
Blasphemy & Revelation – with DHH - joshuacc
http://mixergy.com/david-heinemeier-hansson-37signals-intervie/
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rebelidealist
I absolutely loved the interview. It taught me to be patient, create an
enjoyable workday, and work on things to solve real problems. Learning that
the first version of Basecamp took 6 month is refreshing. The most time I
spent on a project is 5 months. It shows we should not be caught up on
expecting results to come so quickly.

However, there is one thing about the interview that bothered me. DHH said
your are not a product company but just a consultant if you don't create
products for yourself.

There are tremendous opportunities in industries that don't have as many
talented technologists. For example, I am interested in industries that I
don't make a living professionally such as retail business and health care.
Just because I didn't study medicine, shouldn't stop me or anyone else from
trying to make a product to help the health care industry.

This route of emersing yourself with customers from another industries is much
harder. However, as geeks, we already have too many products made for geeks.
There are plethora of important problems in less tech savvy sectors waiting
for us to solve.

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acangiano
On one end of the spectrum we have DHH who advocates scratching your own
itches. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people like you and Patrick
(patio11) reminding everyone that there are huge, virtually untapped markets
which are typically not well served by programmers.

My take is that both strategies will work if implemented correctly. In the
case of "products for others", heavily relying on customer development and
similar Lean Startup principles will be particularly important, given that you
are not a customer of your own product, and therefore may not fully grasp your
customers' problems and requirements.

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benatkin
I forgot to mention the part about dogfooding. After DHH talked about the
importance of designing software for himself, Andrew challenged him by asking
if Sortfolio was designed for himself. DHH made it clear that it was. Even
though I'm not sure 37signals has got a whole lot of use of it just yet, after
hearing him out I am convinced that it was designed with using it in mind.

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eoghan
"What a load of crock!" (Love David's use of catch-phrases.)

Nice interview.

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benatkin
Even if I've seen the interviewee speak or get interviewed a few times before,
I always know the Mixergy interview will be worth watching. This was no
exception. Andrew Warner asked some great questions, including one about why
feedback from paying customers is different from feedback from non-paying
customers.

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spencerfry
What was his answer?

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benatkin
Something about how paying customers have a stake in the outcome of the
feedback, so they try to make their feedback effective. The transcript should
be out soon.

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spencerfry
On the other hand, maybe free customers will give effective feedback because
there are only a few things preventing them from upgrading. Obviously would
have to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

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bherms
He mentioned that feedback from non-paying customers is great too and (imo)
implied for this reason. The message started off with him saying its better to
have feedback from paying customers, but then evolved into saying they're both
valuable in different ways.

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mkramlich
Great interview. Thought it really brought DHH out at his best. He has a rare
combination of being very honest and insightful, but also communicating really
well in face-to-face conversation.

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jswinghammer
I find the notion that his approach to business is very Danish to be pretty
funny. If you've read "The Black Swan" Taleb discusses that everyone thinks
his philosophy is the direct result of having grown up in Lebanon and living
in exile during the civil war.

I'm not sure such a thing alone can determine our philosophy. Based on his
Twitter feed I feel like DHH is more libertarian than the average Dane you're
likely to meet.

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deckardt
I think the best about this is interview is that DHH really sells and believes
what he says. He's just not replaying the party line, but a core belief of
his.

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ddbbcc
Loved the interview, but what that cake from freshbooks mean? Does anyone sign
up to win a cake?

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Stormbringer
Anyone that says "the cake is a lie" will get hurt.

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rubashov
Are Danes often gratuitously profane?

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bobfunk
Not sure - I don't swear a lot, but there's a very big difference in how
profane language is perceived.

In Denmark you won't see TV programs bleep over profanity and you generally
wont see people write f##k instead of just the putting the real thing.

I think most of us danes find the "fear" of certain words to be quite
perplexing. And the idea that it's somehow better to see f##k instead of fuck,
even more so.

It's as if there's some mystical belief in the "evil" power inherent in these
words, that rationally can't really be described as anything but superstition.

Since us danes have a really, really hard time understanding how a word in
itself could possible be offending, it's quite tempting to just not give a
damn and use a lot of them. Especially if you find some kind of joy in poking
at other peoples superstitions. And I suspect that's the case with DHH...

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epochwolf
Is english a native language for most Danes?

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bobfunk
No - pretty much everybody in Denmark speaks english, but as a second
language.

Typically with a funny accent :)

[edit] On the other hand english profanity has kinda made it into danish. You
will hear danes say "shit" or "fuck" when speaking to each other in danish...

