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Their competitive advantage was that they had a pretty huge and passionate following (between SvN and DHH being the face of RoR) before they ever launched their

Their competitive advantage was that they had a pretty huge and passionate following (between SvN and DHH being the face of RoR) before they ever launched their first product. Not dissimilar to Joel Spolsky and the Coding Horror guy launching StackOverflow to instant success (but largely fail to see great success with non-geek-oriented StackOverflow sites). If you can be charismatic enough to collect a bunch of evangelists (among the people who talk and link most on the web) and then build a pretty good product that is designed for that audience, you'll succeed. I think 37s stuff and StackOverflow are pretty good, by the way. Doing less is NOT a competitive advantage (as evidenced by the army of 37s copycats who realize that not many companies can get away with zero sales/marketing).

davidw 16y ago
I haven't read it yet: do they cover that in their book, Rework?
- patio11 16y ago
  Their advice on marketing in Rework is diffuse and rather similar to their previous writing. (Not knocking it, just warning you that Rework is not going to rock your world if you already know what DHH stands for.) Develop a passionate audience, take a stand, etc etc.
boundlessdreamz 16y ago
Rails was released after basecamp from which it was extracted. Basecamp was launched in Feb 2004 and Rails in July 2004 http://37signals.com/svn/archives/000542.php http://37signals.com/svn/archives/000542.php http://rubyonrails.org/core http://rubyonrails.org/core
- webwright 16y ago
  I didn't know that- interesting! One thing to note: They continued to consult for a year after they launched Basecamp. So I'd still say that the RoR attention splashed onto them (and continues to do so). Salesforce.com spends 50-60% of their top line revenue on sales and marketing. 37s (unless you count the time they spent thinking of and writing linkbait) spends zero.
slantyyz 16y ago
With respect to Stack Overflow, I think they were an instant success largely because they are infinitely less douchey than their competitors, who put up barriers and paywalls to see answers.
- webwright 16y ago
  Less douchey doesn't = win. Compare Evite to any of its competitors (notably, the YC company AnyVite) in terms of traffic. Or check out eBay's competitors. It certainly helped, I'm sure. But it's a tiny slice of the pie when compared to their initial burst of free leadgen due to fame/audience. It would have had a serious cold-start problem if they'd launched it anonymously.

davidw 16y ago

I haven't read it yet: do they cover that in their book, Rework?

patio11 16y ago
Their advice on marketing in Rework is diffuse and rather similar to their previous writing. (Not knocking it, just warning you that Rework is not going to rock your world if you already know what DHH stands for.) Develop a passionate audience, take a stand, etc etc.

boundlessdreamz 16y ago

Rails was released after basecamp from which it was extracted. Basecamp was launched in Feb 2004 and Rails in July 2004 http://37signals.com/svn/archives/000542.php http://37signals.com/svn/archives/000542.php http://rubyonrails.org/core http://rubyonrails.org/core

webwright 16y ago
I didn't know that- interesting! One thing to note: They continued to consult for a year after they launched Basecamp. So I'd still say that the RoR attention splashed onto them (and continues to do so). Salesforce.com spends 50-60% of their top line revenue on sales and marketing. 37s (unless you count the time they spent thinking of and writing linkbait) spends zero.

slantyyz 16y ago

With respect to Stack Overflow, I think they were an instant success largely because they are infinitely less douchey than their competitors, who put up barriers and paywalls to see answers.

webwright 16y ago
Less douchey doesn't = win. Compare Evite to any of its competitors (notably, the YC company AnyVite) in terms of traffic. Or check out eBay's competitors. It certainly helped, I'm sure. But it's a tiny slice of the pie when compared to their initial burst of free leadgen due to fame/audience. It would have had a serious cold-start problem if they'd launched it anonymously.