10 ms·

Counter-example: Slack chose growth and they swallowed up a multi-billion-dollar opportunity that 37signals (now Basecamp) rightfully could have owned. Slack e

by pdog 10y ago

Counter-example: Slack chose growth and they swallowed up a multi-billion-dollar opportunity that 37signals (now Basecamp) rightfully could have owned. Slack employs over 700 people now (compared to 51 people at Basecamp) even though they're a decade younger.

bravo22 10y ago
In fairness that's a bit like saying John worked hard and got into NBA now he is doing what he loves and is making millions a year therefore any student that has an inkling in basketball should give it their all and eschew everything else for a shot at the NBA. What happens to all the ones that don't make it? Go flip burgers?! Maybe it isn't crazy to opt for a more stable + likely outcome than "go for broke". I'm not knocking Slack. They've done a great thing but there is also a large element of luck in what they achieved meaning many things could have gone wrong which would have nullified their hard work. With VC fuelled "growth" you're always locked into shooting for the NBA at all costs.
- notahacker 10y ago
  That's too generous: at this stage it's more like knocking a banker on a million dollar salary for not following the route of the star college basketball player that most people think will be an NBA star...
rubiquity 10y ago
DHH and Jason Fried have several vacation homes and sports cars and actual hard cash. The founders of Slack have golden tickets with somebody else's name on most of them. I guess it all boils down to what's important to you.
- lloydde 10y ago
  Why did you choose to name the Basecamp founders, but not Slack founders? At least part of the Slack founders seem to be public figures who have had recognized financial success when Flickr was acquired many years ago. Also, it is probably that with Slack at its current levels of investment the founders have been able to take money off the table for themselves -- that is how these big rounds seem to be structured for unicorns to remove some "distraction" for the founders.
  - rubiquity 10y ago
    I named the Basecamp founders because I was able to recall their names off the top of my head. I could have done some more research I suppose.
    - lloydde 10y ago
      Without doing that research how can you tally their cars and homes?
- charlesdm 10y ago
  I'd much rather (co-)own 37signals than an equity stake in any venture funded business, including Slack. Who seriously loves working crazy hours? Make $20m and invest that well, that's all you need to live a full, free and happy life with your family. Enjoy work, but don't live to work.
  - pdog 10y ago
    Luckily, ambitious people don't think like this. They'd rather make a huge impact on society (think companies like Google and Tesla) than retire comfortably once they can afford fancy toys.
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      Google and Tesla are only possible because their founders actually got control over the money and were able to deploy it to their ends. Yes, their rise was VC-fueled, but that's not the only way to go about it. At some point, you have to be rational. Yes, in theory you could make enough money to reshape the world in your own image. In real life, people need balance and they need limits, and they need to learn to be content with what they can get within those limits, however much that is. Elon Musk is now a two-time divorcee. Brin is a divorcee. I don't actually know Page's marital status and don't care enough to look it up. Google and Tesla's impact is primarily technical, not social; the social impacts are not insignificant, but they're incidental to the technology, and though they like to think they are, Google et al are not in control of how that technology is used. In fact, the effects of these technical innovations appear contradictory to what are likely to be considered the tech industry's dominant values (see: election of Donald Trump). Google and Tesla are important companies, but perhaps their founders could indeed use a little more balance.
  - manigandham 10y ago
    > Who seriously loves working crazy hours? I do. And so do plenty of others. Everyone has a different purpose in mind. Saying "that's all you need" about life choices is incredibly reductive and never helpful.
- austenallred 10y ago
  I'd be willing to bet that if the founder of Slack wanted/needed to he could take quite a bit of money off the table. Come series B/C/D+ usually founders can take a bit off the table. Stewart can probably do whatever he wants (though he made enough form Flickr he doesn't need to). As for me, I have not very much in savings, but I would take 30% ownership of Slack over 30% ownership of 37Signals/Basecamp in a _second_, and not even just from a long-term perspective. I'd bet with a 30% stake in Slack you could put a couple million away to hedge downside risk, then have tons and tons of upside available. I think HN could do a much better job at understanding the practicalities of equity and what it really looks like if you're a founder. You're not just handed a bunch of paper and told to work and dream for 10 years, generally speaking.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    A 37signals type of business is completely different to a venture business. It depends on what you look for in life, and how you prefer living your life. I personally couldn't care less about potentially having billions in upside. $10-20mm is enough for me to do whatever I want in life.
rorykoehler 10y ago
Is 700 employees more desirable than 51?
- drewrv 10y ago
  Only in some form of measuring contest.
- lukasm 10y ago
  If it's necessary to build a better product then yes. Slack is on a track to dominate this space and make Basecamp irrelevant.
  - beat 10y ago
    Is it a better product, or a larger market? The quality of the product and the size of the market are two almost entirely separate things.
    - lukasm 10y ago
      I don't understand what is your point. The questions was "Is it desirable?" It's not - it's a tradeoff. More employees create more complexity, but it could be the case that's sine qua non to get create the product and capture the market.
  - dasil003 10y ago
    Slack is not in the same space as Basecamp, work tracking vs chat is a dramatically different use case. A more apt comparison would be Asana, but I'm not particularly worried about that either: there isn't really a one-size fits all approach for work tracking. I actually worry more about the future of Asana because they have those VC-fueled dreams and Facebook-cofounder-level expectations that mean anything less than a moonshot is a disappointment. With all those resources Asana can do a lot of things Basecamp can't, but there's no guarantee that can translate that all into the tremendous sustained growth they need to meet their goals.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
simplehuman 10y ago
Wow, what does slack have 700 people for?
- charlesdm 10y ago
  They want to show to their investors they're burning their VC money. Didn't you know that having 700 employees is a lot more prestigious than just having 50?
- dboreham 10y ago
  700 is the new 200
- shostack 10y ago
  If they want to grow beyond "just a team chat app" that takes a lot of engineering talent to do it quickly enough to compete with MS, Google, FB, etc. who are all moving into this space full force. Additionally, to sell into the enterprise you need a sales team, so a lot of those are probably sales people on commission.
dorian-graph 10y ago
I think 37Signals is the wrong company to use a comparison of headcount as some great thing. If you read Rework for example, 'they' prefer a small headcount and purposefully keep it so.

by pdog 10y ago

bravo22 10y ago

In fairness that's a bit like saying John worked hard and got into NBA now he is doing what he loves and is making millions a year therefore any student that has an inkling in basketball should give it their all and eschew everything else for a shot at the NBA. What happens to all the ones that don't make it? Go flip burgers?! Maybe it isn't crazy to opt for a more stable + likely outcome than "go for broke". I'm not knocking Slack. They've done a great thing but there is also a large element of luck in what they achieved meaning many things could have gone wrong which would have nullified their hard work. With VC fuelled "growth" you're always locked into shooting for the NBA at all costs.

notahacker 10y ago
That's too generous: at this stage it's more like knocking a banker on a million dollar salary for not following the route of the star college basketball player that most people think will be an NBA star...

rubiquity 10y ago

DHH and Jason Fried have several vacation homes and sports cars and actual hard cash. The founders of Slack have golden tickets with somebody else's name on most of them. I guess it all boils down to what's important to you.

lloydde 10y ago
Why did you choose to name the Basecamp founders, but not Slack founders? At least part of the Slack founders seem to be public figures who have had recognized financial success when Flickr was acquired many years ago. Also, it is probably that with Slack at its current levels of investment the founders have been able to take money off the table for themselves -- that is how these big rounds seem to be structured for unicorns to remove some "distraction" for the founders.
- rubiquity 10y ago
  I named the Basecamp founders because I was able to recall their names off the top of my head. I could have done some more research I suppose.
  - lloydde 10y ago
    Without doing that research how can you tally their cars and homes?
charlesdm 10y ago
I'd much rather (co-)own 37signals than an equity stake in any venture funded business, including Slack. Who seriously loves working crazy hours? Make $20m and invest that well, that's all you need to live a full, free and happy life with your family. Enjoy work, but don't live to work.
- pdog 10y ago
  Luckily, ambitious people don't think like this. They'd rather make a huge impact on society (think companies like Google and Tesla) than retire comfortably once they can afford fancy toys.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Google and Tesla are only possible because their founders actually got control over the money and were able to deploy it to their ends. Yes, their rise was VC-fueled, but that's not the only way to go about it. At some point, you have to be rational. Yes, in theory you could make enough money to reshape the world in your own image. In real life, people need balance and they need limits, and they need to learn to be content with what they can get within those limits, however much that is. Elon Musk is now a two-time divorcee. Brin is a divorcee. I don't actually know Page's marital status and don't care enough to look it up. Google and Tesla's impact is primarily technical, not social; the social impacts are not insignificant, but they're incidental to the technology, and though they like to think they are, Google et al are not in control of how that technology is used. In fact, the effects of these technical innovations appear contradictory to what are likely to be considered the tech industry's dominant values (see: election of Donald Trump). Google and Tesla are important companies, but perhaps their founders could indeed use a little more balance.
- manigandham 10y ago
  > Who seriously loves working crazy hours? I do. And so do plenty of others. Everyone has a different purpose in mind. Saying "that's all you need" about life choices is incredibly reductive and never helpful.
austenallred 10y ago
I'd be willing to bet that if the founder of Slack wanted/needed to he could take quite a bit of money off the table. Come series B/C/D+ usually founders can take a bit off the table. Stewart can probably do whatever he wants (though he made enough form Flickr he doesn't need to). As for me, I have not very much in savings, but I would take 30% ownership of Slack over 30% ownership of 37Signals/Basecamp in a _second_, and not even just from a long-term perspective. I'd bet with a 30% stake in Slack you could put a couple million away to hedge downside risk, then have tons and tons of upside available. I think HN could do a much better job at understanding the practicalities of equity and what it really looks like if you're a founder. You're not just handed a bunch of paper and told to work and dream for 10 years, generally speaking.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  A 37signals type of business is completely different to a venture business. It depends on what you look for in life, and how you prefer living your life. I personally couldn't care less about potentially having billions in upside. $10-20mm is enough for me to do whatever I want in life.

rorykoehler 10y ago

Is 700 employees more desirable than 51?

drewrv 10y ago
Only in some form of measuring contest.
lukasm 10y ago
If it's necessary to build a better product then yes. Slack is on a track to dominate this space and make Basecamp irrelevant.
- beat 10y ago
  Is it a better product, or a larger market? The quality of the product and the size of the market are two almost entirely separate things.
  - lukasm 10y ago
    I don't understand what is your point. The questions was "Is it desirable?" It's not - it's a tradeoff. More employees create more complexity, but it could be the case that's sine qua non to get create the product and capture the market.
- dasil003 10y ago
  Slack is not in the same space as Basecamp, work tracking vs chat is a dramatically different use case. A more apt comparison would be Asana, but I'm not particularly worried about that either: there isn't really a one-size fits all approach for work tracking. I actually worry more about the future of Asana because they have those VC-fueled dreams and Facebook-cofounder-level expectations that mean anything less than a moonshot is a disappointment. With all those resources Asana can do a lot of things Basecamp can't, but there's no guarantee that can translate that all into the tremendous sustained growth they need to meet their goals.
- gnaritas 10y ago

simplehuman 10y ago

Wow, what does slack have 700 people for?

charlesdm 10y ago
They want to show to their investors they're burning their VC money. Didn't you know that having 700 employees is a lot more prestigious than just having 50?
dboreham 10y ago
700 is the new 200
shostack 10y ago
If they want to grow beyond "just a team chat app" that takes a lot of engineering talent to do it quickly enough to compete with MS, Google, FB, etc. who are all moving into this space full force. Additionally, to sell into the enterprise you need a sales team, so a lot of those are probably sales people on commission.

dorian-graph 10y ago

I think 37Signals is the wrong company to use a comparison of headcount as some great thing. If you read Rework for example, 'they' prefer a small headcount and purposefully keep it so.