Hacker News Reader

Comment by prakash | Hacker News Reader

Now would be a good time to apply to YC, or start startups in the FogCreek/37Signals way.

prakash, all due respect, but are those really the companies you want to quote? FogCreek and 37Signals are not the best or most profitable companies making money off these intranet, and they are not a 'way' of starting companies. They are just the loudest. Many, many companies started off like those two and are now pretty (Symantec, ZoneAlarm, Winzip). Those are the real success stories, not people who make their money by giving talks on how to make money.

Isn't their "way" simply: "brilliant" product plus price = profit? Seems sensible to me.

I think you're missing one point that I get from 37Signals, which is the "be happy baking good bread" angle that DHH has espoused on at least one occasion I can remember. What he means by this is that not everyone feels like they have to crush Google to call themselves a success. Some people would be happy to be doing a (likely self determined) job they enjoy that provides what they need to maintain their chosen lifestyle. There's a lot of niches out there waiting to be found.

Granted, not everyone is happy just to "bake good bread" and that's cool, I'll be the first to cheer you on as you enter the area with Google/MS/Symantec/Digg/Facebook/whoever but on the flip side, don't assume that no one is.

This may be a hard concept for a lot of people to grok in a world addicted to "more" and possibly an unrealistic concept to entertain if you have a big VC expecting X return on their investment in Y amount of time.

But to write off companies that obviously have their own idea of how to proceed and seem to be doing just fine from their point of view is overly myopic on your part.

You don't get my point. There are many many successful software companies that start off as small shareware companies and grow to make lots of money and have 20 employees. I respect those companies. 37signals used to be that way, but right now they make their money from telling people how to make money. They are no longer a product company, they are a talking company.

I am against VC and against big growth, but I am also against continuously boasting about how good you are, as 37signals seems to constantly be doing.

I believe in product companies - they let the quality of their product speak. 37signals product is stagnant and really not that great.

Actually I did get your point (although you have made it a bit clearer re: you view on big growth, which I didn't get before), I just don't agree with you re: these companies in particular. I have to say I've gotten some good information from 37Signals' ideas. I don't follow their advice like an unquestioning lemming, I just take what works for me and leave it at that.

I can see how 37Signals' marketing might rub some people the wrong way, there's a fine line between productive self promotion and "boasting", a line that I think many people who are good at the former may cross from time to time (hasn't everyone felt like smashing DHH square in that pretty boy face of his at one time or another? :P). But however you feel about their approach, you can't deny that they have created a pretty good lifestyle supporting business for themselves and this should be commended IMO.

I use Backpack almost every day and it serves my particular needs very well. So I also don't agree with you that their products are not that great. I think Backpack is awesome, it does what I need it to do and doesn't get in my way. Their products are simple and straight forward for sure, but that's what I like.

I just think it just sounds like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater a bit here. But each to their own I guess.

His point was that there're many other companies that started out as simple shareware product companies and got much more successful than 37signals. He listed Symantec, ZoneAlarm, and Winzip, to which I'd add Winamp, Microsoft, and Aladdin. These were not huge bet-the-farm VC successes like Google or Netscape. They grew slowly & organically by building (or buying, in Microsoft's case) good products for large markets. And there results have been much more impressive than FogCreek or 37signals.

All I'm saying is don't assume that all people/businesses have the same goals, and don't assume that everyone has the same definition of success.

I was using FogCreek/37 as an example in not taking money, start small, consult, grow organically type of example. Hard to raise money in this environment, and hence I used YC.

Those are the real success stories, not people who make their money by giving talks on how to make money.

I think there is a little more to both those companies :-), in any case if there is value in what they are saying that is akin to building something users want.

He was using those companies as the same example. Just because they're big now doesn't mean they were always big.

A lot of the biggest names in computing today started small, didn't take money, and grew organically. The best example is probably Microsoft.

Both Fog Creek and 37Signals started by consulting to Fortune 500 companies. You think now's a good time to do that?

I didn't know that, I knew they consulted at companies. Do you have a link to which ones they consulted at?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com