
Why is 37Signals always the counter-example? - AmberShah
http://ambershah.posterous.com/why-is-37signals-always-the-counter-example
======
seiji
It's their narrative for getting attention. That is all.

Someone once mentioned how it was clever they (tiny, unknown little company)
always pit themselves against well known things (Microsoft, Apple, VC X) to
try and become more legitimate over time.

~~~
axod
They also claim that they don't want to grow. That every business has a
'natural' size. That somehow that's better than being massive - again
challenging the conventional wisdom that more profit = better. They are
masters of PR to geeks. Their business model pretty much relies on them doing
constant PR to pit themselves as the hip small but hugely knowledgeable
'startup'.

Even the back cover of Rework reads like a parody of 37signals other stuff.

~~~
JanezStupar
Why is that a problem?

Handful of guys doing what they like. Earning enough to pay for a modest
lifestyle and I bet they get to put something away for old age.

Why does earning a living have to be an unpleasant and stressful experience?

By writing and talking about how awesome cool their careers are, they get to
boost their sales. Hell, I think I might start writing about how awesome my
life is.

~~~
axod
There's absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. There are millions of small
businesses doing exactly that. There always have been. Most of them just
quietly get on with it and make profit.

For me, 37signals don't say anything new or very interesting. They just say it
_really_ loudly, and try to make out that they're doing something radically
different - when in fact they're not.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Yes, but...

37signals is not doing anything new. Tons of small-businesses have been
operating on the same principles for eons. However, there is so much hype and
misinformation in the e-business arena that this sort of otherwise brain-dead
obvious business advice is in the minority, and stands out all the more. There
isn't _one_ single way for businesses to find success, online or off, but if
web entrepreneurs followed 37signals advice more often than they do today they
would probably be better off. For that reason I think they're loudness if
fully justified.

~~~
axod
I don't think that's actually true though. Sure, maybe if you _only_ hang out
in SF and don't know anything about business and just believe what you hear
about startups, then you might have issues.

It's better to just think about it for a while, read a _lot_ of different
success stories, advice, etc and come to your own conclusions. But come on.
Business isn't rocket science. You make something useful, work out a
monetization strategy, and grow from there. That's easy enough for my kids to
understand.

The disservice 37signals does is that they firstly _only_ believe that a
certain business model is viable (eg selling stuff directly), and secondly
they suggest that it's simple for the reader to emulate 37signals, when they
know full well that to do that the reader would need to create ruby on rails,
build up a big readership/following, etc etc.

Any extremist view is dangerous when taken literally and in isolation.

------
gr366
It's not that 37signals are the only ones doing what they do — they're just
the best at promoting what they do differently from "conventional" business
ideas. With Rework (and Getting Real before it), they're actually making
"challenging conventional wisdom" part of their business.

------
mburney
For better or worse, examples of companies like 37Signals are used because
their approach is empowering, and their confidence about it is reassuring.

IME most hackers are in a situation where they don't know how/want to deal
with investors and don't want to sit around with business types and think up
monetization strategies. It's a great feeling that you can just build
something with barely any overhead and start making profit early.

------
famfam
They're not a counter-example. They're just an example.

Anyway the question is rhetorical since you know the answer is "to pick a
fight", which you openly admit to doing yourself right here :
[http://remarkablogger.com/2010/05/03/how-i-
got-50k-visitors-...](http://remarkablogger.com/2010/05/03/how-i-
got-50k-visitors-to-my-blog-in-one-month/)

The linkbait is starting to smell a little fishy :(

------
mattmaroon
Google serves this role a lot for the opposite model. How many times have you
heard "don't worry about your business model, just get big and you'll figure
it out. It worked for Google." I've heard that from so many respectable
Silicon Valley investors, and it's made me cringe each time.

The real question is "why do people who give advice always do so in such black
and white terms?"

~~~
jamesbritt

      The real question is "why do people who give advice
      always do so in such black and white terms?"
    

My guess is that many people want to hear their personal hopes and biases
confirmed. Hate to go to meetings? Sweet; I just read that meetings are toxic!
These guys are brilliant!

Never mind the lack of context or backing evidence for various aphoristic
claims. The folks who read what they want into such things don't care.

When you hear what seems to be simplistic black-and-white advice, try flipping
it around to the opposite, and see how hard it would be to rationalize a
belief in that point of view. TDD is good - TDD is bad, OOP is epic - OOP is
toxic; Stay small. Grow large.

It gets to a point where such proclamations are little more than grammatically
correct sentences, and all meaning is provided by the reader.

------
kristiandupont
So, "charging from day 1", and "entering a saturated market" are rebellious
37s-isms? Seems like those _are_ the conventional business principles.

~~~
ergo98
In the internet world it is hugely rebellious.

~~~
axod
That's just not true. At all. Look at websites for sale on sitepoint, ebay,
etc. There are millions of websites, making very decent profits. You just
don't hear about them much.

For every startup like twitter that doesn't really seem to care too much about
monetization, there's probably 1000 websites making $1m+ a year in profit.
Guess which gets all the press though?

~~~
ergo98
>There are millions of websites, making very decent profits

Millions?

I highly doubt it.

Those that make a profit do it largely on the backs of ads, which isn't what
is being discussed. We're talking about actually charging for a web property
which remains shockingly rare.

~~~
axod
Yeah. Because earning money from advertising isn't real money is it. It's
imaginary money you can't actually use for anything. You're absolutely right.
How silly of me.

~~~
ergo98
That's some cutting sarcasm there. You must be a grizzled internet vet.

Only it's asinine given that what we're talking about is CHARGING, not running
ads. Meaning "To use Hacker News you need to buy a $5/month subscription".

I look forward to what your rapier wit comes up with next.

------
InclinedPlane
Because they are the self-selected standard bearers for that counter-example
and because they evangelize the "getting real" business model. It doesn't mean
that they are the only example, there are many.

------
tptacek
(a) Because we're pretty sure they weren't bitten by radioactive spiders and
we don't believe in supernatural causes for business success, and (b) because
it only takes one counterexample to prove any given bit of business orthodoxy
false.

Appeal-to-37signals is definitely a crutch argument. But that doesn't make it
an invalid one.

------
_delirium
Among a wider tech audience (i.e. outside HN), I actually hear Craigslist as
the counterexample more often, when it comes to successful tech companies that
are run as normal businesses rather than startups (no interest in IPOs or
exits, not much interest in rapid growth, suspicion of investors, etc.).

------
scorpion032
> I'm tired of the startup elitism culture.

You have no clue how necessary it is. They are elitist.

They have taken on something most others haven't because, they are intelligent
and willing to bet on their own abilities. That alone puts them in a rare
percentage of elite.

------
run4yourlives
Pick a fight. - Getting Real.

------
perlsys
Does any one have numbers of 37signals success.

Revenue, Profit, Customer list?

------
galois
I annoys me that people never seem to realize that 37Signals is a company that
has "won the lottery", as David likes to say when pejoratively describing the
success of companies that have chosen a different route, in a major way with
Ruby on Rails. The popularity of Rails is a huge contributing factor to the
success of 37Signals. And without Rails, nobody would ever have picked up any
of their books. 37Signals is a popular counter-example because they promote
themselves, and the vast majority of their ability to promote themselves
through talks and books is direct result of hitting a grand slam with Rails.

~~~
tortilla
I would guess a greater percentage of their customers have never heard of
Rails.

