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I’ve very much enjoyed the 37signals podcast series, and would like to suggest a topic for consideration — How do you, the founders, allocate and manage your own time?

Do you still do a bit of marketing, a bit of customer support, a bit of product design, a bit of staff coordination, etc. each day (I think in some past blog you mentioned that your time management wasn’t particularly structured.)

As a business owner myself, this is an area I’m constantly grappling with.

RE your response to the twitter issue: It’s not “rules to how you use twitter” it’s social norms at play (or not in play, as in that example).

I second matt’s post, that would be very interesting.

My view is that Twitter is not a place of social norms; it is a free market. You vote with your follow. If don’t like how 37signals, or anyone else, uses it, unfollow them. Follows will transmit information in this market as prices do in others.

(First comment sent from my iPhone)

The point on failure is pretty interesting.

You don’t want to encourage failure and reward someone who has failed by saying “Oh, you failed, and now you have so much experience, we’re going to give you this company and blah blah blah”—which isn’t to say the person shouldn’t keep trying, they should. But you don’t want to reward a failure just because they’ve failed.

But there is also something to be said that it is possible to learn from mistakes that have been made. If you don’t learn from your mistakes you may continue to make those mistakes. This isn’t to encourage “failure” it’s to say “Hey, we shouldn’t do that again”.

It is definitely most important to find out what you did correctly and reinforce those actions to make the product/company better.

Fear of failure is a powerful de-motivator. We are subtly encouraged to not even try because of the possibility of failure.

How many great businesses, or things have not been invented or created because someone feared failure.

We should follow our passion – not hide from the negative possibilities. We can achieve so much if we but try. If we do actually fail, get up and try again. Success is indeed 90% perspiration.

Speaking of Jordan -

Everyone wants to be Jordan, but everyone forgets the work that he put in to be the best. NOBODY worked or competed harder than him, and that’s why he was the best. There is no easy way to become the best.

“We tell ourselves that skill is the precious resource and effort is the commodity. It’s the other way around.”

Tweeting about the contest isn’t the best way to promote it. Just like adding RSS to your twitter account isn’t the best way to promote what you have to say.

Basically, people were upset because this kind of marketing isn’t really how friends interact. And yeah, many people from tech circles see Twitter as an extension of day-to-day relations.

This is a point of view—one of many—but I would encourage you to see Authentic Jobs’ contest – it was wildly popular and kinda describes this another aim at modern (?) marketing.

Jason and David touched on failure a little differently in an earlier podcast where small failure (building an app that isn’t successful) can be a positive thing where you learn and grow but as discussed here, big failure resulting in bankruptcy, layoffs, loss of other people’s lifesavings is frowned upon. I see their point and agree both ways. Subtle difference. We probably shouldn’t even call the first kind ‘failure’.

The whole Tweet -> Sortfolio - > portfolio thing was just unnecessarily complex from the start. Comparing Sortfolio’s place in the process to a design annual didn’t really click either. It’d be like following this process which makes just as little sense:

1. Send us an email expressing your interest and the volume and page number of your listing in a design annual. Do not include your web address, contact information, nor any information about your firm: only include the reference to your listing.

2. We will check the annual to see if you are, in fact listed.

2a. If you do not have a listing, you will be declined.

2b. If you do have a listing, we will find your portfolio, your contact information, your website info, and other information in the listing in order to review your entry and contact you.

The process introduced steps that added no value which is strange to see from 37signals. You should feel good that so many people were surprised and perplexed.

...should be the unofficial 37signals theme song. :)

It’s got Getting Real:

It’s great to never know the feelin of beein fake

the VC’s:

Ugh, dirty money got me sanitizing my hands

Lord knows what the previous owner did with these grands

the “you can’t do it that way” crowd:

They said we couldnt do it, But we already did it

and the Audis:

Wake up in the mornin, and hop into my foreign

(okay, Chamillionaire’s is a Benz, but still…)

oh I forgot… and of course it’s got the Haters…which is how it relates to the title of this podcast…

I’ve very much enjoyed the 37signals podcast series, and would like to suggest a topic for consideration — How do you, the founders, allocate and manage your own time?

I had wondered about this question myself.

Here is his answer – Inc. Article – The Way I Work: Jason Fried of 37Signals

I have recently used this as an easy litmus test for some opportunities I have pursued and asked them – “are you working this way? or are you willing to work this way?”

The Way I Work article was really interesting, but I’m always interested in the nuts and bolts of how people get their tasks done (or not done). I know Jason and DHH believe that long lists don’t get done. But, I’m interested in what tools they use to organize their to-dos. Do they use Basecamp, Backpack, Ta-da or a combination? Paper? Post-its? An iPhone app – Toodledo, Things, etc.? How do they keep everything straight and remember things if different lists are in different places (even within Basecamp they could be on different task lists or under different projects)? How do they prioritize if there’s no way to view all tasks in one place or set priority or context? Do they just review all the lists and then jot down the things for the day on a piece of paper and move forward? If they don’t believe in long lists, where do they put all those “nice to do” things or ideas for the future? Just keep them in their head and, if they forget, then they deem that it must not have been important enough?

I very much like DHH ’s response to the sortfolio/twitter criticism that “Yes, it was a marketing stunt (in addition to being the way we picked a designer), so what?”

I’m tired of this idea that we can’t be out to get anything for ourselves and that marketing is inherently evil. Yes, I have been turned off when someone is too sales-ey or pushy, but just because there is someone who does something too much or just plain badly, that doesn’t make it wrong.

All businesses use marketing, including 37signals and this blog and podcasts are part of it. The fact that they are also useful, fun and build a community just makes it GOOD marketing.

@matt henderson and @ken rossi

If you are wondering how JF and DHH spend there time you should read rework. And listen to the podcasts.

If your in the dev game you should also read getting real.

My take away is that they have long winded, secret meetings on which media buys to suggest to their rockstar/ninja pr firm so they can attract VC from the proper marketing channels which will enable them to flip 37Signals and retire to a beach somewhere. P.S. I have a bridge for sale.

My bad that last post was from me… I’m neither anonymous or cowardly.

Loved this podcast with really strong points from both sides. I haven’t read any of the books yet, but whatever from the talks and JF’s interview on Mixergy I was so pleased that someone has been successful with the same kind of start small from scratch and grow on one’s own funds philosophy which always comes to my mind too (when I think of future :))