You have to give DHH, Jason and others at 37signals credit for not just having decent business ideas and executing on them but also developing a brand and image. It doesn't hurt that DHH is stylish and can deliver humorous, slightly self deprecating lines like “We don’t have 200k RSS subscribers because of my deliciously swirly hair”. It also doesn't hurt that 37signals doesn't lock DHH into the code monkey box and instead lets him travel around giving talks and promoting that image. I've seen him talk in person and have to admit that he is a great presenter, even on topics unrelated to code.
That, and the fact that they are giving away their knowledge and experience to anyone who wants to listen. (Plus repackaging it and selling it to anyone who want to pay for it.) Anyone who doesn't appreciate that can simply not listen to them — it's an odd request for anyone to ask people to stop publishing stuff on their own website. I for one am thankful for their free advice.
People tend to dislike the way their advice is definitive, they see a trait of arrogance in that. Me, I think of it more as being non-fuzzy, they cut through to the gist and the focal points.
The most amazing thing about this, and DHH in general, is that it is all common sense. But he is the only one that has the guts to shout "but the emperor has no clothes on"
not really. Lots of people have shouted this..it was before RSS and blogging so the megaphone and recording devices were not on. I'm sure I'm not the only one. When Java started taking off with J2EE, I tried really hard to let the majors (Sun, IBM, Netscape, Microsoft, BEA) understand how their monolithic frameworks were not what most users needed.
It all fell on deaf ears to the tune of: "What, EJBs are too complex? Swing shouldn't bypass native UI controls?" This not just from the architects inside those big co's, but from the users that would believe anything a big co told them.
It took a full decade of users to experience how poorly conceived these frameworks were before DHH had a stage to stand on.
Timing is everything. Users had to go through this severe disillusionment before anything like Rails could have every been accepted. If it wasn't DHH, it would have been someone else. Its the message and timing of it, not the messenger that is generally more important.
Also, do not get me wrong. I'm actually not a Rails fan nor a serious opponent of it, use what works for you. Rails only gets half the equation right in my opinion. Rails too severally bastardizes MVC and lacks quality internals (hopefully Rails 3 will change some of this). What Rails does right is the accessibility of its APIs/DSLs, convention over configuration, etc...btw, all been done before the dark cloud of Java rolled onto the scene.
Just goes to show how starved the web dev world was to flock to only half a solution. Turns out this was exactly the half of the equation they were starved for.
>> "only one that has the guts to shout "but the emperor has no clothes on""
On what point specifically? I really would not trust advice from him on how well advertising models work. Seek out someone who has made a money from advertising and trust them instead.
If you've already decided to offer a paid product, 37signals, fogbugz etc all seem to have good things to say on that model, but taking their advice on which model to choose seems like a very bad idea to me.
On choosing a business model. Far too many companies rely on just getting users, and monetizing later.
Of course advice from someone who has had success with both an advertising and a pay model would be the ideal, but lacking that I'll settle for advice from someone that has actually had success.
Come to think of it, I can't recall having read about a company that has had success (as in making enough money to live on within a year or two from launch) with an advertising model. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, just that it seems to be an outlier.
Charging for your products, on the other hand, is a well-proven model that has worked for hundreds of years. This is how the vast majority of companies generate cash. I just think it's refreshing to see someone that actually comes out and says it, instead of all this get-big-fast hype that only worls out well for an absolute minority.
If you're in the UK, check out forums like http://www.affiliates4u.com/ There are hundreds if not thousands of users on there making a living out of affiliate marketing. I don't know of similar forums in the US, but am sure they exist.
Also check out sitepoint 'websites for sale'. Quite often they include figures on revenue. Just scan down those and see how much they're making from advertising.
It's just less news worthy so you don't hear about them - "Another website makes lots of money from adverts" - big deal. Also lots haven't gone the VC route so they don't try to court the press/blogs/etc quite so much.
The issue I have with companies that get big with ad income as a model, is the massive amount they spend on servers, offices, tons of employees. If they kept lean they could be making a lot of money.
I just checked Sitepoint, and there are currently 17 sites that sell, or have been sold for more than $50.000. A salesprice less than that probably indicates you can't live off it. Of those 17 sites:
- two are getting revenue from affiliate marketing
- one is advertising porn
- one has advertising income of $500 monthly
- one has ad revenues of $3000 monthly.
The rest sell actual products that they charge for.
I still don't think advertising is a model that works well for most companies.
I did actually mean look at it periodically for a while and check out some of the sites that come up. You can't really take a single snapshot for a single day and draw any conclusion from it.
That's like saying there haven't been any IPO's today, so IPO's aren't possible.
Also it's probably slightly rarer to see profitable ad-supported websites actually come up for sale, since often they take nothing to run, so people hang onto them.
I agree with your general perspective; but also, I see obvious benefits to charging for one's product directly from the user; revenue increases as you grow, no conflicting interests or prioritisations between advertisers and users.
What are the advantages to the advertising model from a business perspective? I see obvious downsides; ad placement is a careful balancing between frustrating/confusing your users and making money off of them. Costs aren't related to the useage of your product, etc.
They're not saying to not use an advertising model.
They're saying "don't forget about the regular old proven model of charging money for your product — it's still relevant and it has these great attributes, here's our experience with it".
Don't take their advice personally, because it's not. They're just broadcasting their own experience.
I think it takes a lot of practice to communicate as efficiently and effectively as the 37s gang does. It's not just about getting a reaction; they know what they're talking about. I don't mind the swearing if it's sincere. At least they're passionate.
I think it works both ways. Sometimes people will find something brilliant because it was said with swear words, but wouldn't take much note of it if said with other words. If the idea was not that great without swear words, I'm not sure how the swear words make it brilliant.
In decent writing every word is said precisely because it needs to be said. It's not a contest on who can say stuff with most obfuscated and "proper" words in it. It's a contest on who has the best ideas and who can be a good telephate. We're just trying to pass stuff from our neural networks to other people's neural networks through written language.
There's no prize for saying the same thing with less swear words but as each word, including swear words, carries its own emotional aura and meaning, you _must_ use them where necessary to convey your thought.
In this case the thought was about humorous, uncompromising denial of blocks set by the perceived reality. Something a teenager would say when denying authority or looking to think out of the box, created by the religious past.
If you need word "fuck" to be in the text, then please god-fucking-damnit put it there!
“I didn’t start coding when I was 6, but 21, and Jason (Fried) started business school later too”
On the other hand, I did. And now I'm in college having the time of my life analyzing frequency responses of signal filters, and doing only peripheral amounts of coding. Shows how much what you did as a kid has a bearing on what you end up doing later in life :)
We should continue to self censor the F-word.. but not for the reasons you think.
It simply becomes less effective/refreshing/honest/direct/entertaining the more you use it.. its such an important and nice word, we need to ration its use in order to preserve its role in the language.
If you say it all day, every day, then your 5 year old will go to school and use it. On the other hand, if it slips out when you hit your thumb with a hammer (assuming you're not a very uncoordinated career carpenter) then your 5 year old will know that it must have hurt like the dickens, but that it's not a word for every day use.
The great thing about advice like this is, is that you can give away all the real secrets to your success, but never fear that people will take you on because people either feel satisfied just listening to it rather than doing it, or just don't want to hear it and come up with excuses why the advice-giver clearly doesn't understand the real world.
I've always considered that aspect to be entirely brilliant.
That's half the truth. Jason Fried likes to compare this to how world famous chefs lets people in on their cooking secrets.
Reading their cook books or watching their tv shows isn't going to propel you to their level of skill or put them out of business, just help you a bit a long the way.
