody came to Starbucks’ Howard Shultz, and coffee bean prices were going through the roof, and it was a threat to the survival of the company because the cost of coffee is a big part of their business. So of course somebody comes to Howard and says: “You know, if we just kind of kick down from the top grade of beans to this one, everything’s cool, and we’ve done a survey right here, that says only, let’s just say, 7% of customers can tell the difference between the best coffee and the second best coffee.” And his response was, “No, we’re not going to do that, we’re going to find some other way to get through the price crisis. Because even if nobody noticed, the employees will notice.”

It’s a good lesson: You’re not just sending out a message externally, you’re sending one out internally too. If your employees don’t believe it, the whole plan falls apart.

As often as I can, I’m going to be writing about people who’ve inspired, taught, or influenced me in one way or another. Some of these people I know personally, others I’ve just read about or admired over the years.

Richard Bird runs R.BIRD, a brand and package design firm in New York. He’s been in the industry for over 35 years and his design business has been around for nearly 30 years.

I met Richard because he was a customer of mine. Back in mid 90s I wrote some FileMaker Pro-based organizing products. One was called Audiofile. It let you organize your music collection. Richard was an avid music collector so Audiofile was perfect for him. I think he found it in the file sections on AOL.

I don’t remember how we struck up a friendship, but we’ve kept in touch for years. For the last few years we’ve talked by IM nearly every weekday. As business owners we shoot the shit about business, talk about the industry, share interesting links related to design, ideas, writing, advertising, and politics. We often start our days with a quick “morning” IM to one another.

I admire Richard for many reasons. For one, he’s a survivor. It’s not easy running a design firm for 30 years. Things in that business change fast, and he’s managed to thrive and survive through it all. He’s seen a lot and been through a lot. There have been many times when they were on the brink of closing shop, but he always found a way to keep it together. I have deep respect for that.

Another thing I admire about Richard is that he’s one of those guys who just knows what’s right in a situation. If I’m struggling with a tough decision, I’ll often run it by him first. Inevitably he gives me sage advice. Never sensational, always respectful and thoughtful and objective. I always know that when I ask him a question I’ll get his honest opinion back. That’s rare – many people sugarcoat their thoughts. We don’t always agree, but I always consider his perspective.

I’ve learned a lot from Richard and I look forward to learning a lot more.

Check out R.BIRD to find out more about his business. One of my favorite things they do is their Patterns series where they visit retail stores to photograph and observe product packaging on shelf in search of common design threads and competitive opportunities. If you’re interested in brand packaging, retailing, and trends, Patterns is a fascinating read.

On Scotland’s North East coast, a craft beer startup is trying to brew a revolution. “The idea to start our own brewery certainly wasn’t something we consciously set out to do,” says James Watt, who founded BrewDog along with his school pal Martin Dickie. It all began when the two were discussing beer monotony (“the stuffy ales and fizzy yellow lagers”) and how often supermarket and big brand beers taste the same.

Dickie had just finished a degree in brewing so the duo decided to try and create their own beer. The goal was to make something a class apart from “the stuffy ales and fizzy yellow lagers” that dominate the UK market. Watt: “I guess like any good idea it just had this natural flow about it that just kept rolling and has never really stopped.”

Dickie (left) and Watt.

A makeshift brewery
After their discussion, the pair set up a “sketchy” makeshift brewery in Dickie’s garage and created the first batch of what is now known as Punk IPA. They took the pilot beer to a series of open tastings and were discovered by beer guru Michael Jackson (“The Beer Hunter,” not “The King of Pop”) at an event in Glasgow. Upon tasting the beer, he told them to quit their jobs and go into brewing fulltime. And that’s exactly what they did.   Both were only 24-years-old at the time, the pair took the plunge and leased a building. Watt: “We somehow managed to scrape together £10,000 of personal savings between us along with a £30,000 bank loan which we lied to get. We found that turning up at the bank wearing a suit whilst pointing at a series of useless numbers on a spreadsheet is the best way to get a business loan.”

The beginning stages involved a lot of long hours. “The first year involved living, eating and sleeping at the brewery — a drafty warehouse on Fraserburgh’s coastline,” says Watt. “Exposed to the elements and running short on funds, Martin and I often worked 20 hour shifts, both to stay afloat but also to stay warm.”   Within a year, a buzz began to form around their beers. Some people attacked their “reckless and irresponsible” approach to brewing. Others saw their beers as wildly innovative and providing a much-needed shakeup to the outmoded classic beer world. “Many people are still making their mind up over which brush to tar us with,” explains Watt.

Scaling up
The rocketing demand meant the company had to deal with scaling issues — specifically: maintaing quality control while brewing more beer. “We are all about the beer quality, not about how much beer we make,” says Watt. “We live and die by what is in the bottle and what is in people’s glass. We want to ensure every single beer that leaves our brewery is a true reflection of our beer philosophy and the beer we can make it. To have this much control is just not possible when you scale up too fast.”

So even though the company was profitable and turning over £1.8m (around $2.8m), it reevaluated its plans. Watt explains, “We needed to completely reinvisage the way we financed our company in order to hire talented staffers and boost the amount of beer we were able to produce whilst ensuring we still sourced the best, rarest, and most obscure ingredients.” In the midst of 2009’s post-recession climate, BrewDog opted for a completely alternative business model called “Equity for Punks.”

“Equity for Punks turned the concept of business ownership on its head,” according to Watt. “Despite having run the business for just two years, we took the unprecedented step to become a PLC. Then we offered the public the opportunity to buy shares (just under 5% of the company) in BrewDog. We managed to raise over £700,000 in extra funds as a means to growing BrewDog even further. Over 1,300 people bought into BrewDog’s vision of a craft beer future that offered people more choice.”

Now the company exports 700,000 bottles per month to over 27 countries worldwide. 2010 revenue was £3.5m with profits of £300k. There are 65 staffers and locations include a brewery, three bars, and a restaurant.

Exit Interview is a Signal vs. Noise series that talks to founders to see what happens after companies get acquired.

Webshots
Webshots has been acquired multiple times. Webshots Founder Nick Wilder:

Webshots has quite a sordid history: we sold it to Excite@Home in 1999, they went bankrupt, we bought it back (97% off) in 2002, and sold it again to CNET in 2004. American Greetings bought it from CNET about two years ago.

After buying it back from Excite, we immediately figured out how to make it profitable and worked our asses off for a couple years. We had great growth, product development, and a huge profit margin, which made us an attractive acquisition.

CNET, despite being a company with great assets, was a disaster. They broke apart our team (engineering moved somewhere, ad sales went elsewhere, etc). They tried to move us to different server platforms. We accomplished absolutely nothing in the year I worked there. I quit on my 365th day, which was my part of the deal. The product seriously suffered, and users started dropping us for the newer photo sharing sites that were simply better.

Webshots has been in steep decline ever since, and it’s depressing to see your baby wither away. According to Alexa, it was once a top-20 ranked property (1999-2003 was the high); Now it’s around 1000.

It’s depressing to see your baby wither away.

TripUp
TripUp was acquired by SideStep in July 2007. TripUp Founder Samuel Rogoway:

SideStep’s acquisition of TripUp was bittersweet. On the one hand, we realized a successful exit in a market that was becoming increasingly saturated with travel social networks. Sidestep also had exciting plans for integrating and expanding our community features, which our users would have loved. On the other hand, Kayak subsequently acquired Sidestep and phased out TripUp, which was sad.

I think Kayak missed a big opportunity to integrate interactive community features into their metasearch platform. Interacting with like-minded travelers and locals to plan and experience your trip offers value that traditional user generated content and editorial content cannot provide.

I think Kayak missed a big opportunity.

GrandCentral
GrandCentral (now Google Voice) was acquired by Google in July 2007 (rumored price: $50 million). GrandCentral Founder (and currently Entrepreneur in Residence at Google Ventures) Craig Walker:

When you get acquired, you have a sense that there is some grand plan of exactly what you are expected to do at the new company and that everybody knows what this is. In reality, it was a lot more chaotic than that. There was nobody telling us what we had to do. We were empowered to figure out the best course for GrandCentral (aka Google Voice) within the company and we got a lot of support at every turn.

It’s difficult to say what would have happened had we not sold. We definitely would have raised a pretty substantial Series B and would have continued to innovate at a rapid pace. We likely would have been able to roll out more features more quickly (one of the side effects of being part of Google is that everything you do must be able to support millions and millions of users immediately, which does slow down the pace of innovation at a start up), but would have lost out on the ability to quickly reach tens of millions of users. At the end of the day, more users were definitely better off due to the acquisition as it got out to many more people.

At the end of the day, more users were definitely better off due to the acquisition.

The only thing I wish that Google would have done differently would have been to tie the product more closely to Gmail early on. We launched this feature last summer (2010) and its been a great hit. Had we done that in 2008, it would have been better.