
Goodbye Basecamp, This Is The End - railsjedi
http://www.christianjung.com/2011/goodbye-basecamp-this-is-the-end-of-a-true-love-my-heart-is-broken/
======
spolsky
The 37signals ethos of having an opinion and saying no a lot creates wonderful
experiences and products for users who are new to a certain field. For someone
who is new to project management, for example, the fancy programs with every
feature and option are confusing and scary. Products like Basecamp are
beautiful for these users.

As users gain more experience, their needs become slightly more complex. They
start to understand the simple product completely, and then they have the
cognitive ability to understand more fancy bells 'n' whistles. For users who
have been doing project management for a long time with any software product,
they will have a long list of things that they know -- from experience! --
that they need.

That is why there's a market for simple and there's a market for full-
featured. Both are discrete markets, usually. Obviously every software
designer strives for "power made easy" -- it seems easy at first, but there is
power under the hood when you need it.

~~~
giberson
I wonder if there is room for a product that grows with you?

What if there were a product that is exposed to you first in the simplest
form. It's clean, elegant and simple. Easy and not intimidating to use.

As you use the product, your needs begin to increase and suddenly you need a
new feature. As it turns out, the product actually supports this feature and
so you turn it on. Now, you are turning on feature X, not feature package
premium--just feature X.

In fact, the product actually has several additional features and
functionality that can be enabled and disabled one at a time. None of these
"extra" features cost "extra". They are all included in the base price of the
package.

What if your product has a training module, where users can be guided through
test use case scenarios that expose and demonstrate new feature modules. And
what if we make it so that when you enable a new feature on the product, that
feature only shows up to users who have completed the training guide for the
new feature in the module.

In other words, in order for any specific extra feature to show up it needs to
be:

    
    
        1) Turned on by the administrator.
        2) Flagged as "trained" on a per agent basis.
    

This way the base product has easy accessibility and additional features can
be exposed gradually not taking effect for an agent until they have gone
through the training to learn how to use it.

~~~
ZackOfAllTrades
That is how emacs has felt to me. There was a large amount of upfront
learning, more than there probably should be for this example to make perfect
sense, but after a few months with it I am able to do the basics pretty well.
Every time I wish I could do something in emacs, a little bit of googling
shows that there is a key binding for exactly what I want. So bit by bit,
emacs is going from a weird text editor that does the basics into something
way more useful than I thought.

/noob rant about the magic, _magic!_ , of using emacs.

~~~
endgame
I also came here to talk about emacs. Two of the things that I think made it
this way:

* Scripts such as keywiz let you incrementally improve your knowledge.

* Having a REPL in _scratch_ means you can interactively tweak things.

~~~
jrockway
_Having a REPL in scratch means you can interactively tweak things._

IELM is more of a proper REPL, however.

------
ianterrell
I think Jason Fried and DHH might take issue with, "You proved yourself wrong,
I think."

In addition to "Say no by default," one of their other points of advice has
been: "Let your users outgrow you."

37signals has found that there's more people to sell to at the bottom, and
when customers need/want more, they're free to find it elsewhere.

~~~
trafficlight
Then perhaps 37signals need to make exporting existing Basecamp data for easy
importing into the "next step up" products. As far as I know they only
provided a raw XML data dump.

~~~
nettdata
"Only"?

How else would you have it provided to you? That's pretty well the most
versatile form of the data you could get, I'd think.

~~~
mgkimsal
Agreed. It's really up to those other products to develop import routines for
BC data. Wordstar didn't develop 'save as MS Word' functionality, but MS did
WS imports just fine.

------
atacrawl
I was expecting the author to say something to the effect of "37signals added
too many new features and now the software is confusing." So I was a little
surprised to read on and learn that, no, 37signals kept their software
somewhat basic, just as they said they would.

I have a feeling the author will write a similar piece in a year or two after
using Podio -- no software is perfect.

------
imbriaco
For those who say that 37signals has allowed Basecamp to stagnate, I'd trot
out as exhibit A the changelog: <http://basecamphq.com/changes>

Being very deliberate about making sweeping changes to an application with an
extremely large number of very satisfied users is not the same as allowing it
to stagnate. Having spent 4 years of my life working at 37signals I know first
hand the incredible amount of energy that is devoted to it by an extremely
talented team.

That said, it's certainly not for everyone. And if you outgrow it, fantastic,
feel free to move onto a new product that suits you better. We do this with
many other aspects of our lives, why should software be any different?

~~~
joelg87
I love the idea of that change history for each 37signals app.

We're trying to be very open with our own product, but often very small fixes
or changes don't make sense as an announcement on the blog.

Does anyone know where Basecamp links to this change history page? The only
link to it so far I can find is from their blog:
[http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-a...](http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-
and-highrise-change-history-pages.html)

~~~
jasonfried
Change log for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire:
<http://37signals.com/changes>

------
richardw
This is a story of success, not failure. He used BC and loved it for almost 6
years. I'd be very impressed if the next product Christian uses fulfills all
his project management needs for the next 6.

------
nhangen
Just left Basecamp for Apollo for a few reasons:

1\. Apollo has great customer service, and listens. 2\. Apollo's interface
doesn't look like Windows NT 3\. Apollo is moving forward, while Basecamp
seems to have stagnated/rested on its laurels.

I think Basecamp is a good product, but it's not that good.

~~~
kristofferR
Damn, this is exactly what I've been looking for!

It's like Basecamp under active development with CRM integrated! It looks
friendlier for external users/clients too!

~~~
applicomhq
Thank you for your ind words! Yes, we do develop Apollo actively. It's
definitely a lot of work! Tony Mobily <http://www.apollohq.com>

------
tokenadult
I'd really like to hear from hackers organizing their projects what software
in this category they like best. I have liked Basecamp as a framework for
sharing do-list items with colleagues (most of my colleagues and I work
independently of face-to-face meetings most of the time) but I am willing to
learn about other products or service. Efficency is key. What do you recommend
to do best what Basecamp does?

~~~
oscilloscope
Redmine is great after Basecamp. Minimal, fast wiki. Repository viewers (svn,
hg, git). Access control, which can be used to create public pages quite
easily. Nested projects.

GitHub's nice if you're focused on building software. Project wikis, home
pages, code review, huge open source community.

~~~
kleevr
I just set up redmine about 2 months ago, and I'm loving it. Recently got my
SVN linked up and now I can cross reference commits with issues in the
tracker.

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kenjackson
Refering to a Robert Scoble post while accusing DHH of being on insider bubble
is really hilarious. There is no one more in the bubble than Scoble, and no
one who is more blinded by the fact that he's in the bubble than Scoble.

DHH was fundamentally right, even if the details were wrong. For 99.9% of apps
there is a replacement app available on any of the mainstream phone platforms.
The long tail maybe gets you a bit more polish, but its polish on non-core
scenarios. Most people will decide based on the polish for their core
scenario, not on Textalyzer.

------
trustfundbaby
I'm just glad somebody said something about their prices ... they're
ridiculous now.

~~~
nfm
The cheapest Basecamp plan (Basic) is in fact $24/month, not $49 as mentioned
in the article.

If you run a full time consulting business, $24/month is a negligible expense
for software that supports the core function of your business.

I'd argue that all the prices are negligible as they scale with the size of
the business. Even the Max plan ($149/month) is only $1788 per year, which is
equivalent to less than 2 weeks worth of man hours. Logically, if using the
Max plan of Basecamp saves you and your team 80 hours over the course of a
year it should be a no brainer.

------
rlobue
I just finished reading ReWork, Jason Fried's latest book. The irony of this
submission is that the book describes Christian to a tee: the customer who
always wants more; the customer who has outgrown the product; the customer who
compares competitors but would rather complain than move.

I have to admire the way 37signals has grown over the last few years. Sure,
they clearly don't integrate every feature. The user interface certainly works
but has no iGloss about it at all. Pricing is steep and they hide the lower-
priced plans. But it works: people still use the service.

If you're a coffee shop you concentrate on your coffee. If you're an
electrician, you concentrate on the quality of your work. Adding extras like
"nice cable ties" are irrelevant. 37signals are concentrating on their core
functionality. When the day comes that the majority of their users require X
feature and that feature becomes a norm in Project Management, Contact
Management, Collaboration, etc then I'm almost sure they will react: why
wouldn't they?

------
dnugent
Basecamp is a good product but only if you share its "opinion" on workflow and
design. Obviously 37Signals has done well by sticking to a minimal set of
features and catering to a very specific audience.

We are of the mindset that software should fit the way you work, not
necessarily the other way around. We're building a Force.com-like platform
that allows you to create custom business workflow apps in minutes to handle
not just tasks, but also lightweight crm, recruiting, and other business
functions involving a relatively defined process. We provide a fast UI to
access these records, so all you do is specify the schema and callbacks.

We're still in beta, but happy to release some invites and work with members
of the HN community -- <http://www.devcomb.com>

------
becomevocal
The fact that a user goes out of the way to broadcast that they're walking
away from the service is a testament to how bad ass it truly was for them.
Every developer should hope for that sort of torment at the end of use period
for a user. Clearly it was a big enough part of their workflow to complain.

Most (all?) of us developers / product guys fight with feature creep. I'm glad
37signals is there to remind us, by example, that it's OK for a software
business to focus on a specific solution, sans bloat. There are users that
will appreciate your vision - and gladly pay.

------
dmazin
I don't think you've listened enough, because 37signals has stated repeatedly
that it prefers customers to outgrow the services (as is your case) than to
intimidate new customers.

------
bborud
I was introduced to Basecamp through a project I was invited to contribute to.
Before I had heard about the product, but I had never used it and as far as I
can tell I wasn't significantly biased for or against the product or the
company that made it.

However, within days I came to hate Basecamp intensely. Not so much because it
imposed certain structures and ways of working -- discomfort is to be expected
when you learn a new tool. And, of course, sometimes, it turns out you can
learn better ways to work from tools that force you into certain ways.

No, what made me hate Basecamp with a passion is that the thing is _slow_. It
is _unacceptably slow_. And the UI, be it the web UI or the various apps that
existed for it at the time (late last year), did not manage to meaningfully
mask the fact that the system was slow as molasses.

The fact that 37signals, a much lauded company, would allow an important
product to have such a glaring fault now means that I see anything that
37signals say or anything that is said about them in a different light. I am
now thoroughly biased to think that they have no business telling anyone how
you make good software. I can't help this, though I will acknowledge that this
is an emotional response rather than a rational one.

It also means that anyone singing the praise of 37signals now also seems
suspect. Do they even form their _own_ opinions or do people just parrot the
praise that people they look up to heap on the company.

Slow apps are not cool. Companies that make slow apps without visible
embarrassment are not cool. Basecamp is dead slow and it is perfectly okay to
point out that the monarch appears before the court sans clothing.

------
petercooper
_You didn’t integrate the Writeboard into Basecamp._

Worse, it hasn't been papered over well either. I can't load a Writeboard from
Basecamp without some weird 1990s-style "we're loading your Writeboard" page
hanging around for a couple of seconds. UI-wise, I'd be satisfied with it
being separate if it weren't for the extra page coming up wasting time and
making me think something happened.

~~~
jasonfried
We agree. We're not happy with Writeboard integration in its current state.

~~~
petercooper
Glad to know it's on your radar :-) I sympathize with the 37signals attitude
to piling on features but this is really more sanding off a speed bump.

------
timjahn
I think the effectiveness of project management software depends greatly on
the type of project being managed.

For example, I don't consider Jira as in the same arena as Basecamp (and I've
used both a good amount). I see Jira as a programming/development specific
management tool, to be used by programming teams and maybe the managers of
those teams.

I see Basecamp as a far more flexible project management tool that can fit a
wide variety of needs. It works great for organizing our Entrepreneurs
Unpluggd events. It works well for some web dev projects and design projects,
but not others.

Basecamp isn't always THE solution. For some types of projects, it is. For
others, it isn't.

At the end of the day, the right answer is the project management software
that helps you more efficiently organize your specific projects. Because
Basecamp doesn't work for Joe and his projects doesn't mean it can't work
amazingly for Sally and hers.

~~~
ghaff
You make an important point.

A few years back, when I was working for an IT analyst firm, I headed a
project to find us new task/project management software. (Our existing
application for this was old and homegrown and pretty bad.)

The issue is that the significant majority of our tasks/projects were very
small: Take a briefing with a client, write up notes, attach presentation,
possibly include a followup note for sales, done. So project management
software that was organized around the principle of a modest number of
projects with milestones, actions, sub-tasks, etc. didn't really work for us.
(Including the 37signals options.)

We eventually settled on trac which worked pretty well for the purpose. And
we'd probably have supplemented that with something more like Basecamp if we
got into some more complex projects and simply handled them as a separate
case.

My broader point though is that I found that the "best" project management
software depended on what you were trying to track.

------
KeyBoardG
My company pays a whole hell of a lot more for a far far more complex and way
over bloated system. I applaud 37signals for their choices and sticking to it.
The author here needs to just get over the fact that his needs outgrew the
software and to seek another solution. No need for the dramatics.

------
nirajr
I got quite put off by lack of email integration in Basecamp and recently
wrote this: <http://goo.gl/Vthjb>

I've, since, moved away from Basecamp and am almost completely on Jira now.

------
mberning
The customers you start off with are usually not the customers you end with.
People grow, products grow.

------
grandalf
Basecamp seems to be designed exactly for a web design shop that wants to take
on bigger projects and present an organized appearance to clients. More client
management than project management.

------
dfischer
Shameless plug: we built <http://www.kanbanpad.com> because we wanted
something simple and intuitive. Basecamp never fit our flow.

------
andrew_wc_brown
I think every Project Manager has its place. I really like the development of
Asana. <http://asana.com/>

------
EGreg
Just wait for what we are planning to release ;-)

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languagehacker
Am I the only person who couldn't get anything out of this post because of its
bad grammar?

~~~
sabat
Well, the OP is German, so I'm sure he's doing the best he can. And it's
really not that bad -- certainly writes better in English than I can in
German! :-)

