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Moving Beyond Basecamp: Managing Company Growing Pains

14 points by danielodio 16y ago

bdclimber14 16y ago
I like how you approach your problems with Basecamp as usability issues and not as feature-set limitations. I think Basecamp is at a sweet-spot with features, but has a lot of room for improvement in how users interface with it. The application really hasn't changed much since it was launched. With the mountains of data on how its used, I would think 37signals would refine the app to be the most usable interface in the world.
smanek 16y ago
I'd recommend checking out https://www.greplin.com https://www.greplin.com to help search basecamp. I've encountered some of the same issues with their search you have and Greplin makes things much better! (full disclosure: I work at Greplin ;-)).
- bdclimber14 16y ago
  I always misunderstood Greplin to be solely a social network search tool. It looks like it is much more than that. Greplin is the YC startup that programmed it in days, right before demo day, correct?
  - smanek 16y ago
    Yep, one of our co-founders (Daniel) hacked together the first demo of multi-service search ~2 days before Demo Day when his earlier idea fell through. The team/product have grown quite a bit since then though ;-) To be honest, I'm not really sure where we got the reputation for being a 'social search' tool. We want to help you search your data, wherever it is. We support a lot of applications, including ones that aren't traditionally considered social, like Dropbox, Basecamp, Salesforce, GMail, Evernote, or Highrise. (We also do support more traditionally 'social' apps like Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, or LinkedIn though, since a lot of people's information is in these types of services).
    - bdclimber14 16y ago
      I think that reputation came from a TechCrunch article. Honestly, I thought the idea was a "solution in search of a problem" at first, but now that I see you're really focusing on the real apps (gmail, dropbox, chat, etc.) I "get it." There's been plenty of times I've tried searching for something, but I couldn't remember the medium. One feature you guys really need to do quick (shouldn't take long) is paper-medium search. I'll write notes on post-its, or give some info on a sheet of paper to someone. I should be able to search all this in real-time too, as I write it.
trussi 16y ago
My (rejected) YC project literally addressed every single concern voiced in this article. If you can relate to the struggles of managing and working in multi-resource, multi-project environments, sign up for the beta of FlowRocket at: http://signup.flowrocket.com http://signup.flowrocket.com.

14 points by danielodio 16y ago

I like how you approach your problems with Basecamp as usability issues and not as feature-set limitations. I think Basecamp is at a sweet-spot with features, but has a lot of room for improvement in how users interface with it. The application really hasn't changed much since it was launched. With the mountains of data on how its used, I would think 37signals would refine the app to be the most usable interface in the world.

smanek 16y ago

I'd recommend checking out https://www.greplin.com https://www.greplin.com to help search basecamp. I've encountered some of the same issues with their search you have and Greplin makes things much better! (full disclosure: I work at Greplin ;-)).

bdclimber14 16y ago
I always misunderstood Greplin to be solely a social network search tool. It looks like it is much more than that. Greplin is the YC startup that programmed it in days, right before demo day, correct?
- smanek 16y ago
  Yep, one of our co-founders (Daniel) hacked together the first demo of multi-service search ~2 days before Demo Day when his earlier idea fell through. The team/product have grown quite a bit since then though ;-) To be honest, I'm not really sure where we got the reputation for being a 'social search' tool. We want to help you search your data, wherever it is. We support a lot of applications, including ones that aren't traditionally considered social, like Dropbox, Basecamp, Salesforce, GMail, Evernote, or Highrise. (We also do support more traditionally 'social' apps like Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, or LinkedIn though, since a lot of people's information is in these types of services).
  - bdclimber14 16y ago
    I think that reputation came from a TechCrunch article. Honestly, I thought the idea was a "solution in search of a problem" at first, but now that I see you're really focusing on the real apps (gmail, dropbox, chat, etc.) I "get it." There's been plenty of times I've tried searching for something, but I couldn't remember the medium. One feature you guys really need to do quick (shouldn't take long) is paper-medium search. I'll write notes on post-its, or give some info on a sheet of paper to someone. I should be able to search all this in real-time too, as I write it.

trussi 16y ago

My (rejected) YC project literally addressed every single concern voiced in this article. If you can relate to the struggles of managing and working in multi-resource, multi-project environments, sign up for the beta of FlowRocket at: http://signup.flowrocket.com http://signup.flowrocket.com.