010 Business Tech Weekly – Interview With Jason Fried of 37 Signals

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Business Tech Weekly:
Interview with Jason Fried of 37Signals.com

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft interview founder and CEO of 37Signals.com, Jason Fried.

- What do you say to people who are concerned about losing their data with cloud computing?

- Don’t you and Chris Anderson really actually agree on “Free” because you offer free versions of your services so people can try them out? Or do you really thinks we shouldn’t charge for anything, ever?

- Link to YouTube Cliff Mentioned: Marketing by Sharing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks2saa38Id4

- I notice that 37 signals just launched it’s first ever podcast episode on 10/28/09. Why start a podcast? Why Now?

- You’ve had tremendous success building a company, with employees, products, offices etc. What advice do you have for solopreneurs, people like Cliff and I who run our own shows and don’t really want to become a big company but we do want to become more successful in our form of business.?

- What were you doing before 37 Signals?

- Is your book going to be any good? Because I bought it on Amazon already and it doesn’t come out till March.

- Cliff suggest that everyone check out HighRise using http://gspn.tv/highrise

- Cliff also mentioned his full thoughts on HighRise as recorded in PABL Episode #441.

Here are a few links to introduce you to Jason:

Basecamp Link
HighRise Link

Preview videos of Jason Fried (Notice: Explicit language in 2nd video)
http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif3-jason-fried
http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif4-jason-fried

Wikipedia/Bios on Jason Fried

An article about a typical work day for Jason Fried

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Posted November 12, 2009 by Cliff Ravenscraft

Comments

Andy

Did my gravatar work? I hope so. And as for "who should run the interview"...this is the GSPN network and Cliff Ravenscraft's name is on the iTunes search for this show which means it's HIS show. I'm a co-host and not a servant but at the end of the day it's his network and I trust him 100%. Is Cliff perfect, nope. But he's really good at what he does...so be kind everyone. Constructive criticism is always welcome. We're big boys, we can take it.

Andy

It was a lot of fun to do that interview and we obviously had quite a crowd show up. We'll keep the big hits coming as best we can an in the meantime we appreciate our plus members and other weekly listeners.

Stephen

Cliff & Andy - real good interview with Jason. Jason and his company are interesting from both business and technology perspectives. I'm glad your covered a little of everything.

Cliff Ravenscraft

Luay, Thanks for the comment on the site! I'm glad you enjoyed the interview. Jason is an amazing business man and I love the non-traditional approach to run a business.

In my preparation for the interview, I had found some other terrific interviews where Jason shared that made me think.. Wow, this would be a great guy to work with/for.

But then, it simply inspired me to say wait a minute.. I love running my own show. However, I'm at the point now where I am going to have to bring someone in to work for me. I hope I can take a similar approach with my employees.

Thanks for listening!
Cliff

Luay Rahil

Thank you for this interview, It has a great ideas, Jason Fried is one of my favorite business people in the world.

Cliff Ravenscraft

Tom, Sorry you seemed to be so unhappy with the time you spent listening. I do use the company products. I feel our approach was balanced. Andy is a long time client of 37Signals.com and I just signed up this past weekend and have decided that HighRise is the best thing since sliced bread for my own business.

I suppose my zeal and passion was a turn off for you. I can't do anything to give you those 20 minutes of your valuable time back to you. I'll simply pray that you become blessed with an opportunity that will come your way that will make your lost opportunity with your time pale in comparison to how great that possible opportunity will be for you.

Be blessed on your journey in finding content that better meets your tastes.

Sincerely,

Cliff

Tom

Cliff,

You should of let Andy run with the interview. He knows the 37 Signals products and understands the philosophies of the company - which they are as known for as the products themselves.

I gave up on the interview during the second soliloquy-like rant you started at about the 20-minute mark. Interviewers should let their interviewees speak. Highrise is a good product, but it feels insincere when you go all gaga over it and you don't even use it. It also sounded like you were doing internet searches and pulling up articles to quote from during the interview itself. It sounded like you didn't do your research.

Fried said something about how he is really serious about designing products that really work because his clients spend their (hard-earned) money on them. The podcast certainly wan't horrible, but I spent over twenty minutes of my time, and that too is in limited quantity.

Good luck.