

Figuring out what your company is all about - wglb
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/11/01.html

======
MartinCron
I recently realized that between FogBugz (which my company uses for bugs, to-
do items, and wiki) and Kiln (which my company is now using for Source
Control/Code Reviews), the Fog Creek products are emerging as a Bizarro-world
version of Microsoft's TFS.

My uninformed prediction of what's next: a hosted CI service like
CruiseControl or TeamCity, both of which are useful (I would say
indispensable) but can be intimidating to set up and start using.

~~~
brown9-2
This is a tangent but you might want to take a look at Hudson as a CI server;
it's incredibly easy to set up, not at all intimidating, and very extensible.

~~~
MartinCron
Thanks! That looks like a very useful tool.

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edw519
_Making a nice place to work was our primary objective._

Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I still have a tough time understanding
any goal != "maximizing our customers' success".

I once went to a sales seminar for technical people and we had to introduce
ourselves and describe what our companies did. The first 15 people described
their products. Then on my turn, I said something like, "We provide our
customers tools to help them succeed." The instructor remarked that I was the
only one who mentioned "customers" in his introduction. I didn't even think
about it at the time; that's just the way I was trained.

 _It took almost ten years, but I think we finally got the mission for the
next ten nailed._

Good for you, Joel. In your business, I imagine it's a fine line between an
employee and a customer because they're both programmers. I would expect that
sooner or later, focus must revert to the customer.

~~~
warwick
_"We provide our customers tools to help them succeed."_

That seems like an overly general phrase. Using the generic 'customer' seems
like a cop-out, since it feels like you haven't really asked yourself which
market you're making your product for. "Help them succeed" implies to me that
you haven't really figured out the tangible benefit to the customer, which in
turn means that you're in a really weak sales position.

Let's say you worked for a company making pie chart software. That phrase
could apply, or something more specific like "We provide middle-managers with
pie chart software to help them impress their bosses".

A good sales pitch follows directly from an understanding of who you're
selling to, what they want, and how your product gives it to them.

------
leelin

      Almost every software job in the city was terrible. 
      You had a choice of which kind of terrible. 
      Want to wear a suit and work long hours under crummy
      conditions? Take a job at a bank.
    

Interesting that Joel semi-praises Microsoft but didn't mention his other
former employer, D. E. Shaw / Juno (and the growing number of firms similar to
DESCO). They are (relatively) hacker-friendly finance companies with no suits
or long hours.

~~~
aswanson
In his book he mentioned DE Shaw nanomanaged and power-tripped on programmers.

~~~
leelin
Weird, if anything my experience was the opposite, almost too little
management. Maybe his experience was exclusive to the way things were run at
Juno as opposed to the trading side of the business.

------
dandrews
This is what I was told: "We're in business to stay in business."

~~~
fpgeek
That's exactly the sort of place I wouldn't want to be. The best companies
have a mission that's far beyond mere survival. That mission is why they stay
ahead of their competition.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Companies that look at their employees as "heads" or "resources" and look at
their customers as nothing more than revenue sources inevitably fall behind.
When you operate that way your most talented workers don't give their best and
many of them eventually leave, and you don't produce the best products
(because you simply don't care). When a competitor who does care comes along
they eat your lunch, because their more efficient and put out better products.

------
wheaties
Anyone check out the video at the bottom? Holy @#$* that's a nice workspace. I
live in a cube. I'd actually be excited to go to work if that were my
workplace.

~~~
ludwig
Ok, Joel. We get it :-)

------
adamc
Good luck to him. That's a crowded market filled with strong open source
alternatives.

~~~
hello_moto
Good point. But on the other hand, companies like JetBrains, Atlassian,
Unfuddle, GitHub, BitBucket are still around making good money.

------
BobN
I just want an Aeron chair.

~~~
weaksauce
I picked one up on cragslist for a couple hundred and it has been great for
the back. I noticed that I can now sit at the desk for longer periods without
fatigue like my last chair. The material they use is firm and took a bit to
get used to at first.

------
mudge
That's an awesome article.

------
freetard
That's funny, I always thought fogcreek was about making loads of money by
selling over-priced and over-hyped web apps.

------
barmstrong
I can't really figure out why, but something about Joel bothers me when I
read/watch his stuff. Does anyone have a similar experience? I can't think of
any good reason why this would be the case, he is obviously a smart guy,
StackOverflow is brilliant. Maybe it's the tone of how he writes stuff or
maybe it's because he seems to be a Microsoft sympathizer, neither of which
are good reasons.

It's totally irrational but I get that gut feeling a lot with him. Am I the
only one? Any other ideas why?

~~~
gord
I like Joel, and hes made a nice place to work...

but, its _too_ nice : I need the anarchy of a startup.

The atomic moments of xen calm are appreciated more against a backdrop of
reality-chaos-screaming-towards-outrageously-impossible-product-deadline.

------
maxcameron
Hahaha Joel how about a start up discount for your make better software
training. $1595 for four videos is a nice idea but too rich for my blood.

