
Smiley: An app in 24 hours - alonswartz
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2550-smiley-an-app-in-24-hours#extended
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mcxx
My friends built something similar - NiceReply <http://nicereply.com/>

It was originally custom built in their webhosting company, but now they've
created a standalone product out of it. NiceReply has API, so you can
integrate it in any CRM you're already using. It's really cool, check it out.

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vijaydev
minus #extended at the end :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653240>

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jrussino
I traveled to China this summer, and in the Shanghai airport they use a very
similar system to get quick feedback on customers' satisfaction with the
customs agents. At each station, there's a little box with 3-4 buttons ranging
from :-) to :-| to :-(. (For example: <http://bit.ly/aoSXgP>)

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danilocampos
Their post is a tribute to the freedom to fail.

If you're willing to structure experiments like this to limit risk but be deep
enough to yield genuine benefits, there's a whole lot you can learn. You've
got to work in a culture that tolerates failure, obviously, but why work
somewhere that doesn't?

Back during a horrifying phase of my life, I worked in the shudder-inducing
industry of internet marketing. I wanted to try a new type of lead capture
form that was less user hostile. It was extraordinarily simple, but between
bureaucracy and a web development group that was sorely overworked, it took 12
weeks for the idea to work its way through the constipation of the
organization and into existence.

And it didn't work that well. That earned me a bit of ire.

I gave up on finding something that did work and took another, less depressing
job.

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jasonfried
The post isn't a tribute to the freedom to fail. It's about having an idea,
not complicating it, and executing the basics that matter in 24 hours. There's
so much you can get done in 24 hours if you don't make it take longer than
that.

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danilocampos
Of course _you_ don't see it that way, you're just doing what you want to do,
because you can.

"It's about having an idea, not complicating it, and executing the basics that
matter in 24 hours" ... which is the freedom to fail.

Three things bought you the freedom to fail:

You're the President, so you have deep influence on the allocation of
resources.

You value minimalism, so you limited the scope of the project to make it
manageable. This decreased risk (while maximizing ROI, bravo).

You're open to an outcome that entirely invalidates the tool since you'll
learn something either way.

Failure (and success) requires resources, investment and tolerance of risk.
You demonstrated all three. That's the value of the freedom to fail and it's
solid gold.

You don't see it that way, perhaps, because it's just how you roll at
37signals. Ask a puppy: are you trying to be really, really cute when you're
yawning or are you just yawning because you need to? It will insist, as you
have, that it's just doing what it needs to do.

The thing to keep in mind is that, sadly, not everyone can access the
resources or commit to the investment required to get things done. Even if
they do, cultural risk aversion may still paralyze them. I looked at your post
and what immediately struck me was "Damn, that's good stuff. Some places are
incapable of delivering this kind of thing. Why? Oh. No freedom to fail."

I guess the best luxuries are the ones you don't realize you've got. :)

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danilocampos
It also occurs to me that committees add complication to things all the time.
Being able to process an idea into a product while bypassing a committee is
important factor in the investment component.

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st3fan
Nice ripoff of the Firefox 4.0 beta feedback:

<http://stefan.arentz.ca/stuff/grabs/1283385827.png>

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jimbobimbo
If you really want to dig to the sources of the idea, Microsoft had it back in
2006 for Office 2007 Beta2.
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/05/26/607768.as...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2006/05/26/607768.aspx)

~~~
nopassrecover
Or, you know, GetSatisfaction

