Rapid Fire Questions with Jason and David

Welcome to Rework, a podcast by 37 Signals about the better way to work and run your business. I'm Kimberly Rhodes from the 37 Signals team, joined by the co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier-Hanson. It's been a while since we've been with you, but this week we're going to do some rapid-fire questions, just some fun things for the guys to answer.

a couple years ago and thought I'd bring it back. So let's start with this one. What's a piece of software or an app that you can't live without and it can't be one of your own? Who wants to take that one first? I'll just tell you something I like a lot. I mean, I can live without anything, really. There's a great piece of screencast recording software called Screen Studio, which I've been using a lot. And I've used a bunch of things over the years.

I've never been satisfied with any of them. Either they're too sophisticated, they require too much editing, there's too much stuff to set up, or they're too simplistic and you can't quite get it the way you want it. Screen Studio is an incredibly well built. screencast tool that just sort of does everything you want it to do, stays out of the way, gives you the power if you want it, but it doesn't put it in your face. You have to kind of get the power, which is nice.

And it records your cameras in the corner. You can change the corners, but just everything's dialed in really nicely. And so I want to just give a shout out to, I forget the guy's name who makes it, but it's one of these one man shop kind of products, I believe. And those are always the best. These like enthusiasts who just make something that they want themselves.

It's so obvious when someone wants something for themselves and they make it, and that's what this product is. So shout out to Screen Studio. It's at screen.studio.

I think no .com, just screenstock.studio. I don't know if it still is, but it used to be just a one-time... pay fee like pay once and done i don't know if that's still the case when i bought it it was and i was like what a deal yeah i don't remember but um great product really really good cool david what about you I'm gonna go with Obsidian.

So Obsidian is a note-taking app. It's a native application that's available on Linux and all the platforms. And the reason I like it so much is partly because I didn't even consider note-taking. as an application category until I moved off on my Apple gear because I'd just been using Apple Notes since forever. And it's really interesting when you're not in the market for something.

You're oblivious to all the advantages that could be. I just was not in the market for a note-taking app. I had Apple Notes. I was like, what more do I need? And then after switching off the Mac, I realized, well, now I need something else. I can't keep on using Apple Notes. And Obsidian just stood out. It's open source. It's free to download, free to use. It's on all these platforms. The storage format is actually one of my favorite things. It's just plain text files that have Markdown in them.

And then they have this editor that is kind of like our house editor, actually, in WriteBook, where it's sort of halfway between what you see is what you get and the Markdown editor. And their business model is quite clever. It's a tiny team. I think it's actually only two developers. And what they charge for is If you want to sync between your computer and your mobile device, you can't actually use something like Dropbox or other syncing tools that I use for the desktop.

So they made a couple of apps and that's all you have to pay for. If you just use it on your computer, it's completely free. There's an amazing ecosystem of plugins and all sorts of stuff. And it's open source. And then there's this value add, this upgrade on top that I haven't even actually jumped to because I don't actually use it on my phone very much. But Obsidian is awesome.

Okay. I'll link to both of those in our show notes, not affiliate links. We're just giving them a shout out. Okay. Work related. What is the most underrated skill for a founder to have? David, I'm going to start with you on that one.

It's hard not to sound like self-grandizing here because we're going to pick some skills that I think perhaps flatter us to some extent. I'd say being a good writer. The amount of influence you can have through good writing, I think, is sorely underestimated by a lot of founders. And I think that partly comes about because a lot of the founders that I know

are very sort of outgoing people. They can rally troops in person or in video or whatever. But it's not all of them that take the time to become really good writers. And I've found that there's no medium like writing. that allows your influence, your ideas, your vision to travel as far.

Maybe with video now, I haven't really seen it though. I haven't seen a lot of founders running companies that are killing it on TikTok and whatever, perhaps except for Gary V. He's the wonderful exception of someone who... probably actually i know doesn't enjoy writing that much he's written like what jason seven books and as i understand his process is that he speaks the book to someone who then puts it down in word form and he's incredible in that format

That's an even harder skill. I think it's a lot easier to become a good writer than it is to become a good media personality at the level of a Gary Vee. I was going to say great hair. that's not me that's um Well, I would say the ability just to kind of trust your gut. Actually, I think... People, especially founders, I wouldn't say especially founders. In general, I would say people are typically on the search for certainty they're looking for.

They just want to make sure they're making the right decision. Everyone wants to make the right decision, understandably so. The right decision sounds like a good thing.

I don't think you're ever going to know if it's the right decision. You're just going to make a decision and then you're going to play it out and see what happens. Obviously, you can make an educated guess. But that's about honing your gut. You're always going to have to make an educated guess. The idea that you're going to know for sure what to do.

I think is highly unlikely in most cases. I mean, there's of course, very obvious cases where, you know, don't touch the stove kind of thing, but in business, there's not a lot of stuff like that. So I think just the ability to trust your gut and be willing to try things.

and be comfortable with that and not feel like you need to ask a thousand people for their thoughts and feedback and ideas and run everything by a bunch of people. I think that's a pretty handy skill and I do think it's an underrated skill. Okay, on that note, Jason, I'm going to start with you because it's...

Kind of in the same vein. What's one thing you've changed your mind about since starting your company? I'm sure there's many things that you've changed your mind about, but is there one that comes top of mind? Like I used to feel very strongly about something that now.

You've completely flipped about. I think that we've collectively changed our mind a few times on this one thing, which is like, should we go big? Like, you know, initially we didn't think about it at all. Then there's been these moments like, should we hit this target? Should we hit this number? I think we did this two times in our history.

And both times it was like a bad idea. So we changed our mind to trying to go big and we changed our mind away from it. And then we changed our mind towards it again and then away from it. And I think we finally settled into we're just going to be who we are. And we're going to grow as we grow and do what we do based on what we want to do and how we want to be, not based on...

something we think we're supposed to be or something we could potentially be. I think there's this feeling like, well, gosh, look at how far we've gotten without doing X, Y, and Z. What if we just said X, Y, and Z? Think about how big we could be. It's like a kid's book or something. But really, I think that's kind of the big thing that sticks out to me. And I don't regret that we went for it here and there, but...

It wasn't who we were and it felt that way all along the way. And eventually you just kind of realize now that's not us. So I would say those two instances are things that come to mind right now. Okay, wait, David, before you jump in, Jason, I have a follow-up question. Was the thought about getting bigger based on market pressure or just a feeling that you wanted to be larger? Where did that... kind of arise from. I think there's probably some ego involved in it. Like,

God, you know, like, wouldn't it be great if whatever or something like that? So maybe it's insecurity. I don't really know. Maybe it's like, a desire to find some relevance in a way where other people would understand. I'm not really sure, but it's probably a mix of those things, to be honest. It's not like we needed to do this. We don't owe anybody anything. We're not trying to exit in some way where a big number would matter.

Although there was a moment when we were thinking like maybe we could go IPO, but we do it our own way kind of thing. And that was sort of a way to sort of prove that it would be possible for a bootstrap company like ours to go public our own way.

We turned around on that pretty quick after we just really thought about what it would take to do that. So if I'm really analyzing those moments, part of it is like, can we prove to others Maybe it's can we prove to ourselves, but I think it's also can we prove to others that we could do this? So I think there's some of that in there.

And then sometimes it's just like a challenge. Like, well, that'd be an interesting challenge. Like, why not? Could we try and do it? So I know if I'm being honest, they probably weren't wholesome. reasons necessarily even though sometimes it could feel that way but i think realistically when you do that sort of thing you're probably doing it for external reasons

I think naturally most people think in general, bigger is better. Like bigger is always better as just like a go-to reaction. Yeah. I think we've just always, to some degree, have wanted to prove things and this would be like an amazing thing to prove. that it could be possible. But why do we need to prove that to anybody? It's not like a path we'd really suggest other people go on anyway. So I don't know. You know, sometimes if you're around, if you do this for a long time, you...

You kind of sometimes just get bored, frankly, with the way it is and then try something else. And sometimes you set a target to do that. So part of it could just be boredom, to be honest, as well. I mean, like, I don't know. Should we try to be something we're not? Or could we be something we don't realize we could be? Maybe. Let's try. Let's see what it means. And the thing is, is that it's quite easy.

to just say, sure, let's try that. Because it doesn't revolve any work to say, let's do that. And then you start getting into the work and you realize that the work you have to do to do that is not the kind of work that you want to do. And that's when you hopefully back off that and go, that wasn't a good idea.

David, is your biggest change the same answer or you got something different? I got something different. First, I think the motivation for trying something different, for changing your mind, I think Jason's spot on. Him and I have been in business together for well over 20 years now. You do just get bored by doing things the way they've always been done. But beyond boredom, it's also just this nagging question I always have. Whatever we're doing... Could the opposite be better?

I love that as just a fundamental premise of testing your ideas, testing your values, testing your approach by thinking, what if we did the opposite? Whatever it is that we're doing right now, what if we did the opposite? And I think a wonderful example of that is the introduction of managers. It's sort of related to, as Jason was saying, about getting bigger. We had a phase in the company's life where we were over 80 people.

Now we're around 60. That feels much more like our size. But when we're around 80 people, we were thinking, do you know what? Maybe we're missing something here. The entire rest of the industry runs with engineering managers, for example, where you have more frequent one-on-ones and you have people assigned and you have people who just do management all day. There's all this stuff.

Do you know what? We've been railing against that for literally two decades. But maybe we're wrong. Maybe we missed something. Maybe the last time I tried to have a manager was just a bad idea or bad experience because of the specific... individuals involved at that specific time? What if you retest that assumption? And we did. We hired a couple of engineering managers, and I could see aspects of that. Oh, this is part of why people do this, ultimately.

We realized that, you know what, that also wasn't us. Just like trying to get bigger, trying to introduce management layers into 37 Signals, that wasn't us, and it wasn't right. but again I'm actually happy that I tried. I get skeptical of my own convictions if they stand untested for too long.

They really have to be weathered by some storm to know whether they're worth anything, whether they're actually legit or whether they're just going to crumple if you try the opposite. So I love testing those ideas. In the same vein, I've certainly, I think, moderated my personal engagement with advertisement online. I, for a very long time and still in many ways, really hate internet advertisement, especially the tracking kind.

And then in part with conversations with Toby, who I'm on his board at Shopify, I got a different look into what advertising can do for small companies. And I got just a humanization of that. That advertisement is not just all the windfalls that accrue to Meta and Google.

It's also a bunch of small businesses who are able to reach a much larger audience. And our pitch to that is very often, as we write about in the books, oh, you should build an audience. You should do that. Yeah. Do you know what? Not everyone is going to be able to do that. They're not going to have the capacities. They're not going to have the message. They're not going to have something to say, but they may have a great product nonetheless.

I like those parts of it where you go like, yeah, I have long-held belief. Maybe I haven't fully changed my mind, but I've gotten another angle on it. That's just more interesting, too. Going with the boredom thing, I get bored with my own conviction.

if they just they just sit and it's just that set and that's what i got like you know what i got another 40 50 years to go if i'm gonna keep my mind the same about everything i believe this second i might as well just say like all right great ride let's check out Okay, Jason, product question for you. What's a customer request, you can take Basecamp or Hay or any of your products, that you've heard hundreds of times but continue to ignore and will continue to ignore?

I mean, the famous one is Gantt charts in Basecamp. I don't know if it comes up that much anymore, frankly. I'm not paying attention. Oh, I think it does, actually. I mean, Gantt charts have been a thing forever. They are useful in... certain kinds of projects. If you're doing a construction project, for example, you've got dependencies. This has to happen before that has to happen. So I get it.

we're always hesitant to build things that we don't use and we wouldn't use and we wouldn't really understand. Although I understand how they work because I've been involved in projects that have them, but they're not going to be used by us ever in Basecamp. Basically. And we could build something that represents that. We sort of kind of did with this feature called the lineup, which is not a Gantt chart really at all, actually.

Visually, it has some aspects of this idea of essentially horizontal timelines and where things line up, but there's no dependencies and they're about projects and not phases of projects. But anyway, this is something that's come up a million times and will continue to come up apparently and still does come up and we're not going to do it. I would say there's just, it's not for us.

Basecamp is very successful without it. It's a different approach to project management, and there are plenty of other ways to do Gantt charts if you want to do those things. But Basecamp's not the place where you're going to find them. So that's kind of our answer there. Last question for both of you. I know we're working on a lot of things internally. What is something that you can share you're most excited about over the next, let's say, six months? Well, we're working on a couple.

New products. One is called Fizzy, which we've been beginning to demo and talk about. It's like a bug issue idea tracking tool. And then we're also taking a really big swing at some significant base camp improvements and updates. And I'm particularly excited about both of those things, primarily because they're new, they're full of new ideas.

With Fizzy, we get to try brand new things on the design side, the tech side, the marketing side, the product side. With Basecamp, we have this well-established product. I always find it to be a fun challenge to bring something. really new and to change something in a way that doesn't change it so much.

but changes it enough in a significant way that people are still familiar with it and aren't going to recoil necessarily from the big changes, although sometimes they will, and sometimes it's okay that they do. Sometimes it just takes time to get used to them, and sometimes they're bad ideas, like we don't really know. But I like the challenge of both of these Pauls. One Paul being...

Green field, product development, do whatever the hell you want. There's no expectations. There's no legacy, nothing. And then the other one is working with something that you have that a ton of people use and figuring out ways to make it significantly better, simpler, more direct. while understanding that you can't change it all the way. I like those exercises. I think they're healthy opposites, and it's nice to be able to do both of them at the same time.

That pendulum swing hits right on with development as well. You need Greenfield to really push novel architectural ideas where you're not just going to take everything apart in an existing product like Basecamp. And then for me, the validation of a truly great idea is something you develop in a greenfield soil, and then you're able to swing that back and level up something existing if it works on both sides of the fence.

that it's really good and novel and interesting when you're starting from scratch. And it's also valuable enough to retrofit, at least in some way, to the existing bits. That, to me, is the hallmark of a great technical idea. But specifically on Visi, we're trying some quite ambitious ideas about how to distribute the application around the world, how to deal with the fact that the speed of light is simply not fast enough.

The distance it takes for a single package to travel with the internet from, say, Sydney to Europe is something like 300 milliseconds. That is actually substantial. That's enough that when a package has to go back and forth a couple of times, an application feels slow. This is something the internet scale companies of the world are addressing in really sophisticated, difficult to operate ways and it's cool to see. It's not, generally speaking, technology that has trickled down to smaller shops.

most applications you use on the internet. They may have distributed things like their assets. They use content delivery networks, CDNs such as your JavaScript and your images, load fast wherever you are in the world. But by the time you have to write to a database, You're usually hitting a certain location Sometimes applications deal with it by saying, well, we have a certain realm that exists.

In this location, you've got to sign up and you get a special URL. If you see Zoom URLs, you'll sometimes see like us1.this.that and then maybe using eu.this.that. That's a way of doing it. We're trying something. Substantially more novel.

And I'm really excited to see where that goes because we're just at that tipping point where i'm quite sure we can make this work but i'm not convinced and i love the taste of just that last bit of uncertainty because it pushes you to come up with really interesting ideas you don't know everything already I do also get a little bit bored sometimes when we're...

doing things that may be great on the product side, but there's no novelty in it on the technical side, I can go like, well, this is a great, valuable project that we need to do, and I don't personally necessarily need to be involved with it. writing let's say the 17 to-do list

domain model of my career. There are other people in the company who can do that and have a lot of fun with that. I get fired up where we really push the envelope on some of these things and you've got to be careful with that.

and i'm trying to constantly check myself where i have to i want to push the envelope in part just for the sheer fun of pushing the envelope and then i constantly have to go like well why are we doing this what's the benefit to the customer in the end if you're just pushing the envelope for the sheer sake of pushing the envelope and no benefit accrued to the customer

That smells quite quickly. And I think a lot of developers get into very convoluted situations that they can justify only to themselves and never to the market. I'm not really interested in that. I'm interested in the intersection between we're doing something new, we're doing something novel, and it matters to a customer who's gonna buy a product.

Okay, well, those were my quick questions for Jason and David. If you have a question for them, leave us a video message. So we've just started doing this. We're pretty excited about it. You can upload or record a video at 37signals.com. slash podcast question. And if we like your question, we will not only answer it, we'll also include you in our video. So check that out. 37signals.com slash podcast question. Rework is a production of 37signals. You can find show notes and transcripts on our

website at 37signals.com slash podcast. Full video episodes are on YouTube and again, leave us a video at 37signals.com slash podcast questions.