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71: Construction Kit Food

 

00:00:00   it is so hard not to introduce you as Jason creed of 37 signals you can do [TS]

00:00:06   that I just correct you know that you and I will also admit I'm going yeah I [TS]

00:00:17   will admit that when you tweeted the announcement I fell for it I figure if [TS]

00:00:22   you get exactly what you wrote but you're like something like after [TS]

00:00:25   thirteen years after 14 years it's been a good run but it's [TS]

00:00:30   time to leave 37 signals and I was like that and I was like wow I i really was [TS]

00:00:37   just like I fell for it hook line and sinker and then I click through course [TS]

00:00:43   the big news is that you would you tell you what that would have you guys done [TS]

00:00:49   well I'm the new CEO Microsoft great timing that I decided to switch we we've [TS]

00:00:57   switched the company around a bit so we're now base camp so we decided that [TS]

00:01:01   37 signals as a name and as a company is no longer and instead you're gonna focus [TS]

00:01:07   exclusively on just one product that's base camp and with that we're gonna [TS]

00:01:12   change the name of the company to base camp just to reinforce the fact that [TS]

00:01:15   that's what we're all about and it's good for reinforcements internal [TS]

00:01:19   internally and also externally and that's what we're doing now [TS]

00:01:23   innocent you know I think instant messenger right afterwards I thought [TS]

00:01:29   about it and it was like you know as soon as you said I was like whoa that's [TS]

00:01:33   crazy and then I thought about you know what that is [TS]

00:01:36   such base camp thing to do I have the same reaction when I first came up with [TS]

00:01:42   the idea [TS]

00:01:43   hurts first start thinking about this next this is ninety it was tossed around [TS]

00:01:46   Ryan singer in Iran's someone who works with me for a long time [TS]

00:01:52   yeah he's been with me since 2003 it was it has been now he's been around for a [TS]

00:01:58   long time in a few years ago we started sort of tossing the idea around but not [TS]

00:02:03   not as clearly but there was something in the works there and then it just hit [TS]

00:02:09   me again in August and it just made sense and but when I first thought about [TS]

00:02:12   it again I have seen this is kind of nuts I mean 37 signals has been around [TS]

00:02:17   for 15 years we've a lot of people know about us a lot of people know about the [TS]

00:02:20   name there's a lot of history with the company and its just crazy just to [TS]

00:02:26   change your name but it all made sense the more I thought about it just was so [TS]

00:02:30   absolutely spot-on [TS]

00:02:31   that we had to do it but the big thing is that it's not and you guys clarify [TS]

00:02:38   this year's have a great FAQ 37 signals dot-com domain but the main point here [TS]

00:02:46   something like this in a company makes a big change like this usually I would say [TS]

00:02:50   I'm almost overwhelmingly usually it's because they're in trouble or or it's [TS]

00:02:56   bad news in some way and this is it's the opposite you guys have never been [TS]

00:03:00   bigger [TS]

00:03:02   how many people do you have any employees with 42 now that's crazy to me [TS]

00:03:07   when you guys were you guys for years we're working out of Mike's spare office [TS]

00:03:12   space could all studio that's right there's like five desks and we had a few [TS]

00:03:19   extra people gornji cago but for a long time we've been fewer than 10 and we've [TS]

00:03:24   we've been in business for a long time so just a few years you have a few more [TS]

00:03:28   people we've never gone on a hiring spree earning like that but over time [TS]

00:03:32   you know it just compounds and some other people but you guys you guys have [TS]

00:03:36   cut products but you guys are not cutting staff at all now near business [TS]

00:03:40   has never been better for us revenues profits highest they've ever been [TS]

00:03:44   and this year this is not a cutting staff were cutting back because we need [TS]

00:03:48   to it's because we want to and and now everybody the company all of us are [TS]

00:03:54   going to focus on the same thing so there's plenty of work to go around I [TS]

00:03:57   was just talking about this you know you've been around for a long time so [TS]

00:03:59   you remember this software development lease on the web use to be so simple it [TS]

00:04:04   was you just make a web out and now you know Basecamp basically is five products [TS]

00:04:10   its base camp its base camp for iPhone or working on base camp for iPad right [TS]

00:04:14   now its base camp for Android to just announced and you know you could say its [TS]

00:04:19   base camp for gmail is Basecamp works really well technically all separate [TS]

00:04:24   platform separate code bases we review some web use here and there but you know [TS]

00:04:27   they're really different so even if you have one product you you have five [TS]

00:04:31   products now and that's a lot of work so there's a workaround yeah I was just [TS]

00:04:36   saying on last week's show them to you soon think that's the key to Facebook [TS]

00:04:42   remaining relevant and successful even a facebook came up and exploded and when I [TS]

00:04:49   P O during this whole period where the whole industry has has shifted where it [TS]

00:04:54   was created and it was just a web web thing you type facebook.com in a browser [TS]

00:04:58   and at age Facebook but they've clearly made a change where they see Facebook as [TS]

00:05:03   a service and there are there's the website and there are apps and apps [TS]

00:05:10   might be on the phone tablet may be anywhere but it's not just a web page [TS]

00:05:15   anymore or a web app yeah and you know it's it's funny because Facebook [TS]

00:05:21   Facebook's been doing a bunch of a bunch of these smaller apps I'm sure they have [TS]

00:05:25   many more planned and even though its Facebook the company in facebook the [TS]

00:05:29   product they they have a right about the things that they're working on and other [TS]

00:05:33   products that time do it and it really is more of a service it's almost like a [TS]

00:05:36   protocol or something now and and you know that's how they can keep all these [TS]

00:05:41   great engineers busy because there's a lot of stuff going on such as [TS]

00:05:43   facebook.com anymore and so we're gonna we're in the same boat obviously much [TS]

00:05:48   smaller scale but was actually funny as base camps birthday in Facebook's [TS]

00:05:52   birthday or the same day [TS]

00:05:54   you put on your companies in February 4th 2004 week we officially announced [TS]

00:06:01   base camp on our blog and the fifth so that's technically how when we announced [TS]

00:06:05   it but it actually went live the night before in the fourth so it's kind of [TS]

00:06:09   funny to see how things have shaken out over 10 years you know what that's funny [TS]

00:06:14   you say that I never would have thought of it otherwise but it totally rings a [TS]

00:06:21   bell because here's what I remember is I first announced marked down as a public [TS]

00:06:29   beta in March of 2004 and I'm getting I don't know how long ago on ten years but [TS]

00:06:37   what I remember is and I don't remember how I did this I don't because of my [TS]

00:06:43   sons birthday was last month [TS]

00:06:46   2004 he just turned 10 so I don't know in hindsight how in the world did the [TS]

00:06:52   initial version of mark down in like the month before in two months after my son [TS]

00:06:57   was born I think it's because I got no sleep and so it was just a way that I [TS]

00:07:02   think that I think it was actually like in hindsight it doesn't make any sense [TS]

00:07:06   to me but I think it was like I was actually more productive because I had [TS]

00:07:10   had no sleep yet you knew you weren't gonna sleep so what do you do work but [TS]

00:07:17   what I remember is that when when you guys launched base camp I was really [TS]

00:07:22   close to announcing marked down but I hadn't told a lot of people about it and [TS]

00:07:25   you guys launched with textile sport [TS]

00:07:31   that was a disaster for us you know although it was good at the time because [TS]

00:07:36   that's kind of that's all there was and then right on came out and it was funny [TS]

00:07:42   and it's funny back down like there wasn't really was a wig and there were [TS]

00:07:46   some really early stuff but it was pretty terrible because the browser's [TS]

00:07:49   weren't really capable of doing this stuff and so but what will we regret it [TS]

00:07:53   ultimately was you know the transition away from from textile we cut that off [TS]

00:07:58   moving that over allowing all those messages that have been written to be [TS]

00:08:03   rendered in another thing which is a huge huge nightmare that was that was a [TS]

00:08:07   mass anyway and consistory but does it do remember now I remember that it was [TS]

00:08:14   like you guys came first and it was really close I remember that now too [TS]

00:08:23   yeah I mean I I don't know what we would have done I probably would have been [TS]

00:08:27   marked down so much more elegant than I ever was so I would if we are up against [TS]

00:08:32   it in that moment again there was two things available I'm almost certain [TS]

00:08:35   would go with mark down but i wouldnt needed to be a couple months ahead of [TS]

00:08:39   schedule but it coulda shoulda so what are the products that you guys are are [TS]

00:08:49   looking for a new home for so just to give some background there it's was [TS]

00:08:55   really important to us that when we made this announcement that we're very clear [TS]

00:08:59   about a couple other things and one as you know we have some other very [TS]

00:09:02   successful products and campfire we have high rise be a backpack with a few other [TS]

00:09:05   things [TS]

00:09:06   backpack is a product that we we kind of retired although our definition retired [TS]

00:09:11   little bit different so explain that in a second but few years ago we decided no [TS]

00:09:14   longer to sell backpack wouldn't sell it anymore but anyone who was using it can [TS]

00:09:19   continue to use it so we have made a commitment to our customers and [TS]

00:09:22   ourselves that we will support our products [TS]

00:09:25   until the end of the Internet is kind of how we think about it here as long as [TS]

00:09:28   we're in business we will support products that are under our name even if [TS]

00:09:32   we no longer develop them but we will keep them up [TS]

00:09:34   will provide customer service on them will do all the security patches we need [TS]

00:09:37   to care about performance and stuff we won't add new features to be more in [TS]

00:09:41   maintenance mode so we did this with with backpack a few years ago and now [TS]

00:09:45   it's time to consider what to do with with campfire high-rise and again same [TS]

00:09:51   thing we don't want to let any customers down or leave them hanging so we're [TS]

00:09:56   looking for new homes for these products at companies that would really want to [TS]

00:10:00   run these products and not absorb them into some existing product we want them [TS]

00:10:03   to to live on on their own but if for whatever reason we simply cannot find [TS]

00:10:10   the right fit [TS]

00:10:11   we've committed to maintaining those products and making sure they're still [TS]

00:10:15   available for as long as we're still in business which is hopefully decades from [TS]

00:10:18   now so that's that's where the way we're handling this so customers don't get [TS]

00:10:21   screwed cuz it's not their fault that we're making this decision and we don't [TS]

00:10:24   want them to be left out and campfire is just like basically it's it's a good [TS]

00:10:30   group chat group chat with her simple came up 2006 and it's basically just [TS]

00:10:39   just chat rooms for business and part of that is so I guess we can touch on that [TS]

00:10:45   a bit but you guys are big you know literally written a book on it [TS]

00:10:49   remote working and it is sort of you know that but where the name comes from [TS]

00:10:54   its kinda like sitting around the virtual campfire to wait for remote [TS]

00:10:59   teams to stay in touch throughout the day [TS]

00:11:02   remote teams and and local teams I think it depends on the kind of company or [TS]

00:11:05   these chat is trapped products there's a lot of them out there today and they all [TS]

00:11:10   relatively new basically the same thing mister fromm takes on and stuff but for [TS]

00:11:14   the most part they're really popular development teams software developers [TS]

00:11:19   were really working on stuff all the time but a back and forth even people [TS]

00:11:24   who are working nearby each other they like for example in our office in [TS]

00:11:27   Chicago most of our comm we have a room and in our campfire account called [TS]

00:11:31   Chicago talk when we talk about [TS]

00:11:33   young people were in the room of people from Chicago and there's someone from [TS]

00:11:36   Ann Arbor using it to close enough and and we talked about local stuff even [TS]

00:11:42   though we're all sitting the same office we use campfire for that because it's [TS]

00:11:44   actually a better way to have these kind of discussions rather than interrupting [TS]

00:11:48   each other out loud all the time we can just kind of shimon in this room and [TS]

00:11:52   drops images and links in and drop some stuff that's appropriate so it's good [TS]

00:11:56   for any size any kind of team that needs to work together want to communicate [TS]

00:11:59   serving real time without bothering each other right and and maybe to go back [TS]

00:12:04   again to like 1999 in those days the only thing everything like that was well [TS]

00:12:10   let's just let's set up everything was squeezed in the email and it would be [TS]

00:12:14   but here's our company mailing list and then you'd set up a separate mailing [TS]

00:12:18   list for Chicago company and then all of a sudden your email has thirteen [TS]

00:12:25   different inboxes and if you hurt you know that was a problem and so that was [TS]

00:12:29   the reason we built this also if you're really on top of things you might have [TS]

00:12:33   an IRC you know room set up but that's highly technical and was entirely [TS]

00:12:36   appropriate for most companies so there's no way that you can use instant [TS]

00:12:40   messaging and have group instant messages which was fine but they weren't [TS]

00:12:43   persistent and so there's nowhere to go to have a conversation you had to be [TS]

00:12:47   invited to conversations all the time it was conquered complicated so that's [TS]

00:12:51   where the idea came for came up and then high-rise is what will you said the [TS]

00:12:59   phrase CRM CRM yeah I rises is actually our second most popular park behind base [TS]

00:13:07   camp and is it is a huge project and very successful business in its own [TS]

00:13:11   right it's basically way to keep track of the people you talk to what you talk [TS]

00:13:14   to them about and we need to follow up with them next so it's [TS]

00:13:17   it's it's it's CRM technically which is customer relationship management but [TS]

00:13:22   it's more about keeping track of conversations people you you deal with [TS]

00:13:25   and we built it because at the time we're getting popular with the press the [TS]

00:13:30   press was emailing us a lot asking us questions you doing interviews and I [TS]

00:13:34   just started losing track of who I talk to I forgot I talk to this person for [TS]

00:13:38   who should I buy pitched where are we in the process of this the story and i was [TS]

00:13:43   just using my you know using email [TS]

00:13:45   much everyone does to try and contracts up in pretty quickly [TS]

00:13:48   you lose you lose track of it all and so we built high-rise to keep track of all [TS]

00:13:52   the conversations we had with them but the media and also the time where you [TS]

00:13:56   live increase from venture capital firms and we need a place to keep track of [TS]

00:14:00   that stuff too and so that's sort of how high rise came to be you know it's [TS]

00:14:03   morphed into a tool a lot of sales people use small small-scale you know [TS]

00:14:08   it's not trying to be Salesforce it's it's much simpler to offer much smaller [TS]

00:14:13   sales teams that's exactly where I was going that which is that to me it it's [TS]

00:14:18   it was a very natural successor to base camp because base camp in a knot is [TS]

00:14:23   project management and project management traditionally is a [TS]

00:14:29   notoriously the big names in project management software are notoriously big [TS]

00:14:38   monolithic complicated systems yeah I mean really really big stuff [TS]

00:14:44   and just OK when you just sit down and and base camp is was it just came out of [TS]

00:14:51   the gate as a sort of let's forget let's not try to simplify the the existing [TS]

00:14:59   monolithic idea of project management software lets throw it all away start [TS]

00:15:02   with a blank piece of paper and just build something simple from the start [TS]

00:15:06   and I think high-rises the same way with CRM it was and that's how we try to [TS]

00:15:12   approach everything went right for project management you know all the [TS]

00:15:15   tools that existed at the time were pretty much like microsoft project which [TS]

00:15:19   was Gantt charts and project schedules and more of a broadcast to all and what [TS]

00:15:24   we need it wasn't that we needed just a way to communicate with each other [TS]

00:15:28   shared designed share ideas get feedback from clients that kind of stuff and so [TS]

00:15:32   that wasn't what project management was about the time we we saw it differently [TS]

00:15:36   we saw his communication not control so we made a communications platform [TS]

00:15:40   basically for that and in high-rise with similar there's there's a lot of them [TS]

00:15:44   there's no there's even more of course but there was some big-time CRM type [TS]

00:15:48   type tools out there and you know they were just overkill for keeping track of [TS]

00:15:54   simple conversations between people that you needed and business it wasn't about [TS]

00:15:58   sales pipelines and it wasn't about you know it [TS]

00:16:01   extensive tracking of sales people and how they're performing it was just like [TS]

00:16:04   I need to keep our conversations in a way that makes sense to me and not have [TS]

00:16:08   them just like tagged in inbox is where I can't really follow things and then if [TS]

00:16:12   i'm having conversation to hand it over to David or someone else at the company [TS]

00:16:16   that you can't do that in email your so you're kinda screwed that moment give to [TS]

00:16:20   me before the huge threat of things it's just a total mass so high rises kind of [TS]

00:16:24   shared shared communication shared history of communication and it just [TS]

00:16:29   made a lot of sense for us to go in that direction [TS]

00:16:31   yeah and I think it was they're both really perfectly timed [TS]

00:16:36   for the you know again we're talking about ten fifteen years here but it's so [TS]

00:16:42   much has changed in the last ten fifteen years in terms of not just the way we [TS]

00:16:47   use software where everything is internet-connected and it's either in a [TS]

00:16:50   web browser or it's somehow talking 8 TTP is it syncs your phone or tablet or [TS]

00:16:55   whatever but but just the way that everybody talks about bring your own [TS]

00:16:59   devices to work and and this movement but there's really a lot of almost [TS]

00:17:04   choose your own software you know where and and word you know people are working [TS]

00:17:09   in smaller teams in a lot of people are broken off and you just pick what you [TS]

00:17:12   want to use and use it and I think stark contrast to like when I was in college [TS]

00:17:19   in the nineties and it seemed like companies everything was the enterprise [TS]

00:17:23   quote unquote and everything went through you know people don't just buy [TS]

00:17:28   software demos in and sign up they they went through procurement and the people [TS]

00:17:33   picking the software weren't the people using it and it's just that was just how [TS]

00:17:37   it was done and I think that's how you everything got into these situations [TS]

00:17:42   worked software was so inordinately complex because it was sold [TS]

00:17:46   you know based on how many features it had only met that's that's it that's [TS]

00:17:52   it's a simple as i think is that the in you you said which is that the people [TS]

00:17:56   who are buying the software back down when two people were using it so their [TS]

00:17:59   their their rules and reasons for buying something didn't line up with the people [TS]

00:18:02   who need it so a lot of people were buying it where you know if you're [TS]

00:18:05   comparing 3 year for things you know you're going to get the win the longer [TS]

00:18:10   list of things you know because like it costs about the same why not get more [TS]

00:18:15   stuff well if that's that's that's the criteria that you use if you're [TS]

00:18:19   purchasing something for somebody else but if you're approaching something for [TS]

00:18:21   yourself you're gonna look at things like simplicity ease of use clarity does [TS]

00:18:25   this make sense as fast as it functional in a way that makes sense to me is [TS]

00:18:28   flexible and those are the things that matter and an enterprise software [TS]

00:18:32   there's a huge disconnect their tools like base camp you know our products are [TS]

00:18:36   used in pretty much every every major company every big huge company fortune [TS]

00:18:43   500 not every single one but [TS]

00:18:45   most of them but they're used by small teams inside these companies and they've [TS]

00:18:49   they've kind of done an end-around in that they're not really permitted in [TS]

00:18:52   some cases to use them but they do because they work and I love those kind [TS]

00:18:57   of rogue moves in companies because people just want something that works [TS]

00:19:00   and though but you know they'll take 50 bucks a month on their own pocket to [TS]

00:19:04   paper-based camper 20 bucks a month depending on the tears just so they [TS]

00:19:09   could have something that works because that the software that's been forced on [TS]

00:19:11   them does not work and so we have a lot of customers and a lot of places and we [TS]

00:19:17   don't have any sales people but yet you know huge airlines use our products in [TS]

00:19:21   in universities in huge governments and you did you know big big places that [TS]

00:19:25   normally would have to be sold something and frankly we could probably never sell [TS]

00:19:30   Basecamp into an airline like that's not what we would ever want to do but I love [TS]

00:19:35   that the marketing department might be using either the design department might [TS]

00:19:38   be using in order for the mark you know the advertising group in the company [TS]

00:19:41   might be using it that's that's great that happens all the time I mean and [TS]

00:19:45   that's part of it too comes from your guy's background before you became a [TS]

00:19:53   software company where you guys were doing client services you know people [TS]

00:19:56   would hire 37 signals to do their website and so you guys have it's not [TS]

00:20:02   just you have the products you guys have always had to me very interesting [TS]

00:20:07   product websites that base can you go to Basecamp dot com it sells itself is it [TS]

00:20:14   supposed to and I guess if you decide you guys don't even have any sales [TS]

00:20:16   people that must yeah it's interesting it's changed over the years so when we [TS]

00:20:21   first launched base camp I mean it was a new idea so we really had to explain the [TS]

00:20:25   product in a way but but lately you know almost all of our business comes from [TS]

00:20:30   word of mouth and we know that because customers tell us this and we can tell [TS]

00:20:36   we don't do any outward spend we're not into SEO and PPC meanwhile six thousand [TS]

00:20:41   people a week [TS]

00:20:42   success and companies agency week or something up a base camp 6,000 every [TS]

00:20:46   single week we don't do any SEO don't do any Edwards don't have a marketing [TS]

00:20:49   budget don't buy ads anywhere else [TS]

00:20:51   salespeople so this is a word of mouth thing and when when when word of mouth [TS]

00:20:58   when people come to Basecamp dot com today we're assuming that they kind of [TS]

00:21:02   heard of base camp at some point someone told them about hey guys check this out [TS]

00:21:06   or they've used it somewhere else that other companies that they were working [TS]

00:21:08   with working for or maybe they use their previous job and other new job and they [TS]

00:21:13   want to bring Basecamp into the new place so we've changed our our messaging [TS]

00:21:17   it's actually a lot less we just launched a new site last week this sort [TS]

00:21:20   of fun kind of throwback site which we can talk about it if you're curious but [TS]

00:21:25   the sites really now more about you know hey we've been around for a long time [TS]

00:21:30   you've probably heard of us lots of companies for lots of different things [TS]

00:21:34   here some of those things but it's less about the tools it's less about like we [TS]

00:21:37   have to do lists and we have a scheduler and we have a calendar and we have [TS]

00:21:40   messages it's not about the tool so much anymore it's more about what's the [TS]

00:21:44   outcome you know what he can to get out of this product [TS]

00:21:46   how many other people are using it to I feel comfortable with it because other [TS]

00:21:49   people have used to you know we've heard about from someone else you're in the [TS]

00:21:52   right place that kind of stuff so we've sort of shifted a little bit that way [TS]

00:21:55   but we've always been very heavy on on the message and writing and our our [TS]

00:22:00   sites have always had more words than everybody else's but we we think that [TS]

00:22:03   you know the writings tight and concise and we think that people and your writer [TS]

00:22:10   you get this alot of ppl will keep saying this to say today that people [TS]

00:22:15   don't read on the web [TS]

00:22:16   the thing is they don't read bad shit on the web I mean they don't rebadged [TS]

00:22:20   anywhere you know if you read a bad book it's not gonna get ready to write about [TS]

00:22:23   magazine articles I can you read so I believe people are happy to read good [TS]

00:22:27   things and so we work really hard on the copy and we pushed back on this sort of [TS]

00:22:32   the evolution of Web Design lately which is it's very very slick a lot of like [TS]

00:22:37   big huge pictures backgrounds are sliding past you know parallax effect [TS]

00:22:42   slotting past one another you know very little taxed more and more imagery and I [TS]

00:22:47   just wanna push back on that that's what our new site does because [TS]

00:22:50   I think I don't think it's very comfortable for people to run to sites [TS]

00:22:55   like that I think people are more comfortable in a sort of a more of a [TS]

00:22:59   cozy website where it's a little bit more obvious that they get the feeling [TS]

00:23:06   that they know the people behind it [TS]

00:23:08   compared to seeing that something was designed in any fashion sort of way so I [TS]

00:23:14   know I'm going off track here but no that's the idea that's how we've always [TS]

00:23:18   been knowin and you know you when I sure very similar views on that but marketing [TS]

00:23:23   communication lies the thing I believe in you guys always have to is is a sort [TS]

00:23:31   of no bullshit tone to the pros so you can write tons you could write like you [TS]

00:23:38   said way more tax than than an expert might recommend for a product page but [TS]

00:23:45   as long as every single bit of it is carefully written not just not just you [TS]

00:23:51   have a lot of words because you didn't added but you have a lot of words even [TS]

00:23:55   though you did at it and every word serves a purpose and it's just totally [TS]

00:24:00   honest just be radically honest with the deep customer potential customer it can [TS]

00:24:07   totally work and I think it like you said it's reassuring it sounds like [TS]

00:24:13   these are real people talking solely in that that's how we've tried to rights [TS]

00:24:17   for as long as I can remember which is i wanna write like I speak you know I want [TS]

00:24:22   to write when someone reads whatever written I would imagine myself telling [TS]

00:24:25   them this thing in person and if I can't imagine that I pull back in the bullshit [TS]

00:24:30   meter goes off I would never say this in person I would never speak this way in [TS]

00:24:34   person I would never describe the private this way in person and I think [TS]

00:24:37   if you go to a lot of websites today in you read the text you know you go they [TS]

00:24:44   would never talk to me like this if I was sitting next to them or no one [TS]

00:24:48   actually speaks this way I think a lot of marketing copy is is is almost [TS]

00:24:52   written in a separate incidents in a different language it's not even in [TS]

00:24:55   English [TS]

00:24:56   it's it's it's not conversational it's a very surface level shallow I don't know [TS]

00:25:05   how to explain it but it's just it's another language that people don't [TS]

00:25:07   actually speak and so I want to make sure that our sites are written language [TS]

00:25:12   people understand which is just plain English very very upfront candid about [TS]

00:25:17   everything and and honest and friendly and and and and using some liberties to [TS]

00:25:21   to say things that people [TS]

00:25:23   corporate websites might not normally say to me when I encounter it as a user [TS]

00:25:29   / customer it's not that i disbelieve it it's not that I think I'm being lied to [TS]

00:25:35   and what they're saying here isn't true but it's that it it puts up a good [TS]

00:25:41   defensive shield in front of me though where I'm thinking that way like I'm [TS]

00:25:47   just sort of a exaggerated analogy but little bit like when you you hear a deal [TS]

00:25:57   that too good to be true if you're you know I can't remember that scene in real [TS]

00:26:02   life but it you know [TS]

00:26:04   showing three-card Monte on the street corner and it looks so easy I think and [TS]

00:26:11   I think most people with any common sense thing while there's gotta be a [TS]

00:26:14   catch you're gonna get ripped off right and you may watch the game a little bit [TS]

00:26:18   but I'm not gonna put my $5 up because I think you know there's gotta be a catch [TS]

00:26:21   when I encounter marketing uses like that on a webpage I feel like I'm in the [TS]

00:26:27   presence of three-card Monte dealer agree and that's a terrible in my [TS]

00:26:32   opinion letter three-card Monte dealer it's a better way to treat customers you [TS]

00:26:36   know it's it's just doesn't doesn't resonate it doesn't feel like us so yeah [TS]

00:26:41   anyway I think that for me writing has always been a fundamental part of web [TS]

00:26:46   designer design in general in fact I've always been a believer the words and [TS]

00:26:50   more important than [TS]

00:26:51   then then the pixels you know that that that the best design is the best writing [TS]

00:26:56   and writing is the best design and I've always said that if your gonna sit [TS]

00:27:01   around and read as a bigger spend money to redesign a website you're better off [TS]

00:27:04   rewriting it deep in the existing design but rewriting it in action redesigning [TS]

00:27:08   it with the same content so I think that that's really ultimately what's what's [TS]

00:27:14   most important when you communicate which is what are you saying what does [TS]

00:27:17   it say and so that's something we thought a lot about what the new site [TS]

00:27:20   and the specially since the new site is not just representing our product [TS]

00:27:24   anymore but it's also representing us as a company and it's one it's sort of one [TS]

00:27:30   voice now it's not a corporate thing over here and products in over here it's [TS]

00:27:33   one thing once I take a break and thank our first sponsor and its are a good [TS]

00:27:39   friend at lynda.com ly and da dot com lynda.com has over 2000 high-quality [TS]

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00:27:53   you hear about 2,000 videos it's probably something like you to all sorts [TS]

00:27:57   of crap the reason they have two thousand videos is is not because they [TS]

00:28:01   have all sorts of crap it's because they've been around for a long time and [TS]

00:28:04   they've gotten really big and have a lot of experts and there's a lot of areas [TS]

00:28:07   they cover but they really cultivate high quality material they have stuff to [TS]

00:28:15   my listeners of the show they've got a bunch of iOS developer courses to have [TS]

00:28:20   you next from Mac OS 10 users so anybody out there who's ever thought hey I [TS]

00:28:25   really like to get to know you know the stuff that you can do in terminal on Mac [TS]

00:28:28   OS 10 better of course is for that [TS]

00:28:31   Objective C iOS 7 STK new features everything from getting started to like [TS]

00:28:37   what's the latest stuff web development they have stuff for Pearl them stuff for [TS]

00:28:42   ASP PHP Javascript just about any language you can think of web [TS]

00:28:49   development they have courses that can help you learn it [TS]

00:28:52   Creative Cloud what if you're less of a coder little more of a designer [TS]

00:28:55   Photoshop si CE InDesign see see you name it they have material for After [TS]

00:29:01   Effects Premiere Pro you name it they even have stuff they have photography [TS]

00:29:06   podcasting videography an incredible selection of material that's one of the [TS]

00:29:14   reasons they have so many things to choose from is that a cover such a broad [TS]

00:29:18   range of stuff really high quality material really high-quality video [TS]

00:29:23   production top notch stuff [TS]

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00:29:29   just for listeners of the show go to lynda.com ly nba.com / the talk show and [TS]

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00:29:44   want and see for yourself how good they are so there's anything like that that [TS]

00:29:47   you're looking to learn check that out and you'll thank me for it [TS]

00:29:53   lynda.com / the talk show so let me ask you this I mention this before so you [TS]

00:30:00   guys are making this big change to go to Basecamp successful as you're in a with [TS]

00:30:08   a successful business why did why do you mean epitomizes what you and David in [TS]

00:30:14   particular have to me an uncanny knack for which is is always questioning what [TS]

00:30:22   you're doing and and why not just when you're in trouble but even when things [TS]

00:30:29   are going smoothly [TS]

00:30:32   yourself to do that or do you feel like that just comes naturally to you guys I [TS]

00:30:39   think I think when things are going well you you have to at some level force [TS]

00:30:45   yourself to to stop and look around because [TS]

00:30:49   it's really easy to get lazy when things are going well just think that whatever [TS]

00:30:53   decisions you made the pastor the right ones and just keep writing this I think [TS]

00:30:57   I think when things go bad it's natural to look at what's going on and [TS]

00:31:02   reconsider but when things go well it's really hard to do that so you know we [TS]

00:31:07   don't we don't consciously do this every year but occasionally you know I get an [TS]

00:31:12   itch and I just don't feel like we're thinking hard enough for questioning [TS]

00:31:17   things hard enough and I'll typically be the one to bring this sort of stuff up [TS]

00:31:20   and you know I think it's it's always been in need to be a bit uncomfortable [TS]

00:31:27   after I've been comfortable for a while and so that's how that's all the stuff [TS]

00:31:32   happens and I also think it's you know all this comes back to to the way we set [TS]

00:31:36   our company out the network or so fun to companies so we're on our own time frame [TS]

00:31:40   we don't have to do things because some investors telling us to do it or the [TS]

00:31:44   public markets are telling us to do it so we can take our time we can be in for [TS]

00:31:47   the long run in and when you're when you're doing that you know companies [TS]

00:31:52   typically don't stick around for a long long time unless they're willing to to [TS]

00:31:55   make some changes once things when things change hopefully if you doing [TS]

00:32:01   well you can you can preempt the moments that would normally force you to make [TS]

00:32:06   changes if you make them too late you know I think I think that I typically [TS]

00:32:11   get an edge and you know it comes up different times when we launch the new [TS]

00:32:16   version at base camp in 2012 we we've been running the old version of base [TS]

00:32:20   camp which has not called base camp classic for eight years and it was doing [TS]

00:32:23   really well and things were great and there's really no reason to to change [TS]

00:32:27   except that like I found that we weren't using Basecamp as much anymore [TS]

00:32:31   ourselves we're using other things campfire and some other stuff and that's [TS]

00:32:36   a problem like why are we using what we're making any more that's that's not [TS]

00:32:39   good I mean that was sort of the impetus to to read to question the question that [TS]

00:32:44   sometimes it's very obvious another time he just got to get ahead of it before [TS]

00:32:49   it's too late to make a change like a canary in the coal mine if you're not [TS]

00:32:53   using your own product yeah I know we've always built things that we need to use [TS]

00:32:59   it we were still using Basecamp [TS]

00:33:01   using this much because the way we we we work to change the way we work as has [TS]

00:33:06   changed and the classic version was little bit more pointed lower back [TS]

00:33:12   towards the days we're doing client work which we were no longer doing we weren't [TS]

00:33:17   doing work anymore we're we're making software and so are are sort of our [TS]

00:33:21   needs of change in the way we work to changed and and that's when the reasons [TS]

00:33:25   I think we're not using Basecamp as much as we had a problem in this new version [TS]

00:33:29   we were crazy users were incredibly heavy users of Basecamp probably no one [TS]

00:33:33   other than US I love the new version in this because we built it based on what [TS]

00:33:38   we need today so that those of those kind of moments were things like that [TS]

00:33:42   come up probably made for the new base camp to be a broader platform because it [TS]

00:33:51   still you guys still clearly had in mind your roots as a client services company [TS]

00:33:57   and I mean I know first-hand that a lot of people know my friends who still do [TS]

00:34:02   client services ton of them probably a majority do the client relationships [TS]

00:34:08   through base camp in the projects are still the new base camp is still a great [TS]

00:34:14   product for client services and actually it's it's even better the the old base [TS]

00:34:21   camp had some some air base in classic had had some tricky things that you had [TS]

00:34:28   to set up an order for someone to be a client there's this idea of the client [TS]

00:34:31   firm split which was sometimes a little bit complicated because if you had three [TS]

00:34:36   people involved like an external contractor in affirming a client it's [TS]

00:34:39   like who's the contract with a decline the firm in their sum is pretty rigid [TS]

00:34:43   actually and and the new version of base camp is a lot looser in that way that [TS]

00:34:46   you can have multiple parties involved in the same project you can also [TS]

00:34:50   designate certain people as the client and you can decide that i dont wanna [TS]

00:34:53   show The Client certain things in the project it's a lot clearer actually than [TS]

00:34:57   the old version but but yeah that's client services firms design firms big [TS]

00:35:04   part of our customer base and so are very very aware of what they need and [TS]

00:35:07   how they're using the product [TS]

00:35:08   and we still occasionally have client like arrangements like for example when [TS]

00:35:12   we're publishing our our book that the the the the publishing house Random [TS]

00:35:18   House her crown is actually the clients we kind of use that feature there too [TS]

00:35:24   but yet the new version of Basecamp tools functionalities similar but the [TS]

00:35:30   approaches are different the ideas are different implementations very different [TS]

00:35:33   the interface is very very different and but fundamentally projects and people [TS]

00:35:39   working together need need a similar tools regardless of whether or not it's [TS]

00:35:43   ten years ago or today only need a way to communicate the easy way to keep [TS]

00:35:46   track of the work that has to be done many do we keep track of schedules and [TS]

00:35:49   he wears a way to share files and give feedback that's all basic functionality [TS]

00:35:53   the people need but you can implement that in different ways so one of the [TS]

00:35:59   other things and you very mention it to you guys when you in 2012 so about two [TS]

00:36:03   years ago launched the new base camp and it really is it is a lot more than a a [TS]

00:36:10   1.0 to 2.0 change you guys really kind of started over and it had all the [TS]

00:36:17   features of the old base camp at organized very differently and you guys [TS]

00:36:21   kept base camp classic because it's different enough that there might be [TS]

00:36:25   some people who really are real I'm presuming that they're just either [TS]

00:36:28   either at their personality and they just don't want a big change or they're [TS]

00:36:32   just have a process that two rooted in the old base camp that it would be a big [TS]

00:36:38   shake-up for them to move in the thing that's interesting to me is that you [TS]

00:36:41   guys have a reputation in big changes like changing the name of the company [TS]

00:36:46   from 37 soon as the base camp shedding all the other products and you guys sort [TS]

00:36:54   of have a reputation rhetorically as flame throwers you know that you'll go [TS]

00:36:59   out there and and if you're going to encourage people to work remotely you're [TS]

00:37:02   going to do it and a bold way right but you guys also do things that are very [TS]

00:37:09   few software developers do which is to [TS]

00:37:13   keep do something like keep base camp classic around and you know like you [TS]

00:37:19   said till the end of the internet or the end of the company you're gonna keep it [TS]

00:37:23   working and keep software security updates and stuff like that where does [TS]

00:37:32   that come from [TS]

00:37:33   you know it's it's it's it's so fundamental to us because you know [TS]

00:37:39   what's different about our products is that their services to and in a lot of [TS]

00:37:43   companies have come to rely on the services they train their staff they've [TS]

00:37:47   trained their clients have ongoing long-term projects and and for us to [TS]

00:37:52   disrupt their business because we want to change something that doesn't sit [TS]

00:37:57   well with us it's not fair to them and we've always been a company's confronted [TS]

00:38:01   by our customers so you know we we we look out for them and in this case we [TS]

00:38:07   saw no reason why we should force changed anybody that there's a thing you [TS]

00:38:11   know people always say like people don't like change and I don't think that's [TS]

00:38:15   true I think people of change if if it's changed it ready for it if they want to [TS]

00:38:19   make it themselves but I don't think people like force change they certainly [TS]

00:38:22   don't like it when someone forces them to change especially when you're looking [TS]

00:38:26   at a product like base camp which is not just used by a single person you like [TS]

00:38:29   for example you upgrade your phone from I was 16 I was 72 pretty much just [TS]

00:38:33   affects you but if you if you move from base camp classic to the new base camp [TS]

00:38:38   or you're forced to for example that might affect forty different people your [TS]

00:38:41   company and seven of your clients you know we're paying your clients are [TS]

00:38:45   paying you you know maybe there are hundreds of thousands of dollars a year [TS]

00:38:49   like to to to uproot down for us to force you to upload them and make their [TS]

00:38:54   lives more difficult is going to have a negative impact on your own business and [TS]

00:38:57   ultimately and ours it doesn't make any sense so we're very careful about that [TS]

00:39:01   very thoughtful about that and a large number of our customers continue to use [TS]

00:39:05   classic and and we will never ever ask them to change their free to change we [TS]

00:39:10   have a migration path if they choose to change some customers use the old [TS]

00:39:14   version with older clients in the new resort clients are different [TS]

00:39:17   combinations of things [TS]

00:39:18   but we just decided fundamentally Rep the beginning that this wasn't gonna be [TS]

00:39:22   a force transition for anybody because it just simply too disruptive for for [TS]

00:39:28   clients who have chosen a certain way of working and and that's how we want to be [TS]

00:39:32   with with everything that we do and there's a cost to that you know [TS]

00:39:36   obviously have to maintain two separate code bases and whatnot but there's also [TS]

00:39:41   some some some limits you know we don't we don't improve classic in fundamental [TS]

00:39:46   ways and more classic is sort of as is we maintain it will fix bugs as they pop [TS]

00:39:51   up will handle security updates but it's kind of a maintenance it's in [TS]

00:39:55   maintenance mode but performances is still the same level BCX in terms of [TS]

00:39:59   uptime and all that stuff and infrastructure all that stuff gets [TS]

00:40:02   upgraded along with all the other upgrades at new hardware that sort of [TS]

00:40:06   thing so it's it benefits from that as well but fundamentally it's it's a [TS]

00:40:12   product that exist if you like you can keep using it will never ask you to [TS]

00:40:15   leave and that's just what I think when you when you went went when you sell [TS]

00:40:20   something to somebody and we feel there's a responsibility for us to [TS]

00:40:24   maintain that contract with them that they signed up for this thing and they [TS]

00:40:29   expected to be around we should we should hold up our Saudi contract which [TS]

00:40:32   is different if your company doesn't sell things you just give stuff away for [TS]

00:40:37   free [TS]

00:40:38   you don't feel an obligation to anybody because no one has an obligation to you [TS]

00:40:43   know one's no one's invest no one's betting on you in a big way no one's [TS]

00:40:47   investing their time in the process to really sink in and really believe in [TS]

00:40:51   this thing just getting this thing for free and they just don't care about it [TS]

00:40:54   so much so if we were just giving stuff away for free [TS]

00:40:56   it'd be a lot easier for us to say screw them but that's that's not what we do [TS]

00:41:00   and that's how we went at it you said there's definitely a cost to that sort [TS]

00:41:06   of strategy but no matter what there's a cost because of what were your other [TS]

00:41:10   options your other options would have been [TS]

00:41:13   to go with the new platform and you know have like I said like a three-month or [TS]

00:41:18   six-month scheduled to shutter the old one and risk alienating a lot of [TS]

00:41:23   customers which is a cost or you could have just kept building on the old one [TS]

00:41:30   and you would have never gotten it to be too satisfied that it's that you're [TS]

00:41:35   saying you saw were like you know what this isn't good enough for today anymore [TS]

00:41:39   and if you would just iterate on the old platform you wouldn't have gotten there [TS]

00:41:43   that's right we thought about that was an option [TS]

00:41:47   early on which was you know do we in fact that that's kind of how this whole [TS]

00:41:52   thing started not the name change but the the new version Basecamp a couple [TS]

00:41:56   years ago is that we had some new ideas on things we want to speed up [TS]

00:41:59   specifically in Basecamp and we looked at what it would take to do that and [TS]

00:42:06   structurally you know basic chem class was on an older codebase it wasn't as up [TS]

00:42:11   to speed with a variety of things that we were doing at the time interface [TS]

00:42:15   ideas that we had what not and and retrofitting these new ideas into the [TS]

00:42:20   old product was going to create sort of a massive compromise in that that wasn't [TS]

00:42:29   the way forward we didn't think compromise was the way forward so we [TS]

00:42:34   just decided that look there's there's a [TS]

00:42:36   at the time of course means a big risk to do a new version basically we had no [TS]

00:42:39   idea what's going to happen but at the time of our customers were using [TS]

00:42:43   Basecamp classic and you know we just felt like let's let's not rock the boat [TS]

00:42:50   from them they're happy are ready and but let's spend some time to make sure [TS]

00:42:56   that what this new version that we do is we can stop which we actually wrote from [TS]

00:42:59   rewrote from scratch which is something we said was always a bad idea [TS]

00:43:03   David David always been really really big on this which is rewrites her [TS]

00:43:07   terrible idea at the time there but what turns out they're terrible if you're [TS]

00:43:12   just trying to rewrite the back end just too [TS]

00:43:15   you know but not have have no customer facing changes using a change tack or [TS]

00:43:19   text after something that can be really bad but if you fundamentally different [TS]

00:43:22   ideas about how to implement something going for it it's actually faster faster [TS]

00:43:26   for us to to build a new version from scratch me get all sorts of other things [TS]

00:43:30   because we did that we got to reconsider all sorts of things along the way we had [TS]

00:43:34   those are the options the option was to to modify the existing version in a way [TS]

00:43:38   that we never thought we could really get far enough along we wanted to be so [TS]

00:43:41   that was just not going to happen the other option was 22 forced migration a [TS]

00:43:46   certain point which we thought would be really disruptive in a bad way and [TS]

00:43:51   harmful and you'd probably end up with a lot of customers who loved us who all [TS]

00:43:55   the sudden hated us which would be the worst possible scenario and so even [TS]

00:44:00   though was a hard decision to make a whole new version of Basecamp it became [TS]

00:44:04   obvious decision after weighing all the options and then the other option was [TS]

00:44:08   you know I'm not the other option but you know how how much how easy do we [TS]

00:44:12   want to make [TS]

00:44:13   to move from classic to the new version so we spent a lot of time on the [TS]

00:44:16   migration touts it was what was interesting about that experience was [TS]

00:44:21   that we actually made it too easy and because we made it too easy to move from [TS]

00:44:26   classic to the new one [TS]

00:44:27   a lot of people who tried the new one who loved classic didn't like the new [TS]

00:44:31   one because they're so used to the old one we saw we made it almost too easy [TS]

00:44:34   for them to try it and then they sort of recoil because it was so vastly [TS]

00:44:39   different that they've never given another chance to go back or see want to [TS]

00:44:44   go back and they could cause the migration was not destructive so we [TS]

00:44:48   actually made a copy of the data moving forward we didn't we didn't move any [TS]

00:44:51   data so they can continue to use what they what they had but looking back on [TS]

00:44:56   it now and I think we would have done or what we would do differently if we do [TS]

00:45:00   this again was not to make it so easy in fact but to to to make it a little bit [TS]

00:45:04   harder to move so people didn't [TS]

00:45:06   sort of out of curiosity try the new thing when they're perfectly happy with [TS]

00:45:11   the old thing we didn't introduce that we would would have introduced next [TS]

00:45:15   rings I T two people had when they saw the new one and didn't do exactly the [TS]

00:45:19   same things as the old one people get nervous about that so I think we learned [TS]

00:45:22   we learned a great lesson there which is don't always make things easier in some [TS]

00:45:26   cases you want to add an extra step to make things harder you want to make [TS]

00:45:29   people think about things a bit more before they do that yeah and that's a [TS]

00:45:32   perfect example of of what I've always admired about you guys is that I guess [TS]

00:45:38   the phrases you know this is not one of the slogans of rails as a framework that [TS]

00:45:42   it opinionated software yes you guys are deadly opinionated people but it's not [TS]

00:45:49   being opinionated strongly opinionated doesn't necessarily mean even though I [TS]

00:45:54   think a lot of people jump to the conclusion that in mind that you always [TS]

00:45:57   think you know better than everybody else our way or the highway that you [TS]

00:46:01   guys do have an incredible amount of attention that you pay to your customers [TS]

00:46:07   and have been like a respect for the customer I think you have to have that I [TS]

00:46:15   mean if you have to happen if your company like us which is funded by our [TS]

00:46:19   customers we work for them [TS]

00:46:22   our job is to help them do their job better and that's what we're here for so [TS]

00:46:25   obviously want to make things that we're happy with more proud of but but our [TS]

00:46:30   customers pay us and we have to make sure that they're really really happy [TS]

00:46:33   with what we're doing and where we have to be thoughtful about what it's like to [TS]

00:46:36   be them software company sometimes can think a lot about themselves because I [TS]

00:46:42   think a lot about technology advances and they think a lot about design and [TS]

00:46:46   they're talking about how you know how beautiful things are and how streamline [TS]

00:46:50   things are and all these things but a lot of that stuff doesn't really matter [TS]

00:46:53   to people who are just in the trenches doing the work what what they want to [TS]

00:46:57   know what they want is not to be forced into major changes in the middle of a [TS]

00:47:03   project I mean think about like how disruptive it would be easier if your [TS]

00:47:06   customer base camp in your in the middle of a new project [TS]

00:47:10   with a client if it's your first project with this client maybe it's an old-time [TS]

00:47:14   client who notes and it's a seven-month project Nova sudden and months and [TS]

00:47:18   months fives and you've got all these assets in Basecamp minimum five leading [TS]

00:47:22   company says hey you can't use it anymore you gotta learn this new thing [TS]

00:47:25   like that is so disruptive to them it be terrible business for us to do that but [TS]

00:47:30   it'd be easy for us to do that to say no this is the way it is [TS]

00:47:33   you got it you gotta move of course you want this better version of Basecamp why [TS]

00:47:36   wouldn't you want a better version of Basecamp it's so much better but it [TS]

00:47:39   doesn't matter if it's so much better because they're not those aren't the [TS]

00:47:43   qualities that they're concerned about their concern about longevity they're [TS]

00:47:46   concerned about consistency they're concerned about maintaining order [TS]

00:47:50   they're concerned about looking organized to cut to clients you know [TS]

00:47:55   they don't wanna forced air force big changes on their clients these are the [TS]

00:47:59   things that matter to them [TS]

00:48:00   continuity is very important to them and that's kind of sexy gotta think about [TS]

00:48:03   that stuff too it's not just about the software and what's better matters not [TS]

00:48:07   being right about this maybe this will spur me on her about a better is not a [TS]

00:48:11   quality that matters to a lot of people because time isn't time is a factor as [TS]

00:48:18   well [TS]

00:48:18   better might matter eight months from now to somebody but right now [TS]

00:48:22   matters not what they want they want continuity right now because people are [TS]

00:48:26   different points in a relationship with a client projects so anyway I'm rambling [TS]

00:48:29   well it's almost like you know it's the way that better can mean so many [TS]

00:48:33   different things where maybe objectively this news burden is better software than [TS]

00:48:38   the old version but what better for the customer is the lack of an interruption [TS]

00:48:43   totally right and if you just think about you know our customers base camp [TS]

00:48:49   is important part of their work but it's not what they do for a living in a base [TS]

00:48:53   camp they service clients for a living [TS]

00:48:56   they deliver work to clients for living they take care of clients for living in [TS]

00:48:59   to have us all the sudden jump in the middle of them in their clients say hey [TS]

00:49:03   you gotta learn this new system right now you know you've got a deadline next [TS]

00:49:05   week [TS]

00:49:06   that would just be so arrogant of us to do that and that would be a terrible [TS]

00:49:10   mood so you have to be very thoughtful about that kind of stuff and you have to [TS]

00:49:15   keep in mind it betters now people are always looking for [TS]

00:49:17   yeah let me take a second break here in thank our second sponsor and good [TS]

00:49:22   friends back please [TS]

00:49:24   you know back please i've been talking about it for the last few weeks online [TS]

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00:49:36   external hard drives you can back that up [TS]

00:49:40   how do they do that is a good question I got asked on Twitter how do you do that [TS]

00:49:43   how how can it be that they only charged $5 a month unlimited backup its they [TS]

00:49:48   actually have some blog post using Google about it but it's by on their [TS]

00:49:52   side they found a way to build storage really cheap and another factor they [TS]

00:49:59   don't have for users you can get a free trial you can try it out for two weeks [TS]

00:50:03   no charge and you can see how it works but long-term everybody's a paying [TS]

00:50:08   customer it works great they've been around for a while now they're founded [TS]

00:50:14   by X Apple engineers I always emphasized that because it really shows in the Mac [TS]

00:50:18   software you just install it it's a little System Preference panel you set [TS]

00:50:23   it up and then it just goes it just backs up everything and you can control [TS]

00:50:28   how much of your bandwidth that uses you can set it to be to use as much as it [TS]

00:50:33   can get for like the initial backup when you have a lot of stuff to push and then [TS]

00:50:37   you can dial that down and it's never going to use up all your WiFi bandwidth [TS]

00:50:42   just backing it up because you put a new movie on your hard disk or something [TS]

00:50:45   like that and it just works they have an iOS app that allows you to access and [TS]

00:50:51   share any of the files that you've backed up from your system you can [TS]

00:50:55   restore one file at a time or all of your files easily through their website [TS]

00:51:00   or in the case of some kind of an emergency you can do something even like [TS]

00:51:06   get your entire back up onto a USB hard drive [TS]

00:51:13   and they'll ship it to pay for that $5 a month but it's something like $189 or [TS]

00:51:20   something like that and you can get your backup delivered to you if you're across [TS]

00:51:25   the country around the world in an emergency or you can just download one [TS]

00:51:32   file that you have on your back up anywhere you want rundown Mavericks [TS]

00:51:38   there's no add-ons no gimmicks no additional charges you can try it for [TS]

00:51:42   two weeks free see they like it and then when you sign up it's just $5 a month [TS]

00:51:46   per computer after that and the best part totally automatic once you have [TS]

00:51:51   installed the account you never have to worry about it you just know your stuff [TS]

00:51:56   is backed up which is really the only way a real backup can write your only [TS]

00:52:00   running back up to manually murphy's law says you're going to need it the most [TS]

00:52:03   when you've gone the longest between initiating so go check them out here is [TS]

00:52:08   how you can do it and I know you came from the show but at WWW dot Backblaze [TS]

00:52:13   dot com slash daring fireball and you came from the show so we mention him a [TS]

00:52:22   couple times we've mentioned david that David Hanson how long have you guys been [TS]

00:52:27   working together since I think it's 2001 or two pretty much the whole stretch 37 [TS]

00:52:39   signals existed for a few years before that yes since 99 @ Turner member so [TS]

00:52:44   David David to the prisoners in Basecamp with me but before that I hired him to [TS]

00:52:48   do another project for me which was a web based app to manage your book [TS]

00:52:54   collection that was the first time that we work together and I think that was [TS]

00:52:59   2001 at some point but he was originally a was in school he was a student at [TS]

00:53:06   Copenhagen Business School and so I only bought like 10 hours a week from him for [TS]

00:53:09   for quite a while and it wasn't until Basecamp launch that he actually became [TS]

00:53:14   an employee and eventually became a partner in the business I remember it is [TS]

00:53:18   I just have to tell this story I remember meeting him [TS]

00:53:21   and I think maybe we knew each other online you know just you know me writing [TS]

00:53:26   during fireball and him contributing to your guy's blog but we met in person in [TS]

00:53:32   San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Summit in 2005 I think I'm almost sure it was when [TS]

00:53:40   I was working at join in and we were demoing we had some web stuff to demo we [TS]

00:53:45   built it on rails and David was there quite sure what he was there but [TS]

00:53:51   something else related in Rails is really really it was new but it was [TS]

00:53:55   really hot in 2005 and we're in San Francisco and it should show I mean web [TS]

00:54:02   to Huntington called web 2.0 me 90 95% of the people there were just fortunate [TS]

00:54:06   as naturally happens a bunch of us who who you know well maybe were full of [TS]

00:54:13   shit in different ways but we were ushered in a different way than a lot of [TS]

00:54:16   the people who were there we needed lunch and was me and David and I don't [TS]

00:54:21   we had a pretty big group as it may be like 10 of us but mostly you know a lot [TS]

00:54:25   of rails engineers people were conrail stuff good group we had a good lunch we [TS]

00:54:30   went to Chevys down on the street it's on their own [TS]

00:54:36   don't you know and and not a great restaurant but it was near the hotel [TS]

00:54:39   where we were and we had to get back and I'm not afraid to admit I've many meals [TS]

00:54:45   that show he's not embarrassed but a David and I i remember we ordered we [TS]

00:54:54   both got the same thing we got the fetus and I don't know that David ever had for [TS]

00:55:00   years before but they sounded good to him and i said i could get chicken fried [TS]

00:55:06   onions peppers guacamole and all this stuff and and [TS]

00:55:11   I'll never forget this and then you know the food comes and as anybody's evening [TS]

00:55:17   tex-mex Mexican chain restaurant like that knows when you get fajitas you get [TS]

00:55:22   like a hot sizzling platter with the meat and vegetables grilled vegetables [TS]

00:55:27   in a separate thing with the tortillas and then little things like here's the [TS]

00:55:32   guacamole here is the salsa here is the cheese and then you get a empty plate [TS]

00:55:37   and then you you make it yourself right and I'm so I just did my food came I [TS]

00:55:41   start making my thing and David just sort of standard and goes why why why do [TS]

00:55:46   I have to do this and I was and I really was and then he just he just answering [TS]

00:55:53   he was just like I don't know anything [TS]

00:55:56   presumably the people in the kitchen here are professional chefs why why am I [TS]

00:56:03   expected to be the one to know the proportions are going to be the best [TS]

00:56:06   shouldn't they have done this for me and I instantly realize I he's writing it's [TS]

00:56:11   what you have to make you you you put these things together he he he says the [TS]

00:56:17   same he says something about burgers he doesn't like construction kit food is [TS]

00:56:22   how he puts it right I think he's changed on that stands for every time I [TS]

00:56:26   construction kit food where you get a burger you know you know it's kind of [TS]

00:56:30   open face because you've got the bun and then you've got the lettuce tomato onion [TS]

00:56:33   like on the inside and you've got that the patio and a left with the bond under [TS]

00:56:38   it and he's like what am i what am I supposed to do i do i what why would I [TS]

00:56:42   make this decision and i think that that while it's sort of a silly anecdote like [TS]

00:56:47   it has a lot to do with how he sees things which is you know convention over [TS]

00:56:53   configuration that that was one of the fundamental tenets of rails which is it [TS]

00:56:58   should just work out of the box I I had made some intelligent decisions for [TS]

00:57:01   other people the way I think they should be made of you can go and change them if [TS]

00:57:05   you want but if you don't change them everything works the way it's supposed [TS]

00:57:07   to and I think that that that mentality where where he's like why would you [TS]

00:57:13   serve the heat is deconstructed or something that makes us wind rails right [TS]

00:57:18   he's like I don't know what's going to taste good and so you know like with [TS]

00:57:21   rails you start anywhere else product you don't have to set up all the full [TS]

00:57:24   yourself you just type I forget the exact command but it's a trail scaffold [TS]

00:57:28   or something like that and you get these scaffold of an empty Rails project and [TS]

00:57:34   here here's where you'll put your CSS files and here is where you'll put your [TS]

00:57:39   image files because we've already figured that this is a logical folder or [TS]

00:57:44   directory set up you don't have to worry about it you can just start making the [TS]

00:57:48   images in putting them in there and start making the style sheets and [TS]

00:57:51   putting them in there and I'll never I just remembered that I just remember [TS]

00:57:56   when he first started I was like what the hell is he talking about [TS]

00:57:58   within 15 seconds I was like yeah this is this is bogus why am i doing it it's [TS]

00:58:04   it's it's one of those things you don't question until someone from the outside [TS]

00:58:09   comes in and questions that you like I never thought about how ridiculous it is [TS]

00:58:13   absolutely right but same time like there's there's another there's another [TS]

00:58:16   angle to it which is getting a bit too deep on the heat is here but there's [TS]

00:58:21   another angle which is which is entertainment and and control and [TS]

00:58:24   sometimes you know sometimes I feel like we've actually made this mistake with [TS]

00:58:28   our products over the years in some cases where we've been a little bit too [TS]

00:58:31   much about convention and we haven't given people a little bit of control [TS]

00:58:37   over their environment people like to have a little better control over their [TS]

00:58:40   environment in terms of what color should this be or tripod milo gonna hear [TS]

00:58:44   things like that and so I think I think he can do you can take it to the extreme [TS]

00:58:48   in the wrong direction as well but anyway there's obviously happy medium is [TS]

00:58:53   the right place you don't overload people with tons of settings and tons of [TS]

00:58:57   options because that's overwhelming and they don't really know what to do but [TS]

00:59:01   sometimes a little bit being to sort of strip back in terms of customization is [TS]

00:59:06   also not a great experience it's kind of a funny thing but I think he does like a [TS]

00:59:11   great day great metaphor for that because it would be just fine if you [TS]

00:59:15   deliver it to me already folded up with everything in it that be just that be [TS]

00:59:19   just great but there's also some people were like I wanna meet mine and I want [TS]

00:59:22   vegetables I don't like peppers and so you [TS]

00:59:24   flexibility you know I don't like walking i dont care thats how it got [TS]

00:59:29   started I'm sure that it got started with you know somebody who was making [TS]

00:59:32   them and then there is you know the guys I want mine without guacamole the other [TS]

00:59:36   guy was like I want I don't want any sour cream yeah that's how it goes and [TS]

00:59:42   then you know there's out in every culture seems like there's a hot [TS]

00:59:45   sizzling plate option like here in Chicago Greektown have the stuff called [TS]

00:59:50   saganaki which is flaming cheese in it comes out on a hot griddle and and and [TS]

00:59:56   the waiter you know he he he takes his or something or whatever some Greek [TS]

01:00:03   liquor and whores and over the top and lights with a matching lights on fire [TS]

01:00:07   like everyone gets that stuff because it's like this hot sizzling plate if you [TS]

01:00:12   go to an Indian restaurant sometimes you get tender chicken it comes out in the [TS]

01:00:15   hot sizzling plate this hot sizzling plate thing is like made its way across [TS]

01:00:18   the world and every culture has Showtime and food I think that's a good thing it [TS]

01:00:23   always scares me a little bit crazy like this hot cast iron disc is placed in [TS]

01:00:30   someone's carrying it with a bunch of other things like that could be [TS]

01:00:33   incredibly tragic if so if that dropped sort of playing with fire for real let [TS]

01:00:42   me just do the third sponsors a good break it actually will lead me into the [TS]

01:00:48   topic posting we close the show out our third sponsors are good friends and [TS]

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01:01:05   everybody knows greeley kind of hard to find good domain names [TS]

01:01:09   lot of them are taken a lot of the best top-level domains their search will help [TS]

01:01:14   you find them clean simple website to mess around the complicated interface [TS]

01:01:18   and if you already have a domain [TS]

01:01:22   they have something I did another service registered somewhere else they [TS]

01:01:27   are not happy with it you'd like to move they have something that they called [TS]

01:01:31   Valley a domain transfer [TS]

01:01:34   sign up with upper talk to their support and their support staff will just take [TS]

01:01:40   over and they will do all the stuff that needs to be done to get that domain [TS]

01:01:46   transferred for you sounds too good to be true but it really is and it's just [TS]

01:01:51   part of the support that they offer and transferring a domain can be such a pain [TS]

01:01:55   in the ass especially if you don't do it regularly because who's an expert on on [TS]

01:01:59   DNS not me however domain transfer Valley service is just great at no [TS]

01:02:06   additional cost they just want your business as a customer famously [TS]

01:02:11   registering domains domain registrars are are scamming scummy unpleasant [TS]

01:02:19   experience however is the complete opposite they've been around for a long [TS]

01:02:22   time they've been around since the nineties and they're not in it for [TS]

01:02:26   upsells they're not in it for a bunch of scam he adds at the end there's no [TS]

01:02:32   things that you get opted into that you have to double check you know the check [TS]

01:02:38   that the check box isn't the same kind of weird double negative really don't [TS]

01:02:41   know if the check mark you know all sorts it's coming tricks like that other [TS]

01:02:45   reg starts to cover is the complete opposite take a breath of fresh air [TS]

01:02:50   go check out their website and you'll see just how unlike any other registrar [TS]

01:02:56   it looks like they have all sorts of great top-level domains died I owe [TS]

01:03:03   everything all the new stuff they have email stuff if you wanted poster email [TS]

01:03:08   or forward your email you want to use Google Apps for your domain they make [TS]

01:03:12   that super easy they're totally integrated on that you can try thirty [TS]

01:03:16   days of Google Apps on your domain for free just to see if you like it before [TS]

01:03:19   you start paying [TS]

01:03:21   where do you go to find out more easy easy easy go to hover dot com HOV yard [TS]

01:03:28   dot com slash talk show and you don't know you came from the show my thanks to [TS]

01:03:34   them after the show so one of the things you guys did you guys with the name [TS]

01:03:42   change you guys went to you had bad you had Basecamp HQ dot com from back in the [TS]

01:03:50   day when you finally now you have Basecamp dot com without hard work he [TS]

01:03:56   wasn't cheap take it that it was one of those sort of six figure things we had [TS]

01:04:04   to do so we didn't have to do it actually I'd never really felt like [TS]

01:04:07   domains matter that much that's what I was going to ask you know it certainly [TS]

01:04:11   didn't you only changed last week [TS]

01:04:14   know when changed about to change with the new the new base camp wasn't it [TS]

01:04:17   wasn't something that you really paid attention to because of our corporate [TS]

01:04:20   site so those two last week so we want to get Basecamp way back in 2004 we [TS]

01:04:25   couldn't get it so we got his campaign HQ and we felt like who cares it doesn't [TS]

01:04:29   really matter and I think domains are less and less relevant every day that [TS]

01:04:34   goes by because Google is kind of the most important domain Basecamp go to [TS]

01:04:39   google and type base camp and we show up first like that's that's how most people [TS]

01:04:43   get to base camp right so I don't think demeans matter that much but it felt to [TS]

01:04:49   me like it just was one of these irritants I just wanted to gone I went [TS]

01:04:54   to the beach Q parte gone in and I really wanted to Basecamp dot com and so [TS]

01:04:59   we talked to the guy who owned it you know look we have the trademark we could [TS]

01:05:05   have gone after it legal in some way but anytime lawyers involved it is [TS]

01:05:11   unfortunate I'm happy day for me so i'd i'd rather not bring lawyers into [TS]

01:05:16   anything that I actually don't have to and I would I would rather spend more [TS]

01:05:20   money not with a lawyer then then spend money with lawyer so I like her lawyers [TS]

01:05:25   but I have to bring them into things like this so we know [TS]

01:05:28   negotiate this guy for a while and finally he was willing to do to do [TS]

01:05:31   something and and it was a very smooth transfer that point and the other day [TS]

01:05:36   I'm very happy we did it I I don't regret it for a moment I think it's just [TS]

01:05:40   it's better for us especially now they're company mean the same name as [TS]

01:05:43   the product in Basecamp just like one little nagging irritant every night as [TS]

01:05:48   you went to sleep it was it in like you know high-rises is higher as HQ and [TS]

01:05:53   campfires campfire now dot com and backpacks backpack it [TS]

01:05:57   dot com we never ever had our own sure domain it was bugging me and so you know [TS]

01:06:04   fifteen years actually 13 years into it I felt like okay it's time to splurge 13 [TS]

01:06:09   years into it like this is something we do with our office we gotta know we've [TS]

01:06:13   been as you mentioned star of the show we've been sharing office space pretty [TS]

01:06:17   much for our entire existence and then ten years into it [TS]

01:06:20   11 years into it and it's finally time to spend some money in office I'm so we [TS]

01:06:25   did that and then I feel like now it's finally time to spend some money domain [TS]

01:06:29   so I don't ever recommend anybody spending a ton of money to get a domain [TS]

01:06:33   name in the starting a business it seems like the the worst possible way to spend [TS]

01:06:36   money it's that money should be precious to you and you should hold on to that [TS]

01:06:41   and you're going to need it can be tough when you get started but in a certain [TS]

01:06:45   point if you want to make a luxury spend I think I think it's a nice thing to do [TS]

01:06:49   if you can afford it [TS]

01:06:50   yeah I think especially with the likes second bunch of top-level domains that [TS]

01:06:59   have come into somewhat widespread use over the last few years the country code [TS]

01:07:03   ones like died so I Q branch with Vesper weed weed we just got . Co's . CEO which [TS]

01:07:12   i think has the advantage popular because it looks like dot com but it's [TS]

01:07:17   widely used enough that it doesn't seem weird anymore [TS]

01:07:21   but we can we got them for you know just the regular 15 bucks that cost to [TS]

01:07:26   register a new domain yeah and look you're not losing sales over that right [TS]

01:07:30   you know it's it's doesn't affect you guys that all people are gonna talk [TS]

01:07:34   about fester because someone's use Vesper they're gonna look at on the App [TS]

01:07:37   Store and I know from the analytics wow people find it they go to Google and [TS]

01:07:41   they type Vesper app yeah there you go and that's where we could we could have [TS]

01:07:47   a domain name that doesn't even have aspirin it and it would you could just [TS]

01:07:51   say like Q branch . Coast / up and people would get there because they go [TS]

01:07:55   from Google yes I yeah it's just it doesn't it doesn't matter but we we just [TS]

01:08:01   we waited long enough it was talking out long enough to get it done so that the [TS]

01:08:07   last time I talked about was a story linked to two day during fireball this [TS]

01:08:11   post by John Bell who used to work at RealNetworks from 2000 to 2005 and if so [TS]

01:08:22   what kind of its a trip down memory lane to like 2002 2005 but like at the time [TS]

01:08:27   real was it's hard to imagine you know it's one of those things where a man [TS]

01:08:32   times change so fast but the time RealPlayer an awful lot of video on the [TS]

01:08:37   web was real player and you had to get this plugin and you know anybody's old [TS]

01:08:43   enough to remember but if you're too young or you have a bad memory it was [TS]

01:08:49   this plugin you'd get for the Mac or Windows in your web browser to play [TS]

01:08:53   proprietary real player audio and video [TS]

01:08:58   and it was such a pain in the ass to get and you'd go to you can get to their [TS]

01:09:02   website but their website they made the link hard to find and they have like a [TS]

01:09:06   paid version they were trying to get you to have and there was a free version but [TS]

01:09:10   it was really hard to find it was like enough that you you would think like [TS]

01:09:15   when you're setting up a computer for your parents and you know I hadn't been [TS]

01:09:18   there in a couple months or you just by yourself a new computer and you know [TS]

01:09:24   wanted to get it installed you would I would think to myself like them I am I [TS]

01:09:29   not my notes i cant find this anymore and then once you had it it was just bad [TS]

01:09:35   software and they're always up selling stuff and John Bell who was there had a [TS]

01:09:41   piece today and he said that it was you know inside the company was everybody [TS]

01:09:45   knew and that they would complain about it and you know everybody can do about [TS]

01:09:50   it [TS]

01:09:51   whatever and but they were well aware of it they knew that people didn't like [TS]

01:09:56   their the plugin we're gonna call they didn't like the website they did they [TS]

01:10:01   resented the whole thing but that one day his manager called him in and took [TS]

01:10:06   him to a whiteboard Andrew this graph was a straight line then had to drop a [TS]

01:10:11   line when backup and he goes this is our revenue here this drop this is where we [TS]

01:10:16   tried to get rid of these tactics we tried to do what you're saying we should [TS]

01:10:20   do and we did the money dried up so what do you think we should do should we do [TS]

01:10:24   that and fire half of our employees or should you know should we keep going and [TS]

01:10:29   I thought you know it's exactly what I assumed was the case but I never heard [TS]

01:10:34   it from anybody who worked there before I just presume they have to know and I [TS]

01:10:38   was like they must somehow painted themselves into a corner where this is [TS]

01:10:41   the only way they're they're keeping the lights on but I to me it's like they're [TS]

01:10:46   there is no good answer to that question at that point because you already you've [TS]

01:10:50   already painted herself in a corner there's no way out [TS]

01:10:54   and that the trick is that you you should never ever find yourself even at [TS]

01:11:00   the beginning even I get the in the early days is one bad decision you [TS]

01:11:04   should never put your users or customers interests in opposition to your [TS]

01:11:10   company's interests yes I love this post I'm glad you liked it up I looked at it [TS]

01:11:16   briefly earlier and i was just kind of reading through it as yours talk as [TS]

01:11:19   you're talking to me this is this is such a fundamental thing because when [TS]

01:11:25   you when you launch in our member RealNetworks and it's amazing how [TS]

01:11:31   dominant they were and then how quickly they went away i mean that was the only [TS]

01:11:35   way to play audio and video basically on the web for many years and a boom gone [TS]

01:11:40   they're gone overnight and I think when you start getting into really [TS]

01:11:46   complicated tricky business models like this this is where you're going to find [TS]

01:11:49   yourself when you know I think the closer you are to business 101 which is [TS]

01:11:54   make something worth paying for [TS]

01:11:56   and charged for it right from the back right from the start just like every [TS]

01:11:59   other business on the planet does the closer you're gonna be 22 having a [TS]

01:12:03   really solid business where where the right thing for you is the right thing [TS]

01:12:07   for the customers but the further away you are from business 101 [TS]

01:12:12   RealNetworks was which was like give stuff away for free [TS]

01:12:15   do some weird stuff hide little links here you know like be annoying like the [TS]

01:12:20   more you do the more you trying more you go in that direction the further partner [TS]

01:12:25   interests are gonna be and and this is something that I've always believed very [TS]

01:12:29   strongly in which is that business is not that complicated unless you make it [TS]

01:12:33   complicated obviously I'm not saying it's easy it's hard to build a [TS]

01:12:37   successful business but fundamentally it's not a complicated thing you make [TS]

01:12:41   something that is worth paying for [TS]

01:12:43   and you sell to people and they get more value out of it and you charge them for [TS]

01:12:47   it like you're in a good position is launching cover your costs you could do [TS]

01:12:50   that forever you're you're in really good spot that's that's what it should [TS]

01:12:53   be about and so here you know base camp now this is something we took we talk [TS]

01:12:58   about time like selling tensely selling high rise or or campfire or [TS]

01:13:03   were assigned to sunset them in a way where only existing customers can use [TS]

01:13:07   them that could have a short-term impact on a revenue in a negative way we're not [TS]

01:13:12   gonna have as much revenue coming in as we did but I've never been one who's [TS]

01:13:16   been interested in maximizing revenue to last you know percentage point I don't [TS]

01:13:20   find that to be an enjoyable experience an interesting one [TS]

01:13:23   I always trying to figure out the right thing to do in a situation if that means [TS]

01:13:28   a little bit less money as long as my expenses are covered everything is ok [TS]

01:13:31   I'm totally fine with that but when you start getting in this situation which is [TS]

01:13:36   like do the right thing and we go out of business [TS]

01:13:40   you're screwed like you said you're screwed you been screwed up for a long [TS]

01:13:43   time and there's very little very little hope you can get out of it unless you [TS]

01:13:46   have a long enough time ahead of you unless you have ten twenty years to [TS]

01:13:50   write that wrong and most companies in that position don't because it funded by [TS]

01:13:54   investors right and that's why the first place they're able to give stuff away [TS]

01:13:58   for free because they didn't have to make money we don't have to make money [TS]

01:14:00   up front [TS]

01:14:01   you're not gonna be good at it when it's time to make money and then you're [TS]

01:14:04   screwed so this is a great post I think revenue maximum maximization as a as a [TS]

01:14:10   number one priority [TS]

01:14:13   can often leads to ruin but it leads to ruin ten years down the road maybe [TS]

01:14:20   twenty years down the road but in an office said nobody even remembers the [TS]

01:14:24   decisions that led you there but it just starts you down the path of making [TS]

01:14:29   decisions that pit you against your customers and users and and this happens [TS]

01:14:34   a lot in in public companies may come as a forced to go public because now you [TS]

01:14:39   gotta make quarterly numbers and that's where all the stuff starts to happen in [TS]

01:14:42   gaza I'll give you an example I think for example I would be absolutely [TS]

01:14:48   terrified to be an executive at or to own stock in a cable companies like [TS]

01:14:56   Comcast or Time Warner [TS]

01:14:58   because it's paid Comcast make tons of money and ordered headquartered here in [TS]

01:15:04   Philly David biggest skyscraper in the city and they just announced plans for [TS]

01:15:09   the second biggest skyscraper in the city right next door they they bought [TS]

01:15:13   NBC Universal couple years ago [TS]

01:15:16   tons of money but I would I would be terrified to be part of that because [TS]

01:15:23   it's so clear that people hate their cable companies and they resent the [TS]

01:15:28   bills that they pay every month for it and I don't know what you know what the [TS]

01:15:33   path is to monthly cable subscribers collapsing shriveling away or something [TS]

01:15:42   like that and maybe it won't happen I don't know but the fact is that so many [TS]

01:15:46   people wanted to happen to me is terrible I feel again not terrible any [TS]

01:15:52   kind of moral sense but terrible in those type of situations usually end up [TS]

01:15:57   badly at some point that there's that there's also just the morale of [TS]

01:16:02   employees when everybody hates your company it's not a good place to go to [TS]

01:16:08   work and and when when when the morale search the dive and people are motivated [TS]

01:16:14   to to work because everyone hates them in like when customers call upon the [TS]

01:16:17   phone they just you know yell at the Customer Service folks like it's just [TS]

01:16:21   not a pleasant place and and great things don't come from those [TS]

01:16:24   environments [TS]

01:16:25   you know i i dont think companies like that are capable over the long term of [TS]

01:16:29   delivering great things when when their employees don't want to be there or are [TS]

01:16:33   ashamed of being there or don't agree with with what they're doing so i think [TS]

01:16:37   is a long term things I mean Comcast I think Comcast made a really smart [TS]

01:16:42   decision back back before cable modems were out you know they were just [TS]

01:16:47   basically cable provider a TV cable TV provider and that they stuck with that [TS]

01:16:52   they'd be dead but since they own the pipe into your house and since they [TS]

01:16:57   provide the connectivity that drives all these other things they probably much [TS]

01:17:02   longer runway than they would have so that was smart but you're right I mean [TS]

01:17:05   you get your cable bill I got in fact I was just how I don't have cable TV at [TS]

01:17:11   home and i was thinkin about gettin exam one to watch the Bulls and I can only [TS]

01:17:15   watch some of the choose some of the games on local WGN TV so your reason I [TS]

01:17:20   wanna get cable is for live sports that is the only reason I wanna get cable and [TS]

01:17:25   I have a feeling that I'm not alone there I think a lot of people just get [TS]

01:17:28   cable for live sports and then ok so i didnt i didnt do it because it was just [TS]

01:17:35   it seems so expensive just to watch Live Sports for me was one team so I didn't [TS]

01:17:41   do it and then start looking into some other options like what else could I do [TS]

01:17:43   and I i've landed on NBA game time or whatever it's called where you can buy [TS]

01:17:49   packaged and watch eighteens lives or on your computer or iPad or iPhone so I [TS]

01:17:56   sign up for that but I find out that I can't get the Bulls because it's a local [TS]

01:18:00   blackout and I'm just like all these all these rules you know this is gonna come [TS]

01:18:05   crumbling down there is no way you can maintain this mode with these tiny [TS]

01:18:09   exception rules it's gonna turn in the moment that turns I would I would look [TS]

01:18:14   out below [TS]

01:18:15   I would not want to be sure you know the baseballs exactly like that where an MLB [TS]

01:18:21   as great-great-great I mean I just cutting edge and the NBA is hot on their [TS]

01:18:27   heels maybe the second most involved pro network with the internet and delivering [TS]

01:18:31   stuff but it it works out super great for me as a Yankees fan living in [TS]

01:18:37   Philadelphia but you can't I couldn't watch the Phillies and you know I go to [TS]

01:18:41   dinner couple times a year and I was there last year and I'm so used to being [TS]

01:18:46   able to watch the Yankees on my iPhone or iPad [TS]

01:18:50   and it stopped working and I I was so confused it's the blackout I'm actually [TS]

01:18:55   now that I'm in New York I can't do this thing which is awesome and which is just [TS]

01:18:59   a totally arbitrary you know make some technical sense rule and it you know [TS]

01:19:06   anything like that where you're pushing people and you can do things like sign [TS]

01:19:09   up for like a VPN type thing yeah you read director Internet traffic through [TS]

01:19:15   you know make it look like you're in Florida or somewhere else and then you [TS]

01:19:20   can do it just doesn't end up well if you're asking your customers to do so or [TS]

01:19:27   not encouraging but if the rules are set up make your customers want to do stuff [TS]

01:19:34   like that you just don't think it's sustainable and I think this comes full [TS]

01:19:40   circle because this comes back to the reason why a lot of people in big [TS]

01:19:45   organizations you something like base camp they're not actually allowed to but [TS]

01:19:49   they do because what they're told they have to do doesn't work and so people do [TS]

01:19:54   hacker on systems take to get into two to be able to use something that they're [TS]

01:19:59   not technically permitted to use but they want to use and and I think like [TS]

01:20:03   you said something for piano or having a friend you live somewhere else you know [TS]

01:20:07   sign up for you in some way like HBO Go people do this all the time with HBO Go [TS]

01:20:11   right they they they use a friends login who has cables I can go another good [TS]

01:20:16   example I wanna watch HBO I love HBO I can't watch HBO because most importantly [TS]

01:20:22   and most importantly though you want to pay for HBO right you're not you're not [TS]

01:20:27   saying I want to get it for free [TS]

01:20:30   you're saying I would love to pay for HBO and I'm be happy to pay a hundred [TS]

01:20:35   bucks a seasoned hundred fifty bucks of season two and about this season of the [TS]

01:20:39   MBA to watch the Bulls I would be do that in a moment in fact I was signing [TS]

01:20:43   up for four NBA season pass wherever it's called it's like a hundred and [TS]

01:20:47   thirty bucks or whatever it is and I was so glad that I could buy [TS]

01:20:52   my balls viewing I was like so pumped and then I find out that I can't because [TS]

01:20:56   I'm chicago market of course I want to watch the Bulls I'm in Chicago like what [TS]

01:21:01   a weird setup that I can't watch my home team it's such a bus system so whenever [TS]

01:21:07   I see things like that out there it's so obvious that those those institutions [TS]

01:21:11   are are hanging on for dear life and who knows when they come crumbling down for [TS]

01:21:14   something to happen right so like MLB I know that they've had in there is about [TS]

01:21:18   the same price I think it's hundred and twenty bucks some somewhere around there [TS]

01:21:22   per season again and they've had year-over-year growth for years and [TS]

01:21:27   years and years and they started even before mobile stuff where you had to use [TS]

01:21:30   flash on a website to do it but every year there it's grown and thats people [TS]

01:21:35   who are signing up for $100 subscription rate which is a ton you know and yeah [TS]

01:21:39   everybody says it's free it's ever gonna work people you know [TS]

01:21:44   year-over-year growth hundred dollars per season and it's all of that is [TS]

01:21:49   without anybody getting their local team which has got to be 95% of the people [TS]

01:21:54   who would subside upward [TS]

01:21:56   can you even imagine how many people would sign up for it paid $100 if they [TS]

01:22:01   can watch their local team and one of the great things that I think makes [TS]

01:22:06   sports a sustainable long-term business is that if anything stuff like Twitter [TS]

01:22:12   and other things have made the everybody usually wants to watch sports live [TS]

01:22:17   anyway here live because yesterdays game today's game it means your gonna be [TS]

01:22:23   there during the commercial breaks right if you're watching live those are [TS]

01:22:28   commercial breaks that people are are gonna skip over right I don't I almost [TS]

01:22:33   never watch commercial I don't want that much commercial TV but when I do it on [TS]

01:22:37   TiVo and the commercials get forward it but I'm 1 I'm watching sports the [TS]

01:22:41   commercials played some cod up cuz i dont wanna be behind cuz I have my [TS]

01:22:44   Twitter OpenID and get spoiled Tony spot on and then also I know and they're also [TS]

01:22:53   talking about fans and so fans are are are fired up and like I was truly was so [TS]

01:23:02   excited to spend $130 with the NBA I was like wow I can do this I can watch the [TS]

01:23:08   Bulls on my iPad killer I'm in I am so in an hour so I get there and and its [TS]

01:23:13   base like you know face and hand like no you can't and then I was I was somebody [TS]

01:23:18   who they had sold hundred and thirty bucks in on Sunday tell me know that is [TS]

01:23:24   a moment where you actually get a stop at a company it's not a moment like oh [TS]

01:23:27   man that's too bad you actually are pissed off and companies are pissing off [TS]

01:23:33   people who have money to spend it [TS]

01:23:35   you can see things are just breaking down there and that was really bummed me [TS]

01:23:39   out so I'm so I'm like I was pissed at a company that I want to give a hundred [TS]

01:23:44   and thirty bucks normally I'm not pissed at a company I want to buy something [TS]

01:23:47   from I'm excited about the company [TS]

01:23:50   the way in a way I see it as a like I said that I I just see it is inevitable [TS]

01:23:54   that it's gonna crumble is that if you don't have your customers and users [TS]

01:23:59   behind you and and their enthusiasm in their loyalty you've you're creating an [TS]

01:24:05   opportunity and maybe the technology doesn't exist but technology in a new [TS]

01:24:10   technology has the whole point of you know everything we do and talk about [TS]

01:24:14   it's coming and you're you're creating opportunities for potential disruptors [TS]

01:24:23   in the future it's gonna happen to me of course the tricky thing they're right is [TS]

01:24:27   is licensing and but but but still like at one point somewhere in the future [TS]

01:24:32   this is gonna get worked out clearly it's clearly getting it worked out it's [TS]

01:24:36   gonna be a new company is able to do something no one's done before and it's [TS]

01:24:39   probably not gonna be Comcast right well and the big thing like you said they own [TS]

01:24:44   the pipe here's the here's the thing that could happen [TS]

01:24:47   LTE is already it's not as fast as I can but LTE is pretty fast now the big [TS]

01:24:53   problem with LTE as it stands now is everybody's got data caps [TS]

01:24:57   almost impossible to get an unlimited Lt [TS]

01:25:01   by you know five years ago we're all using iPhones I mean this stuff moves [TS]

01:25:09   fast who knows you know what [TS]

01:25:12   cellular wireless networking will be in just five years five more yrs you know [TS]

01:25:18   maybe it's still LTE but the limit is 20 times higher or maybe it's something a [TS]

01:25:24   generation ahead of LTE and it's faster than cable and they can't keep up [TS]

01:25:28   because the cable is a literal copper pipe underneath the streets of the city [TS]

01:25:33   that they can't just dig up old ones like yeah you know it may be impossible [TS]

01:25:38   for someone else to get a physical pipe in the house like like what the cable [TS]

01:25:42   monopolies have but I don't know something Wireless seems to me like [TS]

01:25:47   would be crazy to me of ten years from now we don't have something Wireless [TS]

01:25:51   that could replace cable totally agree and I mean comcast will probably try by [TS]

01:25:55   that company it's funny I have a farmhouse up in Wisconsin about three [TS]

01:25:59   hours from Chicago and there's no internet access up there for me because [TS]

01:26:03   I'm sort of in a valley and I don't have mine of so there's no cable internet [TS]

01:26:08   there's some line of sight options but I can't get to the valley in the line of [TS]

01:26:14   sight there is huge satellite which is really terrible and slow [TS]

01:26:19   and then there's dial-up which is really bad and the only option I had at the [TS]

01:26:23   time this is about three years ago was was actually getting a T one line which [TS]

01:26:28   is physically bringing US Circuit a phone line to your place that only used [TS]

01:26:33   it cost me 600 bucks a month [TS]

01:26:35   28031 line in I did it for a while because I needed internet access cuz I [TS]

01:26:40   told myself and I'm up there I might work order it was right so I did this [TS]

01:26:43   for a while and then Verizon comes around and offers 3G like it's kind of a [TS]

01:26:49   remote location but they added some some 3G towers along the highway and boom [TS]

01:26:54   like 3G speed was actually better than the T one it was like you know fifty [TS]

01:26:58   bucks a month enemy fire whatever they're called and immediately like 600 [TS]

01:27:03   bucks no I cancel 50 bucks a month now and now they have 4G LTE there which is [TS]

01:27:09   about the same price and you know like 10 x faster than 3G or whatever it is [TS]

01:27:13   and it's just a matter of three years and I went from spending $600 [TS]

01:27:17   reluctantly [TS]

01:27:18   to to be excited to spend $50 a month to have this service so things that things [TS]

01:27:23   are changing obviously rapidly in the companies that are set up to fall are [TS]

01:27:28   the ones that really pissed customers off and they just they're just holding [TS]

01:27:32   on to their just there just almost stockpiling money through fees in [TS]

01:27:36   annoyance is because I think they have like they're gonna need that down the [TS]

01:27:39   road [TS]

01:27:40   yeah totally yeah I thought you'd agree and I do it do it it's a bummer it's a [TS]

01:27:48   bummer that's it that's a savings but it's it's it's also kind of exciting [TS]

01:27:51   because these are the moments when do things happen if things don't happen [TS]

01:27:57   creating things don't happen everyone's content you know there has to be [TS]

01:28:00   struggle people have to be upset with something there has to be injustice in [TS]

01:28:04   some way that someone just has to be pissed enough for them to come up with a [TS]

01:28:07   brand new audience oh yeah these moments are actually exciting for me because [TS]

01:28:10   these are the times I know something great's gonna be here in three years [TS]

01:28:13   unhappy customers are a great opportunity certainly like you said [TS]

01:28:19   business sometimes it's not that complicated [TS]

01:28:21   make something make something that's fair fairly priced that works well [TS]

01:28:25   that's clear I mean you know it's it's not it's [TS]

01:28:29   it's hard still to be in business but it doesn't have to be anywhere near as hard [TS]

01:28:33   as people make it to be with all these fancy Street strange business models [TS]

01:28:36   that they're going to figure out down the road you don't have to figure things [TS]

01:28:39   out on the road it's it's not complicated sell something that you make [TS]

01:28:42   people buy it [TS]

01:28:43   people buy food every day to buy clothes everyday by transportation people are [TS]

01:28:46   used to buying things and and that's what that's how they that's how they [TS]

01:28:51   exist and to to to say that that that model doesn't work doesn't make any [TS]

01:28:55   sense to me I think it actually works great show [TS]

01:28:59   thank you for being here Jason Basecamp dot com is the company and product and [TS]

01:29:06   the new website for the blog is I believe from wrong signal the noise dot [TS]

01:29:14   com sorry but if you just do it we said and Google signal signal vs noise blog [TS]

01:29:20   you'll find it in fact great example we try to get signal vs noise dot com taken [TS]

01:29:25   so that works to guarantee you will not alter your readership by one so I don't [TS]

01:29:33   think so [TS]

01:29:34   alright I should go to get back to playing flapping bird [TS]