presenting: merchant of simplicity
Here's a bit of business advice you don't hear too often: do less than your competition, spend less money, hire fewer people, work fewer hours and offer fewer features. So says Jason Fried, merchant of simplicity.
yay.... Basecamp, an online project management system,
Fried's guiding philosophy:
stay small
and keep it simple.
"There are too many options out there, too many features, and too many products that try to do too many things," he says. "Software has become complex and bloated. It grows for the benefit of the upgrade sales cycle, not the customer."
There are great advantages to being small because it forces people to focus only on what's most important, Fried says. It's really easy to hire a lot of people but then you have to keep them busy. "So you give them stuff to do," he says. "Unfortunately, most of that stuff doesn't matter but it ends up getting into your product which makes the product more complex."
.... "We kept saying, 'If this stuff is so important, and we spend 50 percent-plus of our time on it, why do we forget about it later?" You would think, given Fried's penchant for small team environments that he's surrounded himself with the most brilliant minds, but that's not the case. "I don't advocate building a small team of gurus. It's more about having a few good generalists. They need to be passionate, motivated, curious and willing to learn. We're all good at what we do, and we work well together. That's a good team."
His independent spirit and willingness to dole out advice, have given the man and his company a cult-like status among his growing group of fans. His contrarian opinions, which include, "kill all your meetings, they waste employees' time; interruption is the biggest enemy of productivity; all the things you think you need, you don't," have helped shape the 37signals brand. With more than 65,000 readers coming to his company's blog, Signal vs. Noise, it's safe to say that Fried has hit a nerve.
Sept 15 & 16
man.. i quote him every day - read rework
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