

Business Lessons from 37 Signals $1000 Master Class - noahkagan
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/29637/38-Tweetables-From-The-37-Signals-Master-Class.aspx

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iamelgringo
Holy Crap! Jason and DHH got 40 people to pay $1000 to hear them talk for a
day about starting a company.

Wow... Just... Wow...

Dudes, really. Save your money for ramen noodles and start hanging out at
other Hacker News meetups[1].

Or, better yet, move to Silicon Valley, start attending meetups[2] and startup
events[3]. Make a point of handing out business cards and asking people out
for coffee. I can guarantee that within a year you'll become friends with any
number of entrepreneurs who will give you similar or better advice for the
price of a beer.

Hell, if you move out here, come to a Hackers and Founders event, I'll buy you
a beer.

By the way, we're probably going to be turning Hackers and Founders into a non
profit, because I feel like it's wrong to try make a quick buck off of hackers
who are eating ramen noodles and trying to get a startup off the ground. YMMV

</rant>

ref:

[1]
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmQExXr67OcTdDBZZl9...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmQExXr67OcTdDBZZl93MXZwaE4tWlQwTENVMnVQalE&hl=en#gid=0)

[2] <http://www.hackersandfounders.com>

[3] <http://startupdigest.com/>

~~~
maukdaddy
FYI the startup community is far more than poor hackers starting a website.
$1000 is CHEAP for valuable business knowledge. I'm paying a shit load more
for my MBA, and would probably learn just as much in their class ;)

~~~
iamelgringo
_the startup community is far more than poor hackers starting a website_

I'm speaking from my personal of running Hackers and Founders Silicon Valley.
We have 2000 members, and we get together for beer/networking every 2 weeks.
It started with me and a few other hackers getting together in a bar every
couple of weeks to talk about startups and give each other advice.

The startup culture and community that I'm around is that of freely sharing
business knowledge and helping each other succeed. That's what I'm referring
to.

I have made a conscious choice to network, be helpful and ask for advice when
it's available an appropriate. Because of that, I've gotten advice over
coffe/beer from Joel Spolsky, pg, any number of YC founders, Andy
Bechtolsheim, Ben Horowitz, the former CEO of Alta Vista, etc...

Business knowledge, connections and advice _are_ cheap if you put in the time
and make the effort. Paying $1000 for 8 hours of business advice seem like a
poor business decision to me.

But, then I have a profoundly different belief about how startups can, do and
should help each other out.

~~~
maukdaddy
They aren't mutually exclusive :)

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dazzla
I found the day a lot deeper than can be summarized into some twitter posts.
If you want the text/ramen edition of their advice most of it is in their
books. What you get from attending the master class is the same advice but
demonstrated through examples of their own projects in the morning and
attendees projects in the afternoon. It all adds up to a much richer
experience. There is nothing like getting ideas and advice in person. But of
course you may not agree with everything and it may not all apply to you. It's
up to you to apply it as you see fit.

~~~
linkfrek
would you mind sharing one valuable insight that came from the "master" class,
that you will be applying to your current/next project, please.

~~~
dazzla
Sounds like your mind is already made up. I'm not here to convince you or
anyone else to go. Just sharing that I had a more positive take on the day.

~~~
linkfrek
My question was sincere. Please share.

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Jabbles
These need fleshing out. By shortening them to fit in tweets you've made some
of them ambiguous, and others lack any context to apply them. For example, _We
judge a lot about how good a design is by how long it takes to implement._
could go either way, on KISS principle, or persistent A/B testing.

~~~
Jabbles
By the way, may I ask which way people think the above quote was intended?

~~~
damncabbage
Given the way the 37Signals blog tends to lean, I'd wager they're going for:
quicker to implement --> simpler design --> good design.

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avk
25) Use a thick marker during design since you can only focus on the key
things.

More info: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/466-sketching-with-a-sharpie>

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dzlobin
I hope I'm wrong, but it sounds like you paid $1000 to have DHH read rework to
you.

I literally knew almost, if not every item on the list from reading their
books/blogs. I'm sure the experience was more beneficial then just reading the
books, but was it worth $1000?

I'm generally a very big fan of the 37signals gang and their products and
philosophy, but lately it really seems more and more that they are getting a
bit greedy. Starting from publishing blog content as books to the $10 paint
app, it's uncomfortably reminiscent of the tony robbins shtik.

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avk
Maybe these bits are "out of context" or "need fleshing out" because you can't
always summarize learning in a series of tweets or a blog post. Maybe that's
why the event is $1,000 - you're paying for a learning experience, not just
content.

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revorad
_38) The 37signals logo is a guy saying hi._!!!!!

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yosho
i still don't quite see it, but that was one of the biggest takeaways!

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axod
Half of these are just wrong. The other half are just irritating.

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clyfe
They built a solid business on these principles...

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swombat
No, they built a solid business on the experience and deep understanding that
eventually led to these one-liners.

The one-liners are useless. The experience that led to them (which was, no
doubt, shared at the "masterclass") is priceless.

~~~
avk
Exactly, thus my comment above about attendees paying $1,000 for a learning
experience: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959654>

