Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of 37signals, the Chicago-based web-application company. He has co-authored all of 37signals' books, including the upcoming, "Rework," as well as the 'minimalist manifesto,' "Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application" He also helps to maintain the company's popular blog, Signal vs. Noise, and is regularly invited to speak around the world on entrepreneurship, design, management, and software.
In a world obsessed with innovation and complexity, the value of simple solutions to essential problems is disastrously obscured.
A conversation with the co-founder and president of 37signals.
It’s best if people stay away from each other while they are working, because when people are all together all the time, they tend to constantly interrupt each other.
If you really want to get creative and work on something, you need uninterrupted stretches of quiet time. Jason Fried says you need to keep the distractions out.
Competition doesn't put start-ups out of business. Rather the businesses tend to put themselves out of business by hiring the wrong people, being afraid of making money, and spending too much early on.
When companies have a "free only" business model—thinking they'll make money later—they're usually betting that "there’s going to be this magic switch they can flip."
Always hire after you need someone, "after it hurts," not before. When companies ramp up fast in anticipation of work to be done, it can be really hard to hire good people.
I would only build the things that I need," says Fried. "I’m really a big proponent of building products that we’re going to use.
One of the most intolerable hang-ups is wondering whether something will “work in the real world.” As Jason Fried explains, it’s a depressing place where everything is slow, difficult, and worrisome, so why live by...
The founder of 37signals defines cloud computing, its role in the future of computing, and the overblown anxiety around its security.