"the reason I think it's great for entrepreneurs to to start bootstrapping is because they just have more practice making money they get better and better and better at the fundamental skill you need t..."

"that outlier and look at all the other places you can land as a business today my guest is Jason freed Jason is the co-founder and CEO of 37 signals which makes base camp and hay and soon a few more p..."

"years in a row they have over 100,000 customers and make tens of millions of dollars in profit each year which most VCB companies never make a dollar of and all of this profit filters down to the foun..."

"conversation with Jason we get into why constraints like small teams and less cash often lead to better outcomes why gut and instinct is underappreciated as a decision-making tool why planning longter..."

"to be able to bring you this conversation with that I bring you Jason freed after a short word from our sponsors this episode is brought to you by kot you've heard me talk about how Kota is the dock t..."

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"your focus is the you call it the fortune five million versus The Fortune 500 right so maybe just whatever you want to share about just like this what success means to you how you think about what suc..."

"you have no board you have no plans to go public you have no plans to sell the business right there's this book I don't know if you've read this book called finite and infinite games no I've not okay ..."

"you call instead of a startup it's a stay up yes I'm so sick of the startups I mean like it's cool to start a business obviously but I'm sick of the like that term dominating because frankly uh starti..."

"it speaking of enduring you've been at this for 25 almost 25 years now I believe yeah have there have there been periods where I like that side that you just had there that's it's a long time so maybe..."

"in a reality where there there could be a a second reality running right alongside you truly not like an AB test which is hard to do with you can't really AB test an entire company obvious obviously y..."

"one way I'm going to be successful or happy like I I those odds aren't really in anyone's favor even though of course some people win the lottery and I'm not saying it's luck there is luck a lot of lu..."

"different way so I don't I don't necessarily think I mean there's things like Airbnb is a great example that like that has to have a certain degree of scale uh to to really be something that no matter..."

"it doesn't sound like that much of a different word but it really is an estimate is like how long do we think it's going to take and however long it takes is however long it takes and most human being..."

"come to come to bear and then people often ask what if you don't get it done in the six weeks you gave it well so it depends so in most cases it should die meaning like it just doesn't happen because ..."

"something out in a certain period of time like and we we kind of inevitably seem to miss miss it like it's funny how it would have it's almost like it would have been out in time but the fact that we ..."

"you're if you go all out yeah you might feel high for a minute but you can't go all out again you've got to like you know really catch your breath and you certainly like to Sprint I remember like my t..."

"Cycles are for it's not that you're stopping work it's that you're doing other kinds of work and that I think is replenishing and refreshing I think that's the important part versus back to backto bac..."

"at play here so I just feel like just being honest about that and that's sort of how I've always looked at it and I also will admit I do like as as I just mentioned I don't know the things that go int..."

"encourages people to share that side of their opinion and I we almost never sometimes we look at numbers to to sort of be an input but it's never like Pro that I'll never say like justify that that's ..."

"I when I I only hire designers and product people David hires programmers and different people in the company hire different people but when I hire designers I'm I'm curious about their taste I'm curi..."

"can I can I because I think that I don't want that either so I don't want just idea so they have to make something that's clear first of all has to be good and clear and then they also have to be able..."

"the way they work you know take take whatever works you don't have to go wholesale on any of these things awesome a second question comes from Leo poit one of my favorite VCS he works at Seuss adventu..."

"I've changed my mind on but I changed my mind all the time I disagree with myself constantly on small things so product design decisions or the naming of something or how we roll something out or how ..."

"really much about making it up as you go based on you know again being in touch with like how things feel to you what your intuition is what your gut tells you what makes you happy what do you want to..."

"expectations so another thing we rarely have here are expectations this is the point like we launch a new product I don't know what's going to happen like we launched base camp I didn't know it was go..."

"them you mentioned the principles of the company and I was going to touch on one of these actually and there's what's the UR Al to check these out by the way we'll link to it in the show notes yeah 37..."

"matters and it changes the way you think about the work that you do it's more about pride and excitement and and and a spirit of of creation than it is destruction uh I I think if you go into it with ..."

"as small as you possibly can and do much of the work as much of the work yourself as you possibly can and keep your costs in check don't spend any money on branding don't go get an office like don't s..."

"efficiencies and keep your costs incredibly low and uh and don't make things hard on yourself this is the other thing that all businesses at every stage need to keep in mind while it's hard things are..."

"just like roleplay that and go what's the worst like for example we're doing these new Once products what's the worst that can happen well but the once model is totally different it's not SAS it's you..."

"to happen if it doesn't work out I want to touch on linear one it's interesting that you guys have a lot of similar philosophies and what is it about project management task management software that c..."

"growth isn't a focus it's gut and Instinct they have paid work trials they're very they're profitable they don't spend a lot of time around BC money do you have a feeling like this approach could work..."

"VC route it so like the idea of like having too much money it doesn't mean you can't work efficiently and thoughtfully but it does create a degree of sloppiness because you don't have to uh when you d..."

"sloppy and so what's let's hire some more people whatever we can afford to in fact they need us topend the money by the way they didn't give us the money to save it and earn six% interest um which is ..."

"curve they have making money practicing making money the better at it they're going to get like I used the guitar mod before but earlier I'll use it again if you're playing guitar if I give you guitar..."

"have to do that from the start you're just not practicing that you're practicing spending money and getting good at spending money is not as valuable skill as getting good at making money that's why I..."

"discipline like understand here's the incentives they're driving me to spend more money grow faster and being really good at not and then also sounds like you just need investors that are on board wit..."

"luxury prices in my opinion if you're paying tens or hundreds of dollars a month or in some cases thousands of dollars a month month after month after month after month after month for when there's hu..."

"and seeing what happens and then could you talk about the first thing you're launching or is that not yeah yeah sure the first product we're going to be launching is uh is basically an old product tha..."

"put something back out there so we're going to relaunch campfire under the once brand you'll pay for it once you'll install on your own servers uh and you'll run it and uh and it it'll do 90% % of the..."

"of things going on that we're trying there's some other really cool stuff I'll tell you one more quick thing about it is that we're trying to make this first product especially have as few words as po..."

"this creative exploration again and that's uh that's really firing us up it's clear you're excited about this like you're saying how you thought you'd be happy just building base camp for the rest of ..."

"you're a previous customer or something like that so we don't know but that's the plan I think it's also important for people to remember your target is not like to replace slack at Big tech companies..."

"should say of of running things this way and then did you share when this might come out I know don't promise dates but is there something you want to share there or is it well unfortunately we promis..."

"gallon uh like oil can or some water thing and you know nailed it to a book which nail nailed it to a door you know amazing and this is also why I've always loved I know this isn't very lightning sorr..."

"yeah I was just gonna say it speaks clearly to your uh Scrappy mentality and what is that book called again this one's called homemade contemporary Russian folk artifacts and there's also like Eastern..."

"like that question in that second question what do you look for is it like someone that you also admire ultimately in the moment I don't care who it is it's more about tell me why like so someone will..."

"is there a favorite product that you've recently discovered that you really love uh yes although it's more of a category um so I recently I start I bought an old car and I I've fallen back in love wit..."

"a lot of layers of abstractions there are not a lot of things in the middle between the the work we do and the way it feels and I think of large businesses as like automatic transmissions and modern c..."

"focus on that next that's an awesome topic for a book I was thinking uh worry Les could also be an awesome title for a book if that's another topic that'd be a great title for go down yeah would also ..."