GettingRealBy37Signals - my notes and quotes. Below is full text.

Get Real Text

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Getting Real
by 37signals
The smarter,faster,easier way to
build a successful web application

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Copyright © 2006 by 37signals
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage
and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from 37signals,
except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
First edition

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Contents
1
Introduction
2
What is Getting Real?
6
About 37signals
9
Caveats, disclaimers, and other preemptive strikes
12
The Starting Line
13
Build Less
14
What’s Your Problem?
17
Fund Yourself
19
Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope
21
Have an Enemy
24
It Shouldn’t be a Chore
25
Stay Lean
26
Less Mass
29
LowerYour Cost of Change
31
The Three Musketeers
33
Embrace Constraints
35
Be Yourself
37
Priorities
38
What’s the Big Idea
40
Ignore Details Early On
42
It’s a ProblemWhen It’s a Problem
43
Hire the Right Customers
44
Scale Later
46
Make Opinionated Software

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47
Feature Selection
48
Half, Not Half-Assed
49
It Just Doesn’t Matter
51
Start With No
53
Hidden Costs
54
CanYouHandle It?
55
Human Solutions
56
Forget Feature Requests
58
Hold the Mayo
59
Process
60
RacetoRunning Software
62
Rinse and Repeat
64
From Idea to Implementation
66
Avoid Preferences
68
“Done!”
70
Test in theWild
72
Shrink Your Time
75
The Organization
76
Unity
77
Alone Time
79
Meetings Are Toxic
81
Seek and Celebrate Small Victories
82 Staffing
83
Hire Less and Hire Later
85
KicktheTires
86
Actions, Not Words
88
Get Well Rounded Individuals
89
You Can’t Fake Enthusiasm
90
Wordsmiths
91
Interface Design
92
Interface First
94
Epicenter Design

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Three State Solution
97
The Blank Slate
99
Get Defensive
100
Context Over Consistency
101
Copywriting is Interface Design
102
One Interface
103 Code
104
Less Software
107
Optimize for Happiness
109
Code Speaks
111
Manage Debt
112
Open Doors
114 Words
115
There’s Nothing Functional about a Functional Spec
118
Don’t Do Dead Documents
120
Tell Me aQuick Story
121
Use Real Words
123
Personify Your Product
124 Pricing and Signup
125
Free Samples
127
Easy On, Easy Off
129
Silly Rabbit,Tricks are for Kids
130
A Softer Bullet
131 Promotion
132
Hollywood Launch
135
A Powerful Promo Site
136
Ride the Blog Wave
137
Solicit Early
138
Promote Through Education
141
Feature Food
143
Track Your Logs
144
Inline Upsell

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Name Hook
146 Support
147
Feel The Pain
149
Zero Training
150
Answer Quick
152
Tough Love
154
In Fine Forum
155
Publicize Your Screwups
157 Post-Launch
158
One Month Tuneup
159
Keep the Posts Coming
161
Better, Not Beta
162
All Bugs Are Not Created Equal
163
Ride Out the Storm
164
Keep Up With the Joneses
165
Beware the Bloat Monster
166
Go With the Flow
167 Conclusion
168
Start Your Engines
171
37signals Resources

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Introduction
What is Getting Real?
About 37signals
Caveats, disclaimers, and other preemptive strikes

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What is Getting Real?
Want to build a successful web app? Then it’s time to Get Real.
Getting Real is a smaller, faster, better way to build software.
Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that
represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics,
wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features,
less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and
most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).
Getting Real is staying small and being agile.
Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that
people are going to use. It begins with what the customer
actually experiences and builds backwards from there.This lets
you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.
Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the
cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching,
tweaking, and constantly improving which makes
it a perfect approach for web-based software.
Getting Real delivers just what customers need
and eliminates anything they don’t.
The benefits of Getting Real
Getting Real delivers better results because it forces you to deal
with the actual problems you’re trying to solve instead of your
ideas about those problems. It forces you to deal with reality.

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Getting Real foregoes functional specs and other transitory
documentation in favor of building real screens. A functional
spec is make-believe, an illusion of agreement, while an actual
web page is reality. That’s what your customers are going to see
and use. That’s what matters. Getting Real gets you there faster.
And that means you’re making software decisions based on the
real thing instead of abstract notions.
Finally, Getting Real is an approach ideally suited to web-based
software. The old school model of shipping software in a box
and then waiting a year or two to deliver an update is fading
away. Unlike installed software, web apps can constantly evolve
on a day-to-day basis. Getting Real leverages this advantage for
all its worth.
How To Write Vigorous Software
Vigorous writing is concise.A sentence should contain no unnecessary
words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a
drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary
parts.This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid
all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.
From “The Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr.
No more bloat
The old way: a lengthy, bureaucratic, we’re-doing-this-to-cover-
our-asses process. The typical result: bloated, forgettable soft-
ware dripping with mediocrity. Blech.
Getting Real gets rid of...
Timelines that take months or even years
Pie-in-the-sky functional specs
Scalability debates

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Interminable staff meetings
The “need” to hire dozens of employees
Meaningless version numbers
Pristine roadmaps that predict the perfect future
Endless preference options
Outsourced support
Unrealistic user testing
Useless paperwork
Top-down hierarchy
You don’t need tons of money or a huge team or a lengthy
development cycle to build great software. Those things are the
ingredients for slow, murky, changeless applications. Getting
real takes the opposite approach.
In this book we’ll show you...
The importance of having a philosophy
Why staying small is a good thing
How to build less
How to get from idea to reality quickly
How to staff your team
Why you should design from the inside out
Why writing is so crucial
Why you should underdo your competition

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How to promote your app and spread the word
Secrets to successful support
Tips on keeping momentum going after launch
...and lots more
The focus is on big-picture ideas. We won’t bog you down with
detailed code snippets or css tricks. We’ll stick to the major
ideas and philosophies that drive the Getting Real process.
Is this book for you?
You’re an entrepreneur, designer, programmer, or marketer
working on a big idea.
You realize the old rules don’t apply anymore. Distribute your
software on cd-roms every year? How 2002. Version numbers?
Out the window. You need to build, launch, and tweak. Then
rinse and repeat.
Or maybe you’re not yet on board with agile development and
business structures, but you’re eager to learn more.
If this sounds like you, then this book is for you.
Note: While this book’s emphasis is on building a web app,
a lot of these ideas are applicable to non-software activities too.
The suggestions about small teams, rapid prototyping, expect-
ing iterations, and many others presented here can serve as a
guide whether you’re starting a business, writing a book,
designing a web site, recording an album, or doing a variety
of other endeavors. Once you start Getting Real in one area of
your life, you’ll see how these concepts can apply to a wide
range of activities.

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About 37signals
What we do
37signals is a small team that creates simple, focused software.
Our products help you collaborate and get organized. More
than 350,000 people and small businesses use our web-apps to
get things done. Jeremy Wagstaff, of the Wall Street Journal,
wrote, “37signals products are beautifully simple, elegant and
intuitive tools that make an Outlook screen look like the soft-
ware equivalent of a torture chamber.” Our apps never put you
on the rack.
Our modus operandi
We believe software is too complex. Too many features, too
many buttons, too much to learn. Our products do less than
the competition – intentionally. We build products that work
smarter, feel better, allow you to do things your way, and are
easier to use.
Our products
As of the publishing date of this book, we have five commercial
products and one open source web application framework.
Basecamp turns project management on its head. Instead of
Gantt charts, fancy graphs, and stats-heavy spreadsheets, Base-
camp offers message boards, to-do lists, simple scheduling, col-
laborative writing, and file sharing. So far, hundreds of thou-
sands agree it’s a better way. Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com said
“Basecamp represents the future of software on the Web.”

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Campfire brings simple group chat to the business setting.
Businesses in the know understand how valuable real-time
persistent group chat can be. Conventional instant messaging is
great for quick 1-on-1 chats, but it’s miserable for 3 or more
people at once. Campfire solves that problem and plenty more.
Backpack is the alternative to those confusing, complex, “orga-
nize your life in 25 simple steps” personal information managers.
Backpack’s simple take on pages, notes, to-dos, and cellphone/
email-based reminders is a novel idea in a product category that
suffers from status-quo-itis. Thomas Weber of the Wall Street
Journal said it’s the best product in its class and David Pogue of
the New York Times called it a “very cool” organization tool.
Writeboard lets you write, share, revise, and compare text
solo or with others. It’s the refreshing alternative to bloated
word processors that are overkill for 95% of what you write.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball said, “Writeboard might be the
clearest, simplest web application I’ve ever seen.” Web-guru
Jeffrey Zeldman said, “The brilliant minds at 37signals have
done it again.”
Ta-da List keeps all your to-do lists together and organized
online. Keep the lists to yourself or share them with others for
easy collaboration. There’s no easier way to get things done.
Over 100,000 lists with nearly 1,000,000 items have been
created so far.
Ruby on Rails, for developers, is a full-stack, open-source
web framework in Ruby for writing real-world applications
quickly and easily. Rails takes care of the busy work so you can
focus on your idea. Nathan Torkington of the O’Reilly publish-
ing empire said “Ruby on Rails is astounding. Using it is like
watching a kung-fu movie, where a dozen bad-ass frameworks
prepare to beat up the little newcomer only to be handed their
asses in a variety of imaginative ways.” Gotta love that quote.

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You can find our more about our products and our company on
our web site at: http://www.37signals.com.

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Caveats, disclaimers, and other
preemptive strikes
Just to get it out of the way, here are our responses to some com-
plaints we hear every now and again:
“These techniques won’t work for me.”
Getting real is a system that’s worked terrifically for us. That
said, the ideas in this book won’t apply to every project under
the sun. If you are building a weapons system, a nuclear control
plant, a banking system for millions of customers, or some other
life/finance-critical system, you’re going to balk at some of our
laissez-faire attitude. Go ahead and take additional precautions.
And it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition. Even if
you can’t embrace Getting Real fully, there are bound to be at
least a few ideas in here you can sneak past the powers that be.
“You didn’t invent that idea.”
We’re not claiming to have invented these techniques.
Many of these concepts have been around in one form or
another for a long time. Don’t get huffy if you read some
of our advice and it reminds you of something you read
about already on so and so’s weblog or in some book pub-
lished 20 years ago. It’s definitely possible. These tech-
niques are not at all exclusive to 37signals. We’re just telling
you how we work and what’s been successful for us.

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“You take too much of a black and white view.”
If our tone seems too know-it-allish, bear with us. We think it’s
better to present ideas in bold strokes than to be wishy-washy
about it. If that comes off as cocky or arrogant, so be it. We’d
rather be provocative than water everything down with “it
depends...” Of course there will be times when these rules need
to be stretched or broken. And some of these tactics may not
apply to your situation. Use your judgement and imagination.
“This won’t work inside my company.”
Think you’re too big to Get Real? Even Microsoft is Getting
Real (and we doubt you’re bigger than them).
Even if your company typically runs on long-term schedules
with big teams, there are still ways to get real.The first step is
to break up into smaller units. When there’s too many people
involved, nothing gets done. The leaner you are, the faster – and
better – things get done.
Granted, it may take some salesmanship. Pitch your company on
the Getting Real process. Show them this book. Show them the
real results you can achieve in less time and with a smaller team.
Explain that Getting Real is a low-risk, low-investment way to
test new concepts. See if you can split off from the mothership
on a smaller project as a proof of concept. Demonstrate results.
Or, if you really want to be ballsy, go stealth. Fly under the
radar and demonstrate real results. That’s the approach the
Start.com team has used while Getting Real at Microsoft. “I’ve
watched the Start.com team work. They don’t ask permission,”
says Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft. “They
have a boss that provides air cover. And they bite off a little bit
at a time and do that and respond to feedback.”

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Shipping Microsoft’s Start.com
In big companies, processes and meetings are the norm. Many months are
spent on planning features and arguing details with the goal of everyone
reaching an agreement on what is the “right” thing for the customer.
That may be the right approach for shrink-wrapped software, but with the web
we have an incredible advantage. Just ship it! Let the user tell you if it’s the right
thing and if it’s not, hey you can fix it and ship it to the web the same day if
you want! There is no word stronger than the customer’s – resist the urge to
engage in long-winded meetings and arguments. Just ship it and prove a point.
Much easier said than done – this implies:
Months of planning are not necessary.
Months of writing specs are not necessary – specs should have the foundations
nailed and details figured out and refined during the development phase. Don’t
try to close all open issues and nail every single detail before development starts.
Ship less features, but quality features.
You don’t need a big bang approach with a whole new release and
bunch of features. Give the users byte-size pieces that they can digest.
If there are minor bugs, ship it as soon you have the core scenarios
nailed and ship the bug fixes to web gradually after that.The faster
you get the user feedback the better. Ideas can sound great on paper
but in practice turn out to be suboptimal.The sooner you find out
about fundamental issues that are wrong with an idea, the better.
Once you iterate quickly and react on customer feedback, you
will establish a customer connection. Remember the goal is
to win the customer by building what they want.
-Sanaz Ahari, Program Manager of Start.com, Microsoft

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The Starting Line
Build Less
What’s Your Problem?
Fund Yourself
Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope
Have an Enemy
It Shouldn’t be a Chore

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Build Less
Underdo your competition
Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you
need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need five
(or 15, or 25). If they’re spending x, you need to spend xx. If
they have 20, you need 30.
This sort of one-upping Cold War mentality is a dead-end. It’s
an expensive, defensive, and paranoid way of building products.
Defensive, paranoid companies can’t think ahead, they can only
think behind. They don’t lead, they follow.
If you want to build a company that follows, you might as well put down
this book now.
So what to do then? The answer is less. Do less than your com-
petitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the
hairy, difficult, nasty problems to everyone else. Instead of one-
upping, try one-downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing.
We’ll cover the concept of less throughout this book, but for
starters, less means:
Less features
Less options/preferences
Less people and corporate structure
Less meetings and abstractions
Less promises

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What’s Your Problem?
Build software for yourself
A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own
problems. You’ll be the target audience and you’ll know what’s
important and what’s not. That gives you a great head start on
delivering a breakout product.
The key here is understanding that you’re not alone. If you’re
having this problem, it’s likely hundreds of thousands of others
are in the same boat. There’s your market. Wasn’t that easy?
Basecamp originated in a problem: As a design firm we
needed a simple way to communicate with our clients
about projects. We started out doing this via client ex-
tranets which we would update manually. But changing the
html by hand every time a project needed to be updated
just wasn’t working. These project sites always seemed to
go stale and eventually were abandoned. It was frustrating
because it left us disorganized and left clients in the dark.
So we started looking at other options. Yet every tool we found
either 1) didn’t do what we needed or 2) was bloated with fea-
tures we didn’t need – like billing, strict access controls, charts,
graphs, etc. We knew there had to be a better way so we decided
to build our own.
When you solve your own problem, you create a tool that you’re
passionate about. And passion is key. Passion means you’ll truly
use it and care about it. And that’s the best way to get others to
feel passionate about it too.

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Scratching your own itch
The Open Source world embraced this mantra a long time ago
– they call it “scratching your own itch.” For the open source
developers, it means they get the tools they want, delivered the
way they want them. But the benefit goes much deeper.
As the designer or developer of a new application, you’re faced with
hundreds of micro-decisions each and every day: blue or green? One
table or two? Static or dynamic? Abort or recover? How do we make
these decisions? If it’s something we recognize as being important, we
might ask.The rest, we guess.And all that guessing builds up a kind of
debt in our applications – an interconnected web of assumptions.
As a developer, I hate this.The knowledge of all these small-scale
timebombs in the applications I write adds to my stress. Open Source
developers, scratching their own itches, don’t suffer this. Because they are
their own users, they know the correct answers to 90% of the decisions
they have to make. I think this is one of the reasons folks come home
after a hard day of coding and then work on open source: It’s relaxing.
–Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers
Born out of necessity
Campaign Monitor really was born out of necessity. For years we’d
been frustrated by the quality of the email marketing options out
there. One tool would do x and y but never z, the next had y
and z nailed but just couldn’t get x right.We couldn’t win.
We decided to clear our schedule and have a go at building our
dream email marketing tool.We consciously decided not to look
at what everyone else was doing and instead build something that
would make ours and our customer’s lives a little easier.
As it turned out, we weren’t the only ones who were unhappy with
the options out there.We made a few modifications to the software
so any design firm could use it and started spreading the word. In
less than six months, thousands of designers were using Campaign
Monitor to send email newsletters for themselves and their clients.
–David Greiner, founder, Campaign Monitor

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You need to care about it
When you write a book, you need to have more than an interesting story.
You need to have a desire to tell the story.You need to be personally
invested in some way. If you’re going to live with something for two
years, three years, the rest of your life, you need to care about it.
–Malcolm Gladwell, author (from A Few Thin Slices of Malcolm Gladwell)

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Fund Yourself
Outside money is plan B
The first priority of many startups is acquiring funding from
investors. But remember, if you turn to outsiders for funding,
you’ll have to answer to them too. Expectations are raised.
Investors want their money back – and quickly. The sad fact is
cashing in often begins to trump building a quality product.
These days it doesn’t take much to get rolling. Hardware
is cheap and plenty of great infrastructure software is open
source and free. And passion doesn’t come with a price tag.
So do what you can with the cash on hand. Think hard and
determine what’s really essential and what you can do without.
What can you do with three people instead of ten? What can
you do with $20k instead of $100k? What can you do in three
months instead of six? What can you do if you keep your day
job and build your app on the side?
Constraints force creativity
Run on limited resources and you’ll be forced to reckon with
constraints earlier and more intensely. And that’s a good thing.
Constraints drive innovation.

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Constraints also force you to get your idea out in the wild
sooner rather than later – another good thing. A month or two
out of the gates you should have a pretty good idea of whether
you’re onto something or not. If you are, you’ll be self-sustain-
able shortly and won’t need external cash. If your idea’s a lemon,
it’s time to go back to the drawing board. At least you know
now as opposed to months (or years) down the road. And at least
you can back out easily. Exit plans get a lot trickier once inves-
tors are involved.
If you’re creating software just to make a quick buck, it will
show. Truth is a quick payout is pretty unlikely. So focus on
building a quality tool that you and your customers can live
with for a long time.
Two paths
[Jake Walker started one company with investor money (Disclive) and one
without (The Show). Here he discusses the differences between the two paths.]
The root of all the problems wasn’t raising money itself, but everything that
came along with it.The expectations are simply higher. People start taking salary,
and the motivation is to build it up and sell it, or find some other way for the
initial investors to make their money back. In the case of the first company,
we simply started acting much bigger than we were – out of necessity...
[With The Show] we realized that we could deliver a much better product
with less costs, only with more time.And we gambled with a bit of our own
money that people would be willing to wait for quality over speed. But the
company has stayed (and will likely continue to be) a small operation.And ever
since that first project, we’ve been fully self funded.With just a bit of creative
terms from our vendors, we’ve never really need to put much of our own
money into the operation at all.And the expectation isn’t to grow and sell, but
to grow for the sake of growth and to continue to benefit from it financially.
–A comment from Signal vs. Noise

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Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope
Launch on time and on budget
Here’s an easy way to launch on time and on budget: keep them
fixed. Never throw more time or money at a problem, just scale
back the scope.
There’s a myth that goes like this: we can launch on time, on
budget, and on scope. It almost never happens and when it does
quality often suffers.
If you can’t fit everything in within the time and budget allot-
ted then don’t expand the time and budget. Instead, pull back
the scope. There’s always time to add stuff later – later is eternal,
now is fleeting.
Launching something great that’s a little smaller in scope than
planned is better than launching something mediocre and full
of holes because you had to hit some magical time, budget, and
scope window. Leave the magic to Houdini. You’ve got a real
business to run and a real product to deliver.
Here are the benefits of fixing time and budget, and keeping
scope flexible:
Prioritization
You have to figure out what’s really important.What’s
going to make it into this initial release? This forces
a constraint on you which will push you to make
tough decisions instead of hemming and hawing.

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Reality
Setting expectations is key. If you try to fix time, budget,
and scope, you won’t be able to deliver at a high level
of quality. Sure, you can probably deliver something,
but is “something” what you really want to deliver?
Flexibility
The ability to change is key. Having everything fixed
makes it tough to change. Injecting scope flexibility
will introduce options based on your real experience
building the product. Flexibility is your friend.
Our recommendation: Scope down. It’s better to make half a
product than a half-assed product (more on this later).
One, two, three...
How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.
-Fred Brooks, software engineer and computer scientist

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Have an Enemy
Pick a fight
Sometimes the best way to know what your app should be is
to know what it shouldn’t be. Figure out your app’s enemy and
you’ll shine a light on where you need to go.
When we decided to create project management software, we
knew Microsoft Project was the gorilla in the room. Instead of
fearing the gorilla, we used it as a motivator. We decided Base-
camp would be something completely different, the anti-Project.
We realized project management isn’t about charts, graphs,
reports and statistics – it’s about communication. It also isn’t
about a project manager sitting up high and broadcasting a
project plan. It’s about everyone taking responsibility together to
make the project work.
Our enemy was the Project Management Dictators and the tools
they used to crack the whip. We wanted to democratize project
management – make it something everyone was a part of (in-
cluding the client). Projects turn out better when everyone takes
collective ownership of the process.
When it came to Writeboard, we knew there were competi-
tors out there with lots of whizbang features. So we decided to
emphasize a “no fuss” angle instead. We created an app that let
people share and collaborate on ideas simply, without bogging
them down with non-essential features. If it wasn’t essential, we
left it out. And in just three months after launch, over 100,000
Writeboards have been created.

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When we started on Backpack our enemy was structure and
rigid rules. People should be able to organize their information
their own way – not based on a series of preformatted screens or
a plethora of required form fields.
One bonus you get from having an enemy is a very clear mar-
keting message. People are stoked by conflict. And they also
understand a product by comparing it to others. With a chosen
enemy, you’re feeding people a story they want to hear. Not
only will they understand your product better and faster,
they’ll take sides. And that’s a sure-fire way to get attention and
ignite passion.
Now with all that said, it’s also important to not get too ob-
sessed with the competition. Overanalyze other products and
you’ll start to limit the way you think. Take a look and then
move on to your own vision and your own ideas.
Don’t follow the leader
Marketers (and all human beings) are well trained to follow the leader.The
natural instinct is to figure out what’s working for the competition and then
try to outdo it – to be cheaper than your competitor who competes on
price, or faster than the competitor who competes on speed.The problem
is that once a consumer has bought someone else’s story and believes that
lie, persuading the consumer to switch is the same as persuading him to
admit he was wrong.And people hate admitting that they’re wrong.
Instead, you must tell a different story and persuade listeners that
your story is more important than the story they currently believe.
If your competition is faster, you must be cheaper. If they sell the
story of health, you must sell the story of convenience. Not just the
positioning x/y axis sort of “We are cheaper” claim, but a real story
that is completely different from the story that’s already being told.
–Seth Godin, author/entrepreneur (from Be a Better Liar)

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What’s the key problem?
One of the quickest ways to get yourself into trouble is to look at what
your competitors are doing.This has been especially true for us at BlinkList.
Since we launched there have been about 10 other social bookmarking
services that have been launched. Some people have even started to generate
spreadsheets online with a detailed feature by feature comparison.
However, this can quickly lead one astray. Instead, we stay focused
on the big picture and keep asking ourselves, what is the key
problem we are trying to solve and how can we solve it.
–Michael Reining, co-founder, MindValley & Blinklist

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It Shouldn’t be a Chore
Your passion – or lack of – will shine through
The less your app is a chore to build, the better it will be. Keep
it small and managable so you can actually enjoy the process.
If your app doesn’t excite you, something’s wrong. If you’re only
working on it in order to cash out, it will show. Likewise, if you
feel passionately about your app, it will come through in the
final product. People can read between the lines.
The presence of passion
In design, where meaning is often controversially subjective or
painfully inscrutable, few things are more apparent and lucid than
the presence of passion.This is true whether the design of a product
delights you or leaves you cold; in either case it’s difficult not to
detect the emotional investment of the hands that built it.
Enthusiasm manifests itself readily of course, but indifference is equally
indelible. If your commitment doesn’t encompass a genuine passion
for the work at hand, it becomes a void that is almost impossible to
conceal, no matter how elaborately or attractively designed it is.
–Khoi Vinh, Subtraction.com and co-founder of Behavior llc
The bakery
American business at this point is really about developing an idea,
making it profitable, selling it while it’s profitable and then getting
out or diversifying. It’s just about sucking everything up. My idea was:
Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery
going because you’re making good food and people are happy.
–Ian MacKaye, member of Fugazi and co-owner of Dischord Records
(from Salon.com People | Ian MacKaye)

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Stay Lean
Less Mass
Lower Your Cost of Change
The Three Musketeers
Embrace Constraints
Be Yourself

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26
Less Mass
The leaner you are, the easier it is to change
The more massive an object, the more energy is required to
change its direction. It’s as true in the business world as it is in
the physical world.
When it comes to web technology, change must be easy and
cheap. If you can’t change on the fly, you’ll lose ground to
someone who can. That’s why you need to shoot for less mass.
Mass is increased by...
Long term contracts
Excess staff
Permanent decisions
Meetings about other meetings
Thick process
Inventory (physical or mental)
Hardware, software, technology lock-ins
Proprietary data formats
The past ruling the future
Long-term roadmaps
Office politics

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Mass is reduced by...
Just-in-time thinking
Multi-tasking team members
Embracing constraints, not trying to lift them
Less software, less code
Less features
Small team size
Simplicity
Pared-down interfaces
Open-source products
Open data formats
An open culture that makes it easy to admit mistakes
Less mass lets you change direction quickly. You can react and
evolve. You can focus on the good ideas and drop the bad ones.
You can listen and respond to your customers. You can integrate
new technologies now instead of later. Instead of an aircraft
carrier, you steer a cigarette boat. Revel in that fact.

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28
For example, let’s imagine a lean, less mass company that has
built a product with less software and less features. On the
other side is a more mass company that’s got a product with
significantly more software and more features. Then let’s say a
new technology like Ajax or a new concept like tagging comes
around. Who is going to be able to adapt their product quicker?
The team with more software and more features and a 12-month
roadmap or the team with less software and less features and
a more organic “let’s focus on what we need to focus on right
now” process?
Obviously the less-mass company is in a better position to
adjust to the real demands of the marketplace. The more-mass
company will likely still be discussing changes or pushing
them through its bureaucratic process long after the less-mass
company has made the switch. The less mass company will be
two steps ahead while the more mass company is still figuring
out how to walk.
Nimble, agile, less-mass businesses can quickly change their
entire business model, product, feature set, and marketing
message. They can make mistakes and fix them quickly. They
can change their priorities, product mix, and focus. And, most
importantly, they can change their minds.

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Lower Your Cost of Change
Stay flexible by reducing obstacles to change
Change is your best friend. The more expensive it is to make a
change, the less likely you’ll make it. And if your competitors
can change faster than you, you’re at a huge disadvantage. If
change gets too expensive, you’re dead.
Here’s where staying lean really helps you out. The ability to
change on a dime is one thing small teams have by default that
big teams can never have. This is where the big guys envy the
little guys. What might take a big team in a huge organization
weeks to change may only take a day in a small, lean organiza-
tion. That advantage is priceless. Cheap and fast changes are
small’s secret weapon.
And remember: All the cash, all the marketing, all the people in
the world can’t buy the agility you get from being small.

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Emergence
Emergence is one of the founding principles of agility, and is the closest
one to pure magic. Emergent properties aren’t designed or built in, they
simply happen as a dynamic result of the rest of the system.“Emergence”
comes from middle 17th century Latin in the sense of an “unforeseen
occurrence.”You can’t plan for it or schedule it, but you can cultivate
an environment where you can let it happen and benefit from it.
A classic example of emergence lies in the flocking behavior of birds.
A computer simulation can use as few as three simple rules (along the
lines of “don’t run into each other”) and suddenly you get very complex
behavior as the flock wends and wafts its way gracefully through the
sky, reforming around obstacles, and so on. None of this advanced
behavior (such as reforming the same shape around an obstacle) is
specified by the rules; it emerges from the dynamics of the system.
Simple rules, as with the birds simulation, lead to complex behavior. Complex
rules, as with the tax law in most countries, lead to stupid behavior.
Many common software development practices have the unfortunate side-
effect of eliminating any chance for emergent behavior. Most attempts at
optimization – tying something down very explicitly – reduces the breadth
and scope of interactions and relationships, which is the very source of
emergence. In the flocking birds example, as with a well-designed system,
it’s the interactions and relationships that create the interesting behavior.
The harder we tighten things down, the less room there is for a creative,
emergent solution.Whether it’s locking down requirements before
they are well understood or prematurely optimizing code, or inventing
complex navigation and workflow scenarios before letting end users
play with the system, the result is the same: an overly complicated, stupid
system instead of a clean, elegant system that harnesses emergence.
Keep it small. Keep it simple. Let it happen.
–Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmers

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The Three Musketeers
Use a team of three for version 1.0
For the first version of your app, start with only three people.
That’s the magic number that will give you enough manpower
yet allow you to stay streamlined and agile. Start with a develop-
er, a designer, and a sweeper (someone who can roam between
both worlds).
Now sure, it’s a challenge to build an app with only a few
people. But if you’ve got the right team, it’s worth it. Talented
people don’t need endless resources. They thrive on the chal-
lenge of working within restraints and using their creativity to
solve problems. Your lack of manpower means you’ll be forced
to deal with tradeoffs earlier in the process – and that’s alright. It
will make you figure out your priorities earlier rather than later.
And you’ll be able to communicate without constantly having to
worry about leaving people out of the loop.
If you can’t build your version one with three people, then you
either need different people or need to slim down your initial
version. Remember, it’s ok to keep your first version small and
tight. You’ll quickly get to see if your idea has wings and, if it
does, you’ll have a clean, simple base to build on.

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Metcalfe’s Law and project teams
Keep the team as small as possible. Metcalfe’s Law, that “the value of a
communication system grows at approximately the square of the number
of users of the system,” has a corollary when it comes to project teams:
The efficiency of the team is approximately the inverse of the square of
the number of members in the team. I’m beginning to think three people
is optimal for a 1.0 product release...Start out by reducing the number
of people you plan to add to the team, and then reduce some more.
–Marc Hedlund, entrepreneur-in-residence at O’Reilly Media
Communication flow
Communication flows more easily on small teams than large teams. If
you’re the only person on a project, communication is simple.The only
communication path is between you and the customer.As the number of
people on a project increases, however, so does the number of communication
paths. It doesn’t increase additively, as the number of people increases, it
increases multiplicatively, proportional to the square of the number of people.
–Steve McConnell, Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software Builders
Inc. (from Less is More: Jumpstarting Productivity with Small Teams)

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Embrace Constraints
Let limitations guide you to creative solutions
There’s never enough to go around. Not enough time. Not
enough money. Not enough people.
That’s a good thing.
Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace
them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and
force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to
your advantage.
When 37signals was building Basecamp, we had plenty of limi-
tations. We had:
A design firm to run
Existing client work
A 7-hour time difference (David was doing the programming
in Denmark, the rest of us were in the States)
A small team
No outside funding
We felt the “not enough” blues. So we kept our plate small.
That way we could only put so much on it. We took big tasks
and broke them up into small bits that we tackled one at a time.
We moved step by step and prioritized as we went along.

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34
That forced us to come up with creative solutions. We lowered
our cost of change by always building less software. We gave
people just enough features to solve their own problems their
own way – and then we got out of the way. The time difference
and distance between us made us more efficient in our com-
munication. Instead of meeting in person, we communicated
almost exclusively via im and email which forced us to get to the
point quickly.
Constraints are often advantages in disguise. Forget about
venture capital, long release cycles, and quick hires. Instead,
work with what you have.
Fight blight
What has been described as “creeping elegance” is probably better described
as “feature blight,” for like a fungus on a plant it gradually elaborates and blurs
the true outline of the product while it drains its sap.The antidote to feature
blight is, of course, the “constricting deadline.”This results in features being
discarded in proportion to the time it would take to implement them. It is
often the case that the most useful features take the longest to implement.
Thus the combination of the blight and the deadline yields software as we
know and love it, comprised of bountiful quantities of useless features.
–Jef Raskin, author (from Why Software Is the Way It Is)

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Be Yourself
Differentiate yourself from bigger companies by being
personal and friendly
A lot of small companies make the mistake of trying to act big.
It’s as if they perceive their size as a weakness that needs to be
covered up. Too bad. Being small can actually be a huge advan-
tage, especially when it comes to communication.
Small companies enjoy fewer formalities, less bureaucracy, and
more freedom. Smaller companies are closer to the cus-
tomer by default. That means they can communicate in a
more direct and personal way with customers. If you’re small,
you can use familiar language instead of jargon. Your site and
your product can have a human voice instead of sounding like
a corporate drone. Being small means you can talk with your
customers, not down to them.
There are also advantages to internal communications at small
companies too. You can ditch formalities. There’s no need for
arduous processes and multiple sign-offs on everything. Every-
one in the process can speak openly and honestly. This unfet-
tered flow of ideas is one of the big advantages of staying small.

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Be proudly, defiantly truthful
Though you may think that a customer can be fooled by exaggerations on the
number of staffers in your company or the breadth of your offerings, the smart
ones, the ones you really want, will always learn the truth – whether through
intuition or deduction. Embarrassingly, I’ve been a part of white lies like this in
the past, and none of those situations ever resulted in what matters most to a
business: meaningful, lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with people
who had a real need for the services offered.The better course would have been
to be proudly, defiantly truthful about the exact size and breadth of the company.
–Khoi Vinh, Subtraction.com and co-founder of Behavior LLC
Any time at all
No matter what business you are in, good customer service has got to be the
biggest request that any client will ever make.We demand it for the services
we use so why would we think our customers would be any different?
From the very beginning we made it easy and transparent for our
customers to get in touch with us for any number or questions they
might have. On our website we list a toll-free number that forwards to
our mobile phones and on our business cards each of us list our mobile
numbers.We emphasize to our customers that they can get in touch
with us any time no matter what the problem might be. Our customers
appreciate this level of trust and no one has ever abused this service.
–Edward Knittel, Director of Sales and Marketing, KennelSource

Page 43
Priorities
What’s the Big Idea?
Ignore Details Early On
It’s a Problem When It’s a Problem
Hire the Right Customers
Scale Later
Make Opinionated Software

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What’s the Big Idea
Explicitly define the one-point vision for your app
What does your app stand for? What’s it really all about?
Before you start designing or coding anything you need
to know the purpose of your product – the vision. Think
big. Why does it exist? What makes it different than other
similar products?
This vision will guide your decisions and keep you on a con-
sistent path. Whenever there’s a sticking point, ask, “Are we
staying true to the vision?”
Your vision should be brief too. A sentence should be enough to
get the idea across. Here’s the vision for each of our products:
Basecamp: Project management is communication
Backpack: Bring life’s loose ends together
Campfire: Group chat over IM sucks
Ta-da List: Competing with a post-it note
Writeboard: Word is overkill
With Basecamp, for example, the vision was “Project manage-
ment is communication.” We felt strongly that effective commu-
nication on a project leads to collective ownership, involvement,
investment, and momentum. It gets everyone on the same page
working toward a common goal. We knew if Basecamp could
accomplish this, everything else would fall in line.

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This vision led us to keep Basecamp as open and transparent as
possible. Instead of limiting communication to within a firm,
we gave clients access too. We thought less about permissions
and more about encouraging all participants to take part. The
vision is why we skipped charts, graphs, tables, reports, stats, and
spreadsheets and instead focused on communication priorities
like messages, comments, to-do lists, and sharing files.
Make the big decision about your vision upfront and all your
future little decisions become much easier.
Whiteboard philosophy
Andy Hunt and I once wrote a debit card transaction switch.A major
requirement was that the user of a debit card shouldn’t have the same
transaction applied to their account twice. In other words, no matter what
sort of failure mode might happen, the error should be on the side of not
processing a transaction rather than processing a duplicate transaction.
So, we wrote it on our shared whiteboard in big letters: Err in favor of users.
It joined about half-a-dozen other maxims. Jointly, these guided all those tricky
decisions you make while building something complex.Together, these laws
gave our application strong internal coherence and great external consistency.
-Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers
Make Mantra
Organizations need guideposts.They need an outline; employees need to know
each day when they wake up why they’re going to work.This outline should
be short and sweet, and all encompassing:Why do you exist? What motivates
you? I call this a mantra – a three- or four-word description of why you exist.
-Guy Kawasaki, author (from Make Mantra)

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Ignore Details Early On
Work from large to small
We’re crazy about details.
The space between objects
The perfect type leading
The perfect color
The perfect words
Four lines of code instead of seven
90% vs 89%
760px vs 750px
$39/month vs. $49/month
Success and satisfaction is in the details.
However, success isn’t the only thing you’ll find in the details.
You’ll also find stagnation, disagreement, meetings, and delays.
These things can kill morale and lower your chances of success.
How often have you found yourself stuck on a single design or
code element for a whole day? How often have you realized that
the progress you made today wasn’t real progress? This happens
when you focus on details too early in the process. There’s
plenty of time to be a perfectionist. Just do it later.
Don’t worry about the size of your headline font in week one.
You don’t need to nail that perfect shade of green in week two.
You don’t need to move that “submit” button three pixels to the
right in week three. Just get the stuff on the page for now. Then
use it. Make sure it works. Later on you can adjust and perfect it.

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Details reveal themselves as you use what you’re building. You’ll
see what needs more attention. You’ll feel what’s missing. You’ll
know which potholes to pave over because you’ll keep hitting
them. That’s when you need to pay attention, not sooner.
The Devil’s in the Details
I really got over the “get into details right away” attitude after I took some
drawing classes...If you begin to draw the details right away you can be sure
that the drawing is going to suck. In fact, you are completely missing the point.
You should begin by getting your proportions right for the whole
scene.Then you sketch the largest objects in your scene, up to the
smallest one.The sketch must be very loose up to this point.
Then you can proceed with shading which consists of bringing volume to life.
You begin with only three tones (light, medium, dark).This gives you a tonal
sketch.Then for each portion of your drawing you reevaluate three tonal shades
and apply them. Do it until the volumes are there (requires multiple iteration)...
Work from large to small.Always.
-Patrick Lafleur, Creation Objet Inc. (from Signal vs. Noise)

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It’s a Problem When It’s a Problem
Don’t waste time on problems you don’t have yet
Do you really need to worry about scaling to 100,000 users
today if it will take you two years to get there?
Do you really have to hire eight programmers if you only need
three today?
Do you really need 12 top-of-the-line servers now if you can
run on two for a year?
Just Wing It
People often spend too much time up front trying to solve
problems they don’t even have yet. Don’t. Heck, we launched
Basecamp without the ability to bill customers! Since the
product billed in monthly cycles, we knew we had a 30-day gap
to figure it out. We used that time to solve more urgent prob-
lems and then, after launch, we tackled billing. It worked out
fine (and it forced us into a simple solution without unnecessary
bells and whistles).
Don’t sweat stuff until you actually must. Don’t overbuild. In-
crease hardware and system software as necessary. If you’re slow
for a week or two it’s not the end of the world. Just be honest:
explain to your customers you’re experiencing some growing
pains. They may not be thrilled but they’ll appreciate the candor.
Bottom Line: Make decisions just in time, when you have
access to the real information you need. In the meanwhile,
you’ll be able to lavish attention on the things that require im-
mediate care.

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Hire the Right Customers
Find the core market for your application and focus
solely on them
The customer is not always right. The truth is you have to sort
out who’s right and who’s wrong for your app. The good news is
that the internet makes finding the right people easier than ever.
If you try to please everyone, you won’t please anyone
When we built Basecamp we focused our marketing on design
firms. By narrowing our market this way, we made it more
likely to attract passionate customers who, in turn, would evan-
gelize the product. Know who your app is really intended for
and focus on pleasing them.
The Best Call We Ever Made
The decision to aim Campaign Monitor strictly at the web design market
was the best call we ever made. It allowed us to easily identify which
features would be genuinely useful and, more importantly, which features
to leave out. Not only have we attracted more customers by targeting a
smaller group of people, these customers all have similar needs which
makes our job much easier.There are loads of features in Campaign
Monitor that would be useless to anyone but a web designer.
Focusing on a core market also makes it much easier to spread the word
about your software. Now that we have a tightly defined audience, we
can advertise where they frequent online, publish articles they might find
interesting, and generally build a community around our product.
-David Greiner, founder, Campaign Monitor

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Scale Later
You don’t have a scaling problem yet
“Will my app scale when millions of people start using it?”
Ya know what? Wait until that actually happens. If you’ve got a
huge number of people overloading your system then huzzah!
That’s one swell problem to have. The truth is the overwhelm-
ing majority of web apps are never going to reach that stage.
And even if you do start to get overloaded it’s usually not an all-
or-nothing issue. You’ll have time to adjust and respond to the
problem. Plus, you’ll have more real-world data and benchmarks
after you launch which you can use to figure out the areas that
need to be addressed.
For example, we ran Basecamp on a single server for the first
year. Because we went with such a simple setup, it only took a
week to implement. We didn’t start with a cluster of 15 boxes or
spend months worrying about scaling.
Did we experience any problems? A few. But we also realized
that most of the problems we feared, like a brief slowdown,
really weren’t that big of a deal to customers. As long as you
keep people in the loop, and are honest about the situation,
they’ll understand. In retrospect, we’re quite glad we didn’t
delay launch for months in order to create “the perfect setup.”

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In the beginning, make building a solid core product your
priority instead of obsessing over scalability and server farms.
Create a great app and then worry about what to do
once it’s wildly successful. Otherwise you may waste energy,
time, and money fixating on something that never even happens.
Believe it or not, the bigger problem isn’t scaling, it’s getting to
the point where you have to scale. Without the first problem
you won’t have the second.
You have to revisit anyway
The fact is that everyone has scalability issues, no one can deal
with their service going from zero to a few million users without
revisiting almost every aspect of their design and architecture.
-Dare Obasanjo, Microsoft

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Make Opinionated Software
Your app should take sides
Some people argue software should be agnostic. They say it’s ar-
rogant for developers to limit features or ignore feature requests.
They say software should always be as flexible as possible.
We think that’s bullshit. The best software has a vision. The
best software takes sides. When someone uses software, they’re
not just looking for features, they’re looking for an approach.
They’re looking for a vision. Decide what your vision is and run
with it.
And remember, if they don’t like your vision there are plenty
of other visions out there for people. Don’t go chasing people
you’ll never make happy.
A great example is the original wiki design. Ward Cunningham
and friends deliberately stripped the wiki of many features that
were considered integral to document collaboration in the past.
Instead of attributing each change of the document to a certain
person, they removed much of the visual representation of
ownership. They made the content ego-less and time-less. They
decided it wasn’t important who wrote the content or when it
was written. And that has made all the difference. This decision
fostered a shared sense of community and was a key ingredient
in the success of Wikipedia.
Our apps have followed a similar path. They don’t try to be
all things to all people. They have an attitude. They seek out
customers who are actually partners. They speak to people who
share our vision. You’re either on the bus or off the bus.

Page 53
Feature Selection
Half, Not Half-Assed
It Just Doesn’t Matter
Start With No
Hidden Costs
Can You Handle It?
Human Solutions
Forget Feature Requests
Hold the Mayo

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Half, Not Half-Assed
Build half a product, not a half-ass product
Beware of the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to
web app development. Throw in every decent idea that comes
along and you’ll just wind up with a half-assed version of your
product. What you really want to do is build half a product that
kicks ass.
Stick to what’s truly essential. Good ideas can be tabled. Take
whatever you think your product should be and cut it in
half. Pare features down until you’re left with only the most es-
sential ones. Then do it again.
With Basecamp, we started with just the messages section. We
knew that was the heart of the app so we ignored milestones,
to-do lists, and other items for the time being. That let us base
future decisions on real world usage instead of hunches.
Start off with a lean, smart app and let it gain traction. Then you
can start to add to the solid foundation you’ve built.

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It Just Doesn’t Matter
Essentials only
Our favorite answer to the “why didn’t you do this or why
didn’t you do that?” question is always: “Because it just doesn’t
matter.” That statement embodies what makes a product great.
Figuring out what matters and leaving out the rest.
When we launched Campfire we heard some of these questions
from people checking out the product for the first time:
“Why time stamps only every 5 minutes? Why not time stamp every
chat line?” Answer: It just doesn’t matter. How often do you
need to track a conversation by the second or even the minute?
Certainly not 95% of the time. 5 minute stamps are sufficient
because anything more specific just doesn’t matter.
“Why don’t you allow bold or italic or colored formatting in the chats?”
Answer: It just doesn’t matter. If you need to emphasize some-
thing use the trusty caps lock key or toss a few *’s around the
word or phrase. Those solutions don’t require additional soft-
ware, tech support, processing power, or have a learning curve.
Besides, heavy formatting in a simple text-based chat just doesn’t
matter.
“Why don’t you show the total number of people in the room at a given
time?” Answer: It just doesn’t matter. Everyone’s name is listed
so you know who’s there, but what difference does it make if
there’s 12 or 16 people? If it doesn’t change your behavior, then
it just doesn’t matter.

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Would these things be nice to have? Sure. But are they essential?
Do they really matter? Nope. And that’s why we left them out.
The best designers and the best programmers aren’t the ones
with the best skills, or the nimblest fingers, or the ones who can
rock and roll with Photoshop or their environment of choice,
they are the ones that can determine what just doesn’t matter.
That’s where the real gains are made.
Most of the time you spend is wasted on things that just don’t
matter. If you can cut out the work and thinking that just don’t
matter, you’ll achieve productivity you’ve never imagined.

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Start With No
Make features work hard to be implemented
The secret to building half a product instead of a half-ass
product is saying no.
Each time you say yes to a feature, you’re adopting a child. You
have to take your baby through a whole chain of events (e.g.
design, implementation, testing, etc.). And once that feature’s
out there, you’re stuck with it. Just try to take a released feature
away from customers and see how pissed off they get.
Don’t be a yes-man
Make each feature work hard to be implemented. Make each
feature prove itself and show that it’s a survivor. It’s like “Fight
Club.” You should only consider features if they’re willing to
stand on the porch for three days waiting to be let in.
That’s why you start with no. Every new feature request that
comes to us – or from us – meets a no. We listen but don’t act.
The initial response is “not now.” If a request for a feature keeps
coming back, that’s when we know it’s time to take a deeper
look. Then, and only then, do we start considering the feature
for real.
And what do you say to people who complain when you
won’t adopt their feature idea? Remind them why they like
the app in the first place. “You like it because we say no.
You like it because it doesn’t do 100 other things. You like
it because it doesn’t try to please everyone all the time.”

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“We Don’t Want a Thousand Features”
Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to
some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when
people kept raising their hand saying,“Does it do [x]?”,“Do you plan to add
[y]?”. Finally Jobs said,“Wait wait – put your hands down. Listen: I know you
have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But
we don’t want a thousand features.That would be ugly. Innovation is not about
saying yes to everything. It’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”
-Derek Sivers, president and programmer, CD Baby
and HostBaby (from Say NO by default)

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Hidden Costs
Expose the price of new features
Even if a feature makes it past the “no” stage, you still need to
expose its hidden costs.
For example, be on the lookout for feature loops (i.e. features
that lead to more features). We’ve had requests to add a meet-
ings tab to Basecamp. Seems simple enough until you examine
it closely. Think of all the different items a meetings tab might
require: location, time, room, people, email invites, calendar
integration, support documentation, etc. That’s not to mention
that we’d have to change promotional screenshots, tour pages,
faq/help pages, the terms of service, and more. Before you
know it, a simple idea can snowball into a major headache.
For every new feature you need to...
1. Say no.
2. Force the feature to prove its value.
3. If “no” again, end here. If “yes,” continue...
4. Sketch the screen(s)/ui.
5. Design the screen(s)/ui.
6. Code it.
7-15. Test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak, test, tweak...
16. Check to see if help text needs to be modified.
17. Update the product tour (if necessary).
18. Update the marketing copy (if necessary).
19. Update the terms of service (if necessary).
20. Check to see if any promises were broken.
21. Check to see if pricing structure is affected.
22. Launch.
23. Hold breath.

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Can You Handle It?
Build something you can manage
If you launch an affiliate program do you have the systems in
place to handle the accounting and payouts? Maybe you should
just let people earn credit against their membership fees instead
of writing, signing, and mailing a check each month.
Can you afford to give away 1 gb of space for free just because
Google does? Maybe you should start small at 100 mb, or only
provide space on paying accounts.
Bottom line: Build products and offer services you can manage.
It’s easy to make promises. It’s much harder to keep them. Make
sure whatever it is that you’re doing is something you can actu-
ally sustain – organizationally, strategically, and financially.

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Human Solutions
Build software for general concepts and encourage
people to create their own solutions
Don’t force conventions on people. Instead make your software
general so everyone can find their own solution. Give people
just enough to solve their own problems their own way. And
then get out of the way.
When we built Ta-da List we intentionally omitted a lot of stuff.
There’s no way to assign a to-do to someone, there’s no way to
mark a date due, there’s no way to categorize items, etc.
We kept the tool clean and uncluttered by letting people get
creative. People figured out how to solve issues on their own. If
they wanted to add a date to a to-do item they could just add
(due: April 7, 2006) to the front of the item. If they wanted to
add a category, they could just add [Books] to the front of the
item. Ideal? No. Infinitely flexible? Yes.
If we tried to build software to specifically handle these sce-
narios, we’d be making it less useful for all the cases when those
concerns don’t apply.
Do the best job you can with the root of the problem then step
aside. People will find their own solutions and conventions
within your general framework.

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Forget Feature Requests
Let your customers remind you what’s important
Customers want everything under the sun. They’ll avalanche
you with feature requests. Just check out our product forums;
The feature request category always trumps the others by a
wide margin.
We’ll hear about “this little extra feature” or “this can’t be hard”
or “wouldn’t it be easy to add this” or “it should take just a few
seconds to put it in” or “if you added this I’d pay twice as much”
and so on.
Of course we don’t fault people for making requests. We en-
courage it and we want to hear what they have to say. Most ev-
erything we add to our products starts out as a customer request.
But, as we mentioned before, your first response should be a no.
So what do you do with all these requests that pour in? Where
do you store them? How do you manage them? You don’t.
Just read them and then throw them away.
Yup, read them, throw them away, and forget them. It sounds
blasphemous but the ones that are important will keep bubbling
up anyway. Those are the only ones you need to remember.
Those are the truly essential ones. Don’t worry about tracking
and saving each request that comes in. Let your customers be
your memory. If it’s really worth remembering, they’ll remind
you until you can’t forget.

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How did we come to this conclusion? When we first launched
Basecamp we tracked every major feature request on a Basecamp
to-do list. When a request was repeated by someone else we’d
update the list with an extra hash mark (II or III or IIII, etc).
We figured that one day we’d review this list and start working
from the most requested features on down.
But the truth is we never looked at it again. We already knew
what needed to be done next because our customers constantly
reminded us by making the same requests over and over again.
There was no need for a list or lots of analysis because it was all
happening in real time. You can’t forget what’s important when
you are reminded of it every day.
And one more thing: Just because x number of people request
something, doesn’t mean you have to include it. Sometimes it’s
better to just say no and maintain your vision for the product.

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Hold the Mayo
Ask people what they don’t want
Most software surveys and research questions are centered
around what people want in a product. “What feature do you
think is missing?” “If you could add just one thing, what would
it be?” “What would make this product more useful for you?”
What about the other side of the coin? Why not ask people
what they don’t want? “If you could remove one feature, what
would it be?” “What don’t you use?” “What gets in your way
the most?”
More isn’t the answer. Sometimes the biggest favor you can do
for customers is to leave something out.
Innovation Comes From Saying No
[Innovation] comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we
don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much.We’re always
thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no
that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
-Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple (from The Seed of Apple’s Innovation)

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Process
Race to Running Software
Rinse and Repeat
From Idea to Implementation
Avoid Preferences
“Done!”
Test in the Wild
Shrink Your Time

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Raceto RunningSoftware
Get something real up and running quickly
Running software is the best way to build momentum, rally
your team, and flush out ideas that don’t work. It should be your
number one priority from day one.
It’s ok to do less, skip details, and take shortcuts in your process
if it’ll lead to running software faster. Once you’re there, you’ll
be rewarded with a significantly more accurate perspective on
how to proceed. Stories, wireframes, even html mockups, are
just approximations. Running software is real.
With real, running software everyone gets closer to true un-
derstanding and agreement. You avoid heated arguments over
sketches and paragraphs that wind up turning out not to matter
anyway. You realize that parts you thought were trivial are actu-
ally quite crucial.
Real things lead to real reactions. And that’s how you get to
the truth.
The Real Thing Leads to Agreement
When a group of different people set out to try and find out what
is harmonious...their opinions about it will tend to converge
if they are mocking up full-scale, real stuff. Of course, if they’re
making sketches or throwing out ideas, they won’t agree. But, if
you start making the real thing, one tends to reach agreement.
-Christopher Alexander, Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of
California, Berkeley (from Contrasting Concepts of Harmony in Architecture)

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Get It Working asap
I do not think I’ve ever been involved with a software project – large or
small – that was successful in terms of schedule, cost, or functionality that
started with a long period of planning and discussion and no concurrent
development. It is simply too easy, and sometimes fun, to waste valuable time
inventing features that turn out to be unnecessary or unimplementable.
This applies at all levels of development and “get something real
up and running” is a fractal mantra. It doesn’t just apply to the
project as a whole, it is at least equally applicable to the smaller-scale
development of components from which the application is built.
When there is a working implementation of a key component available,
developers want to understand how it will or won’t work with their piece of
the application and will generally try to use it as soon as they can. Even if the
implementation isn’t perfect or complete at first, this early collaboration usually
leads to well-defined interfaces and features that do exactly what they need to.
-Matt Hamer, developer and product manager, Kinja

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Rinse and Repeat
Work in iterations
Don’t expect to get it right the first time. Let the app grow and
speak to you. Let it morph and evolve. With web-based soft-
ware there’s no need to ship perfection. Design screens, use
them, analyze them, and then start over again.
Instead of banking on getting everything right upfront, the
iterative process lets you continue to make informed decisions
as you go along. Plus, you’ll get an active app up and running
quicker since you’re not striving for perfection right out the gate.
The result is real feedback and real guidance on what requires
your attention.
Iterations lead to liberation
You don’t need to aim for perfection on the first try if you know
it’s just going to be done again later anyway. Knowing that
you’re going to revisit issues is a great motivator to just get ideas
out there to see if they’ll fly.

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Maybe you’re smarter than me
Maybe you’re a LOT smarter than me.
It’s entirely possible. In fact, it’s likely. However, if you’re like most people, then
like me, you have trouble imagining what you can’t see and feel and touch.
Human beings are extremely good at responding to things in the environment.
We know how to panic when a tiger enters the room, and how to clean up
after a devastating flood. Unfortunately, we’re terrible at planning ahead, at
understanding the ramifications of our actions and in prioritizing the stuff that
really matters.
Perhaps you are one of the few individuals who can keep it all in your head. It
doesn’t really matter.
Web 2.0, the world where we start by assuming that everyone already uses the
web, allows smart developers to put this human frailty to work for them. How?
By allowing your users to tell you what they think while there’s still time to do
something about it.
And that last sentence explains why you should develop this way and how you
might want to promote/launch.
Get your story straight. Make sure the pieces work.Then launch and revise.
No one is as smart as all of us.
-Seth Godin, author/entrepreneur

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From Idea to Implementation
Go from brainstorm to sketches to HTML to coding
Here’s the process we use to Get Real:
Brainstorm
Come up with ideas. What is this product going to do? For
Basecamp, we looked at our own needs. We wanted to post
project updates. We wanted clients to participate. We knew
that projects had milestones. We wanted to centralize archives
so people could easily review old stuff. We wanted to have a
big-picture, bird’s-eye view of what’s going on with all our
projects. Together, those assumptions, and a few others, served
as our foundation.
This stage is not about nitty gritty details. This is about big
questions. What does the app need to do? How will we know
when it’s useful? What exactly are we going to make? This is
about high level ideas, not pixel-level discussions. At this stage,
those kinds of details just aren’t meaningful.
Paper sketches
Sketches are quick, dirty, and cheap and that’s exactly how you
want to start out. Draw stuff. Scrawl stuff. Boxes, circles, lines.
Get your ideas out of your head and onto paper. The goal at
this point should be to convert concepts into rough interface
designs. This step is all about experimentation. There are no
wrong answers.

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Create HTML screens
Make an html version of that feature (or section or flow, if it’s
more appropriate). Get something real posted so everyone can
see what it looks like on screen.
For Basecamp, we first did the “post a message” screen, then the
“edit a message” screen, and it went on from there.
Don’t write any programming code yet. Just build a mock-up in
html and css. Implementation comes later.
Code it
When the mock-up looks good and demonstrates enough of
the necessary functionality, go ahead and plug in the program-
ming code.
During this whole process remember to stay flexible and expect
multiple iterations. You should feel free to throw away the deliv-
erable of any particular step and start again if it turns out crappy.
It’s natural to go through this cycle multiple times.

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Avoid Preferences
Decide the little details so your customers don’t have to
You’re faced with a tough decision: how many messages do we
include on each page? Your first inclination may be to say, “Let’s
just make it a preference where people can choose 25, 50, or
100.” That’s the easy way out though. Just make a decision.
Preferences are a way to avoid making tough decisions
Instead of using your expertise to choose the best path, you’re
leaving it in the hands of customers. It may seem like you’re
doing them a favor but you’re just making busy work for them
(and it’s likely they’re busy enough). For customers, preference
screens with an endless amount of options are a headache, not
a blessing. Customers shouldn’t have to think about every nitty
gritty detail – don’t put that burden on them when it should be
your responsibility.
Preferences are also evil because they create more software.
More options require more code. And there’s all the extra
testing and designing you need to do too. You’ll also wind up
with preference permutations and interface screens that you
never even see. That means bugs that you don’t know about:
broken layouts, busted tables, strange pagination issues, etc.
Make the call
Make simple decisions on behalf of your customers. That’s what
we did in Basecamp. The number of messages per page is 25.
On the overview page, the last 25 items are shown. Messages
are sorted in reverse chronological order. The five most recent
projects are shown in the dashboard. There aren’t any options.
That’s just the way it is.

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Yes, you might make a bad call. But so what. If you do, people
will complain and tell you about it. As always, you can adjust.
Getting Real is all about being able to change on the fly.
Preferences Have a Cost
It turns out that preferences have a cost. Of course, some preferences also
have important benefits – and can be crucial interface features. But each
one has a price, and you have to carefully consider its value. Many users
and developers don’t understand this, and end up with a lot of cost and
little value for their preferences dollar...I find that if you’re hard-core
disciplined about having good defaults that Just Work instead of lazily adding
preferences, that naturally leads the overall ui in the right direction.
-Havoc Pennington, tech lead, Red Hat (from Free software and good user interfaces)

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“Done!”
Decisions are temporary so make the call and move on
Done. Start to think of it as a magical word. When you get to
done it means something’s been accomplished. A decision has
been made and you can move on. Done means you’re build-
ing momentum.
But wait, what if you screw up and make the wrong call? It’s
ok. This isn’t brain surgery, it’s a web app. As we keep
saying, you’ll likely have to revisit features and ideas multiple
times during the process anyway. No matter how much you
plan you’re likely to get half wrong anyway. So don’t do the
“paralyis through analysis” thing. That only slows progress and
saps morale.
Instead, value the importance of moving on and moving
forward. Get in the rhythm of making decisions. Make a quick,
simple call and then go back and change that decision if it
doesn’t work out.
Accept that decisions are temporary. Accept that mistakes will
happen and realize it’s no big deal as long as you can correct
them quickly. Execute, build momentum, and move on.

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Be An Executioner
It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want
me to sign an nda to tell me the simplest idea.)
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed.They are just a multiplier.
Execution is worth millions.
Explanation:
Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15
Brilliant idea = 20
No execution = $1
Weak execution = $1000
So-so execution = $10,000
Good execution = $100,000
Great execution = $1,000,000
Brilliant execution = $10,000,000
To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.The most brilliant idea
takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.
That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see
their execution.
-Derek Sivers, president and programmer, CD Baby and HostBaby

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Test in the Wild
Test your app via real world usage
There’s no substitute for real people using your app in real
ways. Get real data. Get real feedback. Then improve based on
that info.
Formal usability testing is too stiff. Lab settings don’t reflect
reality. If you stand over someone’s shoulder, you’ll get some
idea of what’s working or not but people generally don’t
perform well in front of a camera. When someone else is watch-
ing, people are especially careful not to make mistakes – yet
mistakes are exactly what you’re looking for.
Instead, release beta features to a select few inside the real ap-
plication itself. Have them use the beta features alongside the
released features. This will expose these features to people’s real
data and real workflow. And that’s where you’ll get real results.
Further, don’t have a release version and a beta version. They
should always be the same thing. A separate beta version will
only get a superficial walk through. The real version, with some
beta features sprinkled in, will get the full workout.

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The Beta Book
If developers are nervous releasing code, then publishers and authors are terrified
of releasing books. Once a book gets committed to paper, it’s seen as a big hairy
deal to change it. (It really isn’t, but perception and memories of problems
with old technologies still linger in the industry.) So, publishers go to a lot of
trouble (and expense) to try to make books “right” before they’re released.
When I wrote the book Agile Web Development With Rails, there was
a lot of pent up demand among developers: give us the book now – we
want to learn about Rails. But I’d fallen into the mindset of a publisher.“It
isn’t ready yet,” I’d say. But pressure from the community and some egging
on from David Heinemeier Hansson changed my mind.We released the
book in pdf form about 2 months before it was complete.The results were
spectacular. Not only did we sell a lot of books, but we got feedback – a
lot of feedback. I set up an automated system to capture readers’ comments,
and in the end got almost 850 reports or typos, technical errors, and
suggestions for new content.Almost all made their way into the final book.
It was a win-win: I got to deliver a much improved paper book, and the
community got early access to something they wanted.And if you’re in a
competitive race, getting something out earlier helps folks commit to you and
not your competition.
-Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers
Do it quick
1. Decide if it’s worth doing, and if so:
2. Do it quick – not perfect. just do it.
3. Save it. upload it. publish it
4. See what people think
Though I’m always reluctant to add new features to things, once
I have that “yeah!” moment of deciding something is worth
doing, it’s usually up on the website a few hours later, flawed but
launched, letting feedback guide future refinement of it.
-Derek Sivers, president and programmer, CD Baby and HostBaby

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Shrink Your Time
Break it down
Estimates that stretch into weeks or months are fantasies. The
truth is you just don’t know what’s going to happen that far
in advance.
So shrink your time. Keep breaking down timeframes into
smaller chunks. Instead of a 12 week project, think of it as 12
weeklong projects. Instead of guesstimating at tasks that take
30+ hours, break them down into more realistic 6-10 hour
chunks. Then proceed one step at a time.
The same theory applies to other problems too. Are you facing
an issue that’s too big to wrap your mind around? Break it down.
Keep dividing problems into smaller and smaller pieces until
you’re able to digest them.

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Smaller Tasks and Smaller Timelines
Software developers are a special breed of optimist: when presented with a
programming task, they think,“That’ll be easy! Won’t take much time at all.”
So, give a programmer three weeks to complete a large task, and she’ll spend two
and a half procrastinating, and then one programming.The off-schedule result
will probably meet the wrong requirements, because the task turned out to be
more complex than it seemed. Plus, who can remember what the team agreed
upon three weeks ago?
Give a programmer an afternoon to code a small, specific module and she’ll
crank it out, ready to move onto the next one.
Smaller tasks and smaller timelines are more manageable, hide fewer possible
requirement misunderstandings, and cost less to change your mind about or re-
do. Smaller timelines keep developers engaged and give them more opportunities
to enjoy a sense of accomplishment and less reason to think,“Oh I’ve got plenty
of time to do that. For now, let me finish rating songs in my iTunes library.”
-Gina Trapani, web developer and editor of Lifehacker,
the productivity and software guide
True Factors
Next time someone tries to pin you down for an exact answer to an
unknowable question – whether it’s for a deadline date, a final project cost, or
the volume of milk that would fit in the Grand Canyon – just start by taking the
air out of the room: say “I don’t know.”
Far from damaging your credibility, this demonstrates the care you bring to your
decision-making.You’re not going to just say words to sound smart. It also levels
the playing field by reframing the question as a collaborative conversation. By
learning how exact your estimate needs to be (and why), you can work together
to develop a shared understanding about the true factors behind the numbers.
-Merlin Mann, creator and editor of 43folders.com

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Solve The One Problem Staring You in the Face
My absolute favorite thing to happen on the web in recent memory is
the release and adoption of the “nofollow” attribute. Nobody talked
about it beforehand.There were no conferences or committees where
a bunch of yahoos could debate its semantic or grammatical nature.
No rfc that could turn a simple idea into a 20-line xml snippet I’d
have to read up on just to figure out how to use, and then not use
because I wasn’t sure if I was formatting for version .3 or 3.3b.
It’s simple, it’s effective, it provided an option for people who wanted an
option – and that is far more important when dealing with a population
of the web that doesn’t care about specifications or deference.
Sometimes solving the next twenty problems is not as useful or as prudent as
solving the one staring us right in the face. It wasn’t just a small victory against
spam (all victories against spam are small), but a victory for those of us who
enjoy the simple and swift results that being a web developer is all about.
-Andre Torrez, programmer and VP of Engineering at Federated Media Publishing

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The Organization
Unity
Alone Time
Meetings Are Toxic
Seek and Celebrate Small Victories

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Unity
Don’t split into silos
Too many companies separate design, development, copywrit-
ing, support, and marketing into different silos. While special-
ization has its advantages, it also creates a situation where staffers
see just their own little world instead of the entire context of
the web app.
As much as possible, integrate your team so there’s a healthy
back-and-forth dialogue throughout the process. Set up a system
of checks and balances. Don’t let things get lost in translation.
Have copywriters work with designers. Make sure support
queries are seen by developers.
Even better, hire people with multiple talents who can wear
different hats during development. The end result will be a more
harmonious product.

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Alone Time
People need uninterrupted time to get things done
37signals is spread out over four cities and eight time zones.
From Provo, Utah to Copenhagen, Denmark, the five of us are
eight hours apart. One positive side effect of this eight hour dif-
ference is alone time.
There are only about 4-5 hours during the day that we’re all
up and working together. At other times, the us team is sleep-
ing while David, who’s in Denmark, is working. The rest of the
time, we’re working while David is sleeping. This gives us about
half of the day together and the other half alone.
Guess which part of the day we get the most work done? The
alone part. It’s not that surprising really. Many people prefer to
work either early in the morning or late at night – times when
they’re not being bothered.
When you have a long stretch when you aren’t bothered, you
can get in the zone. The zone is when you are most productive.
It’s when you don’t have to mindshift between various tasks.
It’s when you aren’t interrupted to answer a question or look up
something or send an email or answer an im. The alone zone is
where real progress is made.
Getting in the zone takes time. And that’s why interruption
is your enemy. It’s like rem sleep – you don’t just go to rem
sleep, you go to sleep first and you make your way to rem. Any
interruptions force you to start over. rem is where the real sleep
magic happens. The alone time zone is where the real de-
velopment magic happens.

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Set up a rule at work: Make half the day alone time. From
10am-2pm, no one can talk to one another (except during
lunch). Or make the first or the last half of the day the alone
time period. Just make sure this period is contiguous in order to
avoid productivity-killing interruptions.
A successful alone time period means letting go of communica-
tion addiction. During alone time, give up instant messenging,
phone calls, and meetings. Avoid any email thread that’s going
to require an immediate response. Just shut up and get to work.
Get Into the Groove
We all know that knowledge workers work best by getting into “flow”, also
known as being “in the zone”, where they are fully concentrated on their
work and fully tuned out of their environment.They lose track of time and
produce great stuff through absolute concentration...trouble is that it’s so easy
to get knocked out of the zone. Noise, phone calls, going out for lunch, having
to drive 5 minutes to Starbucks for coffee, and interruptions by coworkers
– especially interruptions by coworkers – all knock you out of the zone. If
you take a 1 minute interruption by a coworker asking you a question, and
this knocks out your concentration enough that it takes you half an hour
to get productive again, your overall productivity is in serious trouble.
-Joel Spolsky, software developer, Fog Creek Software
(from Where do These People Get Their (Unoriginal) Ideas?)

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Meetings Are Toxic
Don’t have meetings
Do you really need a meeting? Meetings usually arise when a
concept isn’t clear enough. Instead of resorting to a meeting, try
to simplify the concept so you can discuss it quickly via email
or im or Campfire. The goal is to avoid meetings. Every minute
you avoid spending in a meeting is a minute you can get real
work done instead.
There’s nothing more toxic to productivity than a meeting.
Here’s a few reasons why:
They break your work day into small, incoherent
pieces that disrupt your natural workflow
They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real
things (like a piece of code or some interface design)
They usually convey an abysmally small
amount of information per minute
They often contain at least one moron that inevitably
gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense
They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in heavy snow
They frequently have agendas so vague nobody
is really sure what they are about
They require thorough preparation
that people rarely do anyway

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For those times when you absolutely must have a meeting (this
should be a rare event), stick to these simple rules:
Set a 30 minute timer.When it rings, meeting’s over. Period.
Invite as few people as possible.
Never have a meeting without a clear agenda.
Have fewer meetings
There are too many meetings. Push back on meetings that do not
make sense or are unproductive. Only book a meeting when you have
an important business issue to discuss and you want or need input,
approval, or agreement. Even then, resist the urge to invite everyone
and their brother – don’t waste people’s time unnecessarily.
-Lisa Haneberg, author (from Don’t Let Meetings Rule!)
Break it Down
As projects grow, adding people has a diminishing return. One of the most
interesting reasons is the increased number of communications channels.Two
people can only talk to each other; there’s only a single comm path.Three
workers have three communications paths; 4 have 6. In fact, the growth of links
is exponential...Pretty soon memos and meetings eat up the entire work day.
The solution is clear: break teams into smaller, autonomous and
independent units to reduce these communications links.
Similarly, cut programs into smaller units. Since a large part of the
problem stems from dependencies (global variables, data passed between
functions, shared hardware, etc.), find a way to partition the program
to eliminate – or minimize – the dependencies between units.
-The Ganssle Group (from Keep It Small)

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Seek and Celebrate Small Victories
Release something today
The most important thing in software development is motiva-
tion. Motivation is local – if you aren’t motivated by what you
are working on right now, then chances are it won’t be as good
as it should be. In fact, it’s probably going to suck.
Long, drawn out release cycles are motivation killers. They
insert too much time between celebrations. On the other hand,
quick wins that you can celebrate are great motivators. If you let
lengthy release cycles quash quick wins, you kill the motivation.
And that can kill your product.
So, if you’re in the middle of a months-long release cycle, dedi-
cate a day a week (or every two weeks) for some small victories.
Ask yourself “What can we do and release in 4 hours?” And
then do it. It could be...
A new simple feature
A small enhancement to an existing feature
Rewriting some help text to reduce the support burden
Removing some form fields that you really don’t need
When you find those 4-hour quick wins, you’ll find celebration.
That builds morale, increases motivation, and reaffirms that the
team is headed in the right direction.

Page 88
Staffing
Hire Less and Hire Later
Kick the Tires
Actions, Not Words
Get Well Rounded Individuals
You Can’t Fake Enthusiasm
Hire Good Writers

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83
Hire Less and Hire Later
Add slow to go fast
There’s no need to get big early – or later. Even if you have
access to 100 of the very best people, it’s still a bad idea to try
and hire them all at once. There’s no way that you can immedi-
ately assimilate that many people into a coherent culture. You’ll
have training headaches, personality clashes, communication
lapses, people going in different directions, and more.
So don’t hire. Really. Don’t hire people. Look for another way.
Is the work that’s burdening you really necessary? What if you
just don’t do it? Can you solve the problem with a slice of soft-
ware or a change of practice instead?
Whenever Jack Welch, former ceo of ge, used to fire someone,
he didn’t immediately hire a replacement. He wanted to see how
long ge could get along without that person and that position. We’re
certainly not advocating firing people to test this theory, but
we do think Jack is on to something: You don’t need as many
people as you think.
If there’s no other way, then consider a hire. But you should
know exactly who to get, how to introduce them to the work,
and the exact pain you expect them to relieve.
Brooks’ law
Adding people to a late software project makes it later.
-Fred Brooks

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84
Programming and Mozart’s Requiem
A single good programmer working on a single task has no coordination
or communication overhead. Five programmers working on the same
task must coordinate and communicate.That takes a lot of time...
The real trouble with using a lot of mediocre programmers instead of a
couple of good ones is that no matter how long they work, they never
produce something as good as what the great programmers can produce.
Five Antonio Salieris won’t produce Mozart’s Requiem.
Ever. Not if they work for 100 years.
-Joel Spolsky, software developer, Fog Creek Software
(from Hitting the High Notes)

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85
Kickthe Tires
Work with prospective employees on a test-basis first
It’s one thing to look at a portfolio, resume, code example,
or previous work. It’s another thing to actually work with
someone. Whenever possible, take potential new team members
out for a “test drive.”
Before we hire anyone we give them a small project to chew on
first. We see how they handle the project, how they communi-
cate, how they work, etc. Working with someone as they design
or code a few screens will give you a ton of insight. You’ll learn
pretty quickly whether or not the right vibe is there.
Scheduling can be tough for this sort of thing but even if it’s for
just 20 or 40 hours, it’s better than nothing. If it’s a good or bad
fit, it will be obvious. And if not, both sides save themselves a lot
of trouble and risk by testing out the situation first.
Start small
Try a small test assignment to start. Don’t leap in with all of your work at
once. Give your new [virtual assistant] a test project or two to work on and
see how the chemistry develops. In the beginning, it’s too easy to gloss over
potential problems with rose-colored glasses. Make it clear this is a test run.
-Suzanne Falter-Barns, author/creativity expert (from
How To Find And Keep The Perfect VA)

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Actions, Not Words
Judge potential tech hires on open source contributions
The typical method of hiring for technical positions – based on
degrees, resumés, etc. – is silly in a lot of ways. Does it really
matte