"I won’t name names. I used to name names. But I think all you have to do is read TechCrunch. Look at what the top stories are, and they’re all about raising money, how many employees they have, and these are metrics that don’t matter. What matters is: Are you profitable? Are you building something great? Are you taking care of your people? Are you treating your customers well? In the coverage of our industry as a whole, you’ll rarely see stories about treating customers well, about people building a sustainable business. TechCrunch to me is the great place to look to see the sickness in our industry right now."<p>I love this quote. It reflects my sentiments to a T.
> Actually, my cleaning lady, for example, she’s great.<p>There's something a bit... I don't know quite how to put it. Let's just say that I bet she'd willingly trade places with him, cash out, and go enjoy herself instead of <i>cleaning up after other people</i> day in and day out. (<i>Edit</i> to change the wording just a bit)<p>> The other interesting thing about restaurants is you could have a dozen Italian restaurants in the city and they can all be successful. It’s not like in the tech world, where everyone wants to beat each other up, and there’s one winner.<p>That's because the economics of a highly local business are very different from one that can have customers all over the world.<p>Also: restaurants fail all the time - it's a stressful business to be in, and not generally the sort of relaxed, easy-going picture he makes it sound like. You can bet that <i>most</i> restaurants do not have the option of doing 4 days a week, unless they have big margins the other days, which means they probably have something very special about them.<p>I admire and respect those guys, but there's something too glib about some of their communications that turns my cynic sense on.<p><i>Edit</i>: furthermore... live and let live, no? I'm more interested in a 37 signals style business myself, but let the people in Silicon Valley do their thing even if it doesn't float your boat. It'll all work out. As one example, I think the world is better off with PG running Y Combinator instead of having slogged on with Viaweb.
"To me that’s far more interesting than a tech company that’s hiring a bunch of people, just got their fourth round of financing for 12 million dollars, and they’re still losing money. That’s what everyone talks about as being exciting, but I think that’s an absolutely disgusting scenario when it comes to business."<p>Hilarious given that Jason Fried was on the board of directors of Groupon (his comments on this "disgusting scenario" here: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2617160" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2617160</a>).
I've read a lot of Jason's stuff and he has a lot of insightful things to say about running a successful small technology business. He probably understands it about as well as anyone on earth.<p>The part of the rhetoric I'm not as fond of is this false dichotomy that he often raises of "either small business is right or big-startups are right". Both can be right--they just have different goals. And there are strong relationships and dependencies between each type that make it particularly disingenuous to slander each other.<p>It reminds me a bit of the "you didn't build that" hubbub happening in American politics lately. There seems to be a "I did this" hubris, as you create high-quality web services catering to small teams.<p>Let's get real: you are building web services consumed by a browser (Netscape) on someone's Macbook Pro (Apple); your data found its way there over some serious switching infrastructure (Cisco); you stock your offices with goods from the best online retailers--oh yeah, and they host a bunch of your bulk data too (Amazon); your site is indexed by the major search engines and you expose your brand to potential customers via sophisticated advertising networks (Google); your keep your friends and fans in the loop on what your business is up to via massive social networks (Twitter).<p>Many of these companies were ambitious, they had low probabilities of success, they had much higher capital needs and a tighter window to hit the market.. than a slightly better product management system for small teams. But these VC-powered longshots--the lucky few winners--now form the beating heart of our industry. They provide good jobs to hundreds of thousands of people. And.. would 37 signals even exist without them?<p>Jason wants to make great money and have a good business and take Friday off. That is fine, that is seriously great. I'm not sure why the tone is so defensive, b/c, really, who's attacking that? That's a damn good way to go.<p>But some people want to "make a dent in the world". They need some money to do that! And they might fail! And rich guys are willing to gamble on the outcome! Who cares? It's audacious fucking fun to try to change the world, and sometimes it works. Afterwards, we can take a shower and feel clean and wholesome about the birth of 38 signals.
When my Dad decided to start his own business his goal was to work for himself and make enough money to live comfortably. He's achieved that, he could push and try stretch it to the next level and make even more money and become more successful but he realised he's happy with the money he's got and not having to deal with anything extra.<p>When anyone starts a business you can shoot for living a nice comfortable life (and lets be honest if you're running a business making millions per year, you've nailed it), or you can push and push to become <i>the</i> business. Both have chance of failure, both require devotion. I'd take the same route as 37signals. Having enough money to live comfortably and enjoy life sound much better than the constant grind to get to the next boss level.
Why does this say: 'Its CEO's Model' when it should be 'Its CEO's Role Model'? Seems like the writer is baiting for clicks. It's a little misleading to me.
So nice there are more and more companies which understand that keeping their employees in comfort is so essential for the long-term success. Giving more freedom and spare time, makes people more productive during work time. No stress, no pressure = more job done. I also admire companies, that have understood that a 6-hour working day, would be more productive than the 8-hour, since time for distraction is reduced to significantly.
I am in line with the thought process. Also, "There’s a great quote by a guy named Ricardo Semler, author of the book Maverick. He said that only two things grow for the sake of growth: businesses and tumors." funny and apt. I am striving to build a sustainable business, without going to VCs, providing tangible benefits to my customers, and without huge ambitions to become a billion dollar company (or even high millions)
Profits are without question important.
Bootstrapping I'm not so sure about. There are many profitable companies today that were never bootstrapped, like Apple and Google and tons of others. I'd be concerned that bootstrapping in this day and age might limit how big a company you actually do become, esp since you are competing against entrenched players.
I can totally subscribe what Jason said here.
One time someone said that I wasn't "startup" material because I wasn't open to work 80 hours per week. They said that like it was a bad thing :), fast forward a few years and their company is now dead and I'm now doing my own thing steady and profitable.
lifestyle businesses are great. but to make real money you need to scale -- I think this stuff is okay for the size of business they are aiming for but if you want to build something that can be acquired for 500m+ or IPO then you need to do some more strategic thinking.
Absolutely amazing and a rare voice of reason in our industry. If only more companies would adopt this kind of mentality of building sustainable businesses.
This guy could have built the next Salesforce / google. but he eschewed hiring a sales team. He didn't want that, but still. Failing to achieve your true potential is not something to be bragging about all over the web.
The long hours mostly has to do with the startup community. They get funding and VC wants to make a profit within a year and get out, at the expense of any long-term goals of the company.<p>The result is 70 or 80 hour work weeks and burnout. The VC don't care because they will be done in the short-term anyway.<p>It's the reason why I refuse to work for startups.