Jason Fried

What do they got? A big team, lots of money, a strong brand, seemingly unlimited resources, panache, reputation, all that. They’re established. They’re your competitors. You want to look away, but you see them everywhere. Their ads on your social, their name in the media, your dream clients on their website. But you know what else they got? Bigger company bloat. Overflowing obligations. Narratives to uphold. Appearances to maintain. Entitlement. Too much overhead. They’re slow. They’re conservative. They talk too much. They’ve stopped taking risks. They’re resting on their laurels, gliding on their reputation. They’re on defense. What they’ve really got is a lot to lose. What do you got? Hunger. Drive. Grit. Scrappiness. Independence. You’re on offense. You don’t have enough, which is why you’re dangerous. You have no choice but to be clever and creative. To make up for what you don’t have with something they can’t have: The underdog spirit. You can move. You can adjust. You can adapt. You can get it done while they’re still stuck deciding what to do. Small is not a stepping stone. Small is not less than. It’s greater than. It’s faster than. It’s better than. Savor your position. You don’t get to be the underdog forever. The baton will be passed. But for now, it’s your magic wand. Use it. We stand with the underdogs.

@ethananderson @CleanShot Yup.

@jasonfried Ha, nice. Those arrows look familiar. Is that @CleanShot?

Obliterate! Great word in an unexpected place.

@Martinoleary @Reebok Moser got to make a fun watch, collab with a big brand in a different industry, cozy up with a cultural moment... Moser doesn't take itself too seriously, and it shows. Good on them.

@jasonfried @Reebok the best collabs are always one brand buying the other's permission to be taken seriously somewhere new. what did moser get out of this?

This collab between @Reebok and H. Moser & Cie is totally unexpected and incredibly fun. I love this specific flavor of ambition. More of this please! hodinkee.com/articles/intro…

@nathanpeterson No, we do not.

@jasonfried another one: does you company keep a dashboard of some kind with key metrics you want to keep an eye on? The hill chart may be a broad version of this per project, but I’m trying to find a good way to keep our team focused on the actual things that matter — for us it’s funds raised, concerts scheduled, etc… curious how you handle this.

@dneighbors @dhh This isn't about taste, it's about performance, reliability, and durability.

@dhh This is fading fast. All depends on how much taste you want applied. Most people over index for taste thinking it provides a lot more value than it often does.

Designers have been granted prototyping super powers with AI, but the models are still not good enough to consistently one-shot implementations you'd want to merge to master on large, critical applications like Basecamp without programmer review (or even reimplementation!).

In Basecamp, of course. Post a message with the images and ideas. Ask for whatever feedback you want. Let it roll in the comments section. A single page with everything — the original, the comments, people's revisions they may post. A bit of advice though... I'd recommend against involving too many people in design decisions. Typically, it's two people here that get pretty far on something. Then we may layer in one more person. But having 5 people give creative feedback on something is a recipe for treading water, not making progress. In the end, the last thing you need is another opinion.

@jasonfried @dhh How do you guys discuss design/graphic/visual ideas as a team? I've got a team I'd like to kick logo ideas back and forth with, be able to make comments, and have some way to vote certain ones up... I feel like your products have this capability, but I'm not clear on exactly which one would work best and how...

@TesTeq "Perfect" would make it worse.

@jasonfried Thanks! Now it’s so easy to fix everything in Logic Pro. No need for perfect timing of four keyboards…

Fans of the creative process will enjoy this video that takes a look (and listen) at how "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles came together over 5 days. A wonderful mix of left field ideas, chance, and recording magic made it happen. A lovely unfolding. youtube.com/watch?v=WPKHKk…

@DavidPerlov Very important for all creative endeavors, including software! Don't wrap them up too soon. Leave loose ends longer than what feels comfortable. Let the universe do its thing.

@jasonfried The Beatles' real edge was keeping the writing room open longer than anyone else. Most songs die in the first hour because everyone agrees too quickly. Five days lets the weird ideas breathe until the best one wins. Creative compounding isn't magic. It's stamina.

@ZeClint We have Card Tables in Basecamp.

@jasonfried So disappointed that it’s not integrated with Basecamp. Is it planned to implement it in Basecamp?

While considering names for Fizzy, we briefly considered Insane Card Posse. So much so, that we got insanecardposse.com just in case.

@pauliuspodz What we save turns to profit. Profit comes out of the company every year. To the owners, and to the employees.

@jasonfried What are you doing with the savings? Investing back in company or something specific?

Huge savings, same team, more profit. Let the compounding begin.

@schoenberger @therealizzy @dhh I don't manage my contacts. I have them in a plain old system-level whatever-comes-in-the-box address book.

Out of curiosity, what do you use to manage your contacts? I’m just using iCloud, but would love to have something a bit more personal that worked with my Hey Calendar (birthdays/anniversaries) and let me make quick notes on them (basically what’s already in “Contacts”, but with dates, addresses, phone fields.)

David gets it.

@jorgemanru The problem is that most issue tracking software tools make tracking issues feel like a sport. But as you've noticed, putting more points on the board ultimately leads to a worse score.

With systems to track bugs, I always reach the same conclusion, again and again: limiting the size of queues works. This is an old Kanban principle that reflects a fundamental truth: as good as it makes you feel, tracking everything quickly yields diminishing returns, because queues become unmanageable. What do you work on next when there are a thousand things to pick from? Related: removing bugs before adding new ones is super hard. Fizzy’s auto-close idea is a killer feature.

@schoenberger @therealizzy @dhh Funny... That's exactly the name I had in mind for a Highrise reboot years ago. But no plans to go back there moving forward.

@jasonfried @therealizzy @dhh Contacts... Highrise reboot... call it High Five 🫸🫷

@lillerik Don't know why, unfortunately. Amazon's call on the discount, timing, and maybe geolocation, don't know.

@jasonfried Don’t see it unfortunately

The Kindle version of our book "REMOTE: Office Not Required" is just $1.99 today (special Amazon promotion). Published back in 2013, it's remarkably relevant today, maybe even more so than back then. Some of the tool recommendations have changed (cya Skype!) but conceptually it's as current as ever. Grab it here for just $1.99 on Kindle, today (April 13th) only: amazon.com/Remote-Office-…

@pieter5583 Apparently. Amazon's choice.

@jasonfried US special only? :/