Who owns 37signals

I love the editing process. Our blog has more than , readers, but I don't post every day. I write when I have something specific to say. I recently wrote a scathing piece on the tech media. It really bothers me that the definition of success has changed from profits to followers, friends, and feed count. This crap doesn't mean anything. Kids are coming out of school thinking, I want to start the next YouTube or Facebook. If a restaurant served more food than everybody else but lost money on every diner, would it be successful?

But on the Internet, for some reason, if you have more users than everyone else, you're successful. No, you're not. I spend another good portion of my day thinking about how to make things less complicated. In the software world, the first, second, and third versions of any product are really pretty good, because everyone can use them.

Then companies start adding more and more stuff to keep their existing customers happy. But you end up dying with your customer base, because the software is too complicated for a newcomer. We keep our products simple. I'd rather have people grow out of our products, as long as more people are growing into them. I used to handle all the customer service e-mails, but now we have two people dedicated to that. I still get involved, and so does my partner, David [Heinemeier Hansson], if something has escalated and the standard operating procedure doesn't apply.

If anyone ever writes us with a complaint, our stance is it's our fault -- for not being clear enough or not making something work the way it should. I'm constantly keeping an eye on the problems that keep arising, and then we address them.

But I don't keep a list of all the complaints, because that's too time-consuming. We also get thousands of suggestions. The default answer is always no. A lot of companies lie and say, "Sure, we'll do that. We first designed Basecamp for our own needs, to help better organize our projects.

That's our philosophy: Build what we like, and other people will like it, too. Ta-Da was built to make simple to-do lists. Backpack is a digital version of a filing cabinet. We created Writeboard when we were collaborating on Getting Real , our first self-published business book, to track all of the back-and-forth drafts and keep us from going insane.

Even though there are better products out there, I still use Writeboard, because it's dead simple. In fact, we just wrote our second book, Rework, using that program. These books are our cookbooks. I look to chefs for inspiration. Mario Batali is a great chef who invites a camera into his kitchen and shares his recipes. It's a great business model. In the business world, people are proprietary -- they're afraid to share. Rework is our recipe for doing business. We rarely have meetings.

I hate them. They're a huge waste of time, and they're costly. It's not one hour; it's 10, because you pulled 10 people away from their real work. Plus, they chop your day into small bits, so you have only 20 minutes of free time here or 45 minutes there. Creative people need unstructured time to get in the zone. You can't do that in 20 minutes.

From usability to pricing models to support Usefulness never does. Are you constantly jotting down random ideas or to-do lists? If so, check out BackPack, a tremendous Web site that uses Ajax to make entering and retrieving data seamless and easy.

The final design is then uploaded to Basecamp, and 30 days later finished toys march off production lines in China. Compelling offerings from Salesforce. Home About 37signals Why web-based software?

There are just a couple of cubicles, loads of brainpower and three simple goals: make useful business software, make it easy to run, make money selling it. Learn more about 37signals.

Getting Real Our book on software development. Noise Our ideas and opinions, daily. Rework The new business book from 37signals. It seems like in a lot of companies we are. For sure. You seem like too nice a guy to name names—but do you have certain companies in mind?

I used to name names. But I think all you have to do is read TechCrunch. What matters is: Are you profitable? Are you building something great? Are you taking care of your people? Are you treating your customers well?

TechCrunch to me is the great place to look to see the sickness in our industry right now. Our magazine is called Fast Company , but it sounds like you want to build a slow company. Most of the ideas in our books were germinated in one form or another on our long-running blog, Signal v.

It replaced another podcast called The Distance where we shared the stories of small businesses that have been around for 25 years or more. We also speak at conferences , share everything we know about running a remote company , write guides , host workshops, teach classes, and more.

The first Rails app, however, was our very own Basecamp. Rails was invented in by David Heinemeier Hansson, a partner here at Basecamp.

Today Rails is as vibrant as ever, and still at the heart of Basecamp.