

Basecamp Personal - wlll
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3406-launch-basecamp-personal-the-basecamp-for-all-your-projects-outside-of-work

======
sergiotapia
I STRONGLY recommend Asana:

<http://www.asana.com>

It's like using a smart piece of paper that just gets out of your way and
let's you create, assign, toggle, set dates, etc really intuitively.

I'm a freelancer - and for my usage I typically have a Workspace called
Freelance Projects. In that workspace I have many projects, each for each
freelance gig I land. I then invite my client (YOU CAN INVITE UP TO 30 PEOPLE
PER PROJECT FOR FREE HOLY BALLS) and collaborate intuitively from there.

He/she can upload photoshop files, images, text files, edit desriptions and I
can comment on them and we go back and forth. Better than email.

I used to procrastinate a lot. It was my achille's heel; but since Asana I
enjoy working because there's something deeply psychological in ticking things
off and seeing them grayed out.

If you haven't checked it out.

There's also Trello but I kind of dislike it when there are more than 5 items
in a list. It gets unwiedly.

~~~
whichdan
Asana is fantastic software. I've been using it for several months now, and
the interface is really, really smooth. I like that it feels like an evolving
todo list, whereas most apps focus on archival and bug tracking.

~~~
brads84
100% Agree. Asana is awesome.

~~~
unreal37
Based on just this thread, I'm signing up for a trial account.

~~~
skrish
All those keyboard short cuts & everything is cool. We have tried so many of
them but it is hard to find one which every member of your team like
something.

It really is impressive.

------
tomkin
I think we're seeing the unfolding of 37signals. I know that's the cliche
thing to say here on HN, so note I say this bearing that overarching fact in
mind.

I think Basecamp Next was the beginning. I can't put it into words, but users
stopped praising 37signals after Basecamp Next. Changes were probably
necessary, but it just doesn't garner the same respect as the original
Basecamp. I feel like they deliberately removed private messages to get me on
board with their CRM and it doesn't really seem like the average person knows
what to expect when they add a user to a project (Can they see everything? Are
they able to create projects?). Sure, _I_ know, but the average person is
reasonably unsettled by the current way this is handled - a problem that
didn't exist in original Basecamp.

This Basecamp Personal feels like they are _reaching_ , not innovating.

I'd love to hear what other people think, or why I am wrong and jumping to
conclusions.

EDIT: Great comments. I am pretty dependant on Basecamp, so I don't relish the
idea of 37signal's demise, but I have to be honest when I say I think they're
concentrating on different ideals. I like _most_ of Basecamp Next, but the
things I don't like are glaring and 37signals is generally good at addressing
glaring faults.

~~~
pchristensen
This follows something 37s has preached forever - turn your side effects into
new businesses. They wrote blog posts, then turned them into a book. They had
a lot of business customers, so they built a CRM, etc.

Here, they took a business product, got rid of free plans, and now can sell to
a new kind of customer with their same codebase.

Also, a one-time charge for a SaaS app? That's something I haven't seen but
could be applicable in a lot of places.

~~~
jimbokun
"Also, a one-time charge for a SaaS app? That's something I haven't seen but
could be applicable in a lot of places."

I'm curious how you estimate the cost of access + 1GB storage, forever. What
do the terms and conditions say about them turning off the spigot at some
point in the future?

~~~
rys
It's likely they're just using spare infrastructure used to host Basecamp
which is essentially already bought and paid for. As long as Basecamp stays
alive it's likely this version will too.

------
bluetidepro
It would be a shame to see people sink their money in this without realizing
there are way better services out there for this type of thing. For example,
Evernote Premium is just $5.00 per month or $45.00 per year and you get way
better features, syncing across platforms, storage space, sharing, etc. That
[Evernote example] costs less than 2 Basecamp Personal projects.

I really think they should look into lowering the pricing to make this product
more competitive. 37signals seems to be coming out with some crumby products
lately. First Breeze, and now this. _Sighhh._

~~~
TylerE
$25/forever is already lower than $5/month or $45/year

~~~
technoslut
If a project lasts forever than paying or doing anything for that matter, even
if it was free, is useless.

~~~
businessleads
Obviously you could change the name of your single, focused project - forever.
But your point made me laugh. Twas a good one.

------
napoleond
<rant>

I want _Highrise_ Personal. There are so many CRMs for every different size of
business, but I want a contact list where I can fill in information about
people as I go (ie. start with "big guy with red hair at Mark's Dec. 17 party,
discussed quantum tunnelling" and then add in his name and contact info
if/when I learn it) and add arbitrary notes about everyone. I know I could
just use a regular CRM but those always get hung up on leads/accounts/etc. I
know I could use something like Evernote (or Workflowy, which I love and sort
of use for this currently) but that's not really the right tool for the job.

Every time I mention this someone tells me it already exists; every time the
thing they point me to is full of useless social integrations and other shit.
Does anyone know of a "personal CRM" that doesn't suck?

</rant>

~~~
AVTizzle
I feel you. I ended up going with Salesforce's $5/mo contact manager edition
and just stripping all the tabs and modules on the contact pages so it's
super-simplified.

Now all my personal contacts are managed in Salesforce which is super robust
and powerful. I love sorting them by "Last Activity" to see who I haven't
spoken with in a while and working my way through the list that way.

(I was able to negotiate a discounted rate of $2/mo when I talked to one of
their account execs too. I bet that's still an option...)

~~~
jlmendezbonini
Can you add pictures as part of the description of the person? Not a profile
picture of the person but photos that could be part of what you want to
remember from the interaction with that person.

~~~
AVTizzle
Interesting, no unftly not that I know of. Maybe if you went with one of the
more advanced packages. The Contact Manager edition is pretty limited.

You can pull profile photos of theirs from Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook
though. But obviously those images aren't yours to choose.

------
sakri
For "home improvement projects, hobby projects, volunteer projects, school
projects, etc."

 _with my best Lionel Richard_ : Trello? Is it me you're looking for?

------
jmduke
On a semi-related note, I always thought this was a clever use of GitHub:

<https://github.com/frabcus/house>

~~~
5h
my first thought was "Oh god, the comments will be full of half funny spam"
... looks like he's actually has some good discussion on them though
<https://github.com/frabcus/house/issues/66>

------
lux
Since trying out the new Basecamp, I was saddened that I could no longer use
it for my side projects any more because the new UI felt really intuitive to
use, but it wasn't worth $20/mo for things I'm making $0 on. I felt a bit
alienated when they dropped the free plan.

It's interesting to see the one-time-fee model they're trying out here and
with Breeze, and I wonder how it'll work out for them. Personally, this is
very happy news. I'm completely willing to shell out $25 just once to have a
great, uncluttered, _simple_ tool for managing my pet projects again. Way to
go!

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aviswanathan
Trello is absolutely incredible (and they have a really receptive development
team). I've used them for development, marketing, HR, etc and have yet to be
disappointed. Mobile version is also kickass.

~~~
bookwormAT
Unfortunately the mobile version is very poor on Android and does not at all
scale to larger screen sizes. I'm sure they are working on this but so far
Trello is not very fun to use on the platform.

~~~
hamidpalo
We are -- new version of Trello for Android is coming out very soon.

------
sek
25$ for a project?

I don't even know if it's better than Asana what is free for personal use.

~~~
zacharydanger
A keen demonstration of price sensitivity.

------
kriro
So it's 25$ per project? I'm not sure people will pay that for school projects
or a couple of one-off projects. For some more expensive projects, sure I can
see it (home improvement, dissertation)

The pricepoint seems a bit high especially since there's free stuff that is
pretty good (I personally use Trello)

Either way it's probably better to start with a higher pricepoint. Good luck
:)

~~~
ceejayoz
I don't think you'd start one of these for each school project. You'd have one
project, "school".

------
efsavage
Maybe I just think about things backwards, but why do none of these packages
support task dependencies (not subtasks). It seems that the logical precursor
to "what is important" is "what is available". Instead we have daily scrums
and bi-weekly planning sessions and people doing all sorts of query-fu just to
figure this out. I'd like a system where I can:

    
    
      a) Dump my tasks
      b) Have it give me a good guess at the most important task, at which point I can:
      - Do it
      - Say it's not important
      - Say it's blocked by another task (and which task that is)
      - Punt it to someone else.
      - Snooze it until date X.
      c) Repeat.
    

I could always go in an do normal task/project management stuff but most of
the time I just want to filter the right 8 hours of tasks out of the 800 hours
of candidates.

~~~
revorad
What criteria would you use for ranking tasks by importance?

~~~
efsavage
Probably a few factors:

    
    
      1. How important I say it is.
      2. How important the tasks it is blocking are.
      3. How close to the due date it is.

~~~
revorad
Thanks. What do you currently use?

~~~
efsavage
A rotating mishmash of text files, spreadsheets, google docs, scrap paper and
a notebook. For professional engagements I've lately used pivotal tracker,
github issues, basecamp, and jira.

------
dugmartin
This seems like a great price point for a freelancer doing small projects. You
could just charge the $25 straight to the client. However it looks like they
don't have a unified dashboard for the personal edition so it might be a pain
if you had a few of these running concurrently.

------
marknutter
The project I've been working on, <http://kona.com>, has had the idea of
personal/work projects baked in from the beginning, and it's free. Worth
checking out.

------
philip1209
I wish that there was calendar access; if I can't access to do items via an
iPhone app or through google calendar, then due dates are a bit useless. I
tried running my classes and homework through base camp, but now use asana
because it has a calendar feed I can see on my phone, there is an iPhone app,
and it auto-promotes tasks based on due date. The latter-most feature is
important because I just put in a semester's worth of reading and it trickles
assignments onto my daily to-do list as the deadlines approach.

------
hemancuso
"37signals launches lifetime plan for Basecamp"

Is what this headline should read. Lifetime plans are a notoriously bad and
often disingenuous idea.

This is essentially a free plan they are trying to charge $25 for. Buyer
beware.

What if they remove a feature you depend on 3 years from now? Do you get your
money back? What if Basecamp Next++ due in 2015 is terrible and you have to
stop using it, can you still use what you are paying for now? What if 37
signals discontinues Basecamp 15 years from now?

~~~
cmaradcliffe
Surely if you've been using a piece of software for 15 years that cost you $25
you would feel you've got your money's worth, no?

~~~
willtheperson
Hang on there - $0.13 a month is a little steep.

------
endemic
Interesting that so many people are discussing the price. If you've followed
37signals' blog posts about business, it's pretty clear that they prefer to
have paying users, rather than offer support (i.e. waste money) to people only
using free plans.

Indeed, the high profile of their brand is what (now) allows them to do this
with a new product: their users will be familiar with the other products
37signals offers, and buy based on that familiarity/constancy.

------
rushabh
After seeing so many apps / websites on HN use Proxima Nova and rounded
avatars immediately after the new Basecamp was released, its interesting to
see this anti 37signals wave on HN.

I think the HN crowd has lost its objectivity in evaluating 37signals and its
become something like an Apple.

One-time forever pricing is a very innovative concept for a web based SAAS
application. I bet we will start seeing more of this soon.

~~~
skrish
Isn't one time pricing, a road lot of business have gone to get some cash
upfront & went back on their word?

We need to remember, in SaaS it is the "service" that you pay for not just the
"software".

It is okay to be skeptical when someone says, I will support you forever when
there is an ongoing cost somewhere.

------
daniellockard
I may be weird, but I'd much rather use trello + properly sorted email than
basecamp.

------
whichdan
I'm interested to see what direction they head with these one-time-cost plans.
If you like BaseCamp and would derive any value from it, $25 is a really good
deal -- I don't see "free" as being all that much more attractive.

~~~
maximegarcia
I was going to say the same thing.

It's very interesting to follow their new tendency to release one-time-fee
softwares for consumers. Hope they talk about public reception on their blog.

------
TeMPOraL
Great, but unfortunately not for me. I'd prefer something that can be usable
off-line. Especially in case of personal projects, I don't want to always have
Internet available to be able to work on stuff. There's no real reason for
this data to leave my PC.

It's sad that all new great products stop as web-apps and never go further.
The best thing I found so far is org-mode + Dropbox combo.

~~~
technoslut
>It's sad that all new great products stop as web-apps and never go further.

There are other apps for personal use or collaboration such as Wunderlist,
Omnifocus (Mac, not PC) and Any.Do (only available natively for iPhone and
Android.)

------
alanmeaney
Once off pricing is interesting. We're allowing users of our new application
to create two teams for free. Deciding on pricing is really tough. Should we
follow Asana/Trello and go free for everything or come up with a paid plan?

If any fellow hn'ers get a chance please feel free to stop by and check it
out.

www.taskmessenger.com :: We make teamwork visible :: @taskmessenger

~~~
euros
Charging a one-off fee, per project, is a great idea.

And if I was you, I would much rather make enough money to pay the bills, than
play the freemium lottery.

And Taskmessenger is all about adding value to a project - something that you
should be proud to charge for.

~~~
alanmeaney
Thanks for the feedback. We're really focused on facilitating teamwork. It's
normally something intangible and we're trying to make it visible which will
hopefully in turn make it contagious.

I will take a look into how a one-off fee model would work.

~~~
meh01
Please don't listen to the idiots telling you to charge a one-off fee for
SaaS.

You're not 37signals and unless you have a couple of million burning a hole in
your pocket, you should be charging reasonable subscription fees.

------
hgezim
I'm the founder of TeamDoList.com:

<http://TeamDoList.com/>

The killer feature, in my (biased?) opinion is the fact that TeamDoList.com
doesn't require logins at all and you just start creating tasks from get-go.
Zero setup.

------
scottmagdalein
This looks like a rebirth of Backpack to me, which is great because I sorely
miss Backpack.

------
jwwest
This is the second product they've launched in the last few months that does
not have a recurring subscription, but a one-time fee. I'm not sure how this
will scale for them in the end.

------
blissofbeing
$25 is too much for something you can get for free with asana or trello. I
guess you pay for the brand more than anything else, like the apple tax.

~~~
smiler
free can't stay free forever without someway to collect money

~~~
ddon
Asana has a premium membership, and many corporate clients who pay well.

------
sthkr
Podio.com is great too! You just need to configure it properly and it can
become quite powerful! and best of all it's even free!

~~~
samekh
Funny thing is I was just setting this up for personal use this morning. I
really like it. The mobile app needs some work on Android, but the web app is
great.

------
revorad
What are people's experiences here in managing projects or even to-do lists
using spreadsheets?

------
corkill
Why the release of one time price products instead of recurring revenue?

------
Neputys
Have they fired Ryan Singer?

------
nopeynoper
Basecamp: the app any web developer should be able to create themselves in a
week or two...

~~~
meerita
Let's hack it! make one open source.

~~~
remi
The guy who created activeCollab first released it as open source →
[http://web.archive.org/web/20060810011430/http://www.activec...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060810011430/http://www.activecollab.com/)

Then, he realized it could make money and put a $499 price tag on it →
<https://www.activecollab.com/pricing.html>

~~~
meerita
I'm open to code the frontend. I just need one guy or two who can do the
backend side.

