Intuition over Data-Driven, Hooks over Towel Rails and Profit over Revenue

Trust your intuition, you will gain a lot from this CTO podcast featuring Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, a company known for having groundbreaking policies and products (Basecamp, HEY, Once, etc.). He is also bootstrapping hero and author of multiple books (Getting Real, REWORK, REMOTE, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work).

Listen to find out:

• Intuitive🔮 over ‘data-driven’ 🔢decision making
• Hook 🪝 vs Towel Rail 🎏: The Power of Simple, Versatile Products
• CEO-CTO Relationship: How to counteract the negativity brought on by the typical push-pull 🤼
• Why they do Customer interviews post-launch
• Take-home assessments at 37signals: paid and overloaded 🏋️
• Bezos’ shares in 37signals

Listen here

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Timestamps:

(00:00) INTRO (03:32) Who is Jason Fried (04:59) Early Days of 37Signals (06:05) Jeff Bezos' shares in 37Signals (09:01) Profits over Revenue (10:42) JASON’S NERD JOURNEY (15:35) The Power of No Expectations as First-Time Founder (16:46) Open Source and Rails (19:06) CEO-CTO RELATIONSHIP (19:34) Scale of Product: CEO's Vision vs. CTO's Reality (22:42) Tips to have a good relationship with the CEO as CTO (23:01) Find common ground (24:32) Positive interactions to counteract the negativity of differing opinions (27:38) HOOK VS TOWEL BAR: Analogy for Simple Products (31:07) How to make sure you are building a 'Hook' (not a Towel Bar) (33:20) 'Heated Towels' and Tradeoffs (34:44) Reverse Engineering Product Decisions (35:27) IDEAS AND PRODUCT DISCOVERY (36:06) Where do Ideas come from? (36:45) The Evolution of 'Hey' Email: An Unfolding Idea (38:31) Why they do Customer Interview only Post-Launch (40:09) INTUITION VS DATA DRIVEN DECISIONS (43:49) Hiring: The Human Element (47:17) TakeHome Assessments - Paid and Overloaded (to test decision-making ability) (48:38) Hiring: Attitude vs. Experience (51:15) Do Less to Accomplish More (51:45) No Estimates - but Appetites (53:46) His Anti-Advice Advice for Younger Self (57:15) Pay attention to CSS

About Jason Fried#

Jason Fried is the cofounder and president of Basecamp (formerly 37signals), a privately held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary. With David Heinemeier Hansson, Fried is the coauthor of Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application; Remote: Office Not Required; and the New York Times bestseller Rework.

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