At its best, marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm. When you're truly pumped about what you're doing, when you're truly driven by the vision, when you absolutely must make something that you need and want, your enthusiasm leaves a mark. It's a brand. Not the noun, but the verb. At its worst, marketing is a transfer of everything else. ...| world.hey.com
One of the great privileges of owning an independent company is that you get to try all sorts of stuff no one else would ever give you permission to do. And you get to greenlight other people's oddball ideas too. You can — and should — provide cover for weird attempts, strange ideas, and "I mean this will probably never work but..." st...| world.hey.com
From time to time we get criticized for making "yet another to-do list" product. Or a chat product. Or a messaging product. Or something we've kinda sorta already made before, just in a different form, combination, or approach. "How about something else? How about something bigger? How about something completely different?" David even ...| world.hey.com
There was a tiny fly right by the drain, and I was about to wash my hands. Turning on the water would have sent it right down the hole. A quick end, or an eventual struggled drowning, hard to know. But that would be that, there was no getting out. Somehow, for a moment, I slipped into contemplation. I could just turn on the water, I co...| world.hey.com
"Years of experience" has been a gold standard hiring requirement since forever.| Jason Fried
When you encounter a simpler system, a simpler idea, or a simpler implementation, you have an opportunity. You can say "it's not enough, it doesn't have, it wouldn't work". That’s the common reflexive response. Or you can reflect. “What is it about how we work that prevents us from using such a simple, succinct system?” “How did we get...| world.hey.com
Whenever I write about our focus on cover letters during the hiring process, I'll inevitably receive the "cover letters are still a thing?" or "people still read cover letters?" response from a cadre of characters.| Jason Fried
I don’t think much about legacy. Yours, mine, anyone’s really. Do the best you can right now. For now. Not for later. If it’s useful later, great. But that’s only because it starts out useful now. Legacy isn’t an artist who was ignored all their life until they died. That’s just recognition and fame. Their work was already excellent th...| world.hey.com
When we make something new, people often ask "why don't you just add that to Basecamp?" There are a number of reasons, depending on what it is. But, broadly, making something brand new gives you latitude (and attitude) to explore new tech and design approaches. It's the opposite of grafting something on to a heavier, larger system that...| world.hey.com
Whenever I talk about working in real-time, making decisions as you go, figuring things out now rather than before, I get a question like this...| Jason Fried
Business isn’t something you learn in books. Or posts. Or threads. You can’t read your way to the right hire. You can't consume enough content to produce a product. You have to do. You learn business by doing business. Hiring by hiring. Products by building them. We know this is true in music. Never pick up a guitar? Go read 100 books ...| world.hey.com
One of the great lessons of nature: Randomness is the most beautiful thing. Every forest, every field, every place untouched by humans is full of randomness. Nothing lines up, a million different shapes, sprouting seeds burst where the winds — or birds — randomly drop them. Stones strewn by water, ice, gravity, and wind, all acting on ...| world.hey.com
In the end, judgment comes first. And that means hiring is a gut decision. As much science as people want to try to pour into the hiring process, art always floats to the top. This is especially true when hiring at the executive level. The people who make the final calls — the ones who are judged on outcome, not effort — are ultimately...| world.hey.com
I'm republishing this for a friend who doesn't have a reliable place to publish this online.| Jason Fried
Be curious about what's new, sure. That's expected. But it's more interesting to be curious about what's old. What stood the test of time? What worked before and still works now? What survived through all the jabs that you assumed would knock it out, but didn't? That's worth attention. That's worth being curious about. Those are the th...| world.hey.com
Not too long ago, we dedicated a 6-week cycle to improving Basecamp's onboarding flows.| Jason Fried
Precision. Certainty. Specificity. Everyone wants to know exactly what and exactly when, and they want a statistic attached to corroborate it. But numbers are rarely answers — just as projects are rarely math problems. Where are we in this process exactly? How far along in this project are we exactly? Where does everything stand absolu...| world.hey.com
Make it happen! You hear it a lot. And it's generally good advice, of course. At least the 'happen' part. You definitely want things to happen. But often times, it's the 'make' part that gets confused for progress. You can push a ball uphill, but should you? Not only does it take a ton of effort, you can't really see what's over the ed...| world.hey.com
Problems are often described by their size. "Hey, that's a big problem". Or "Eh, that's just a little issue, no big deal." And if you do hear someone say “serious” you immediately think huge. It’s still about size. I sometimes still use those descriptors, but I'm trying to use them less. Instead, I’m reframing problems as High or Low. ...| world.hey.com
A few weeks ago I was at our company meetup in Montreal, on stage in a big room in front of everyone, sharing progress on two brand new products in development.| Jason Fried
I finally picked up a Teenage Engineering TP-7. I've been experimenting with dictating random ideas lately. And while the phone is typically more convenient, I wanted to have a separate recorder on my desk. The TP-7 is an absolutely charming piece of hardware. Reminds me of all the things I loved about some of those high precision port...| world.hey.com
On X, Dinesh Kherajani asked:| Jason Fried
The problem with software estimates is that they're both entirely right and entirely wrong.| Jason Fried
No I don't have an assistant.| Jason Fried
When making products, you can think of them as a collection of features or answers.| Jason Fried
Companies are akin to complex languages, each with its own unique dialect and cultural nuances. And I think this explains why it’s so hard for executives — especially executives — to come in from outside an organization and find their way. At lower levels within an organization, you don’t need to be as proficient a speaker of “the lang...| world.hey.com
It took me a while to fully realize the value of something my company achieved years ago, and continues to savor today. It’s one of our greatest quiet advantages, full stop.| Jason Fried
In the course of building products, you’ll make a thousand common decisions, but only a handful of directional decisions.| Jason Fried
You know, it's really easy to publish short form content on a variety of social platforms. And individual blog posts on a number of other platforms. These are solved problems. But it's surprisingly challenging to publish books on the web in nice, cohesive, tight, easy-to-navigate HTML format. A collection of 20 essays can be a book. Or...| world.hey.com
Failure is a word worth eliminating from your vocabulary.| Jason Fried
At Basecamp, we treat our company as a product. It's not a rigid thing that exists, it's a flexible, malleable idea that evolves. We aren't stuck with what we have, we can create what we want. Just as we improve products through iteration, we iterate on our company too. Recently, we've made some internal company changes, which, taken i...| world.hey.com