17 ms·

Goodbye Basecamp, This Is The End

251 points by railsjedi 15y ago

tokenadult 15y ago
I'd really like to hear from hackers organizing their projects what software in this category they like best. I have liked Basecamp as a framework for sharing do-list items with colleagues (most of my colleagues and I work independently of face-to-face meetings most of the time) but I am willing to learn about other products or service. Efficency is key. What do you recommend to do best what Basecamp does?
- windsurfer 15y ago
  I absolutly love redmine. Easy to customize, hundreds of add-ons, tons of functionality (including turning off tabs you're not using) and lots of support. If you're a geek that manages your own server, it's the way to go for sure. There's even a "basecamp" theme that looks and works great ;)
- michokest 15y ago
  As a designer, I was frustrated using Basecamp before and that made me start Teambox. I chose the open-source way (like Redmine) and a simple feature set (like Basecamp), trying to make a more up-to-date version of what I thought project collaboration should be. Things I found missing on BC and I did implement on Teambox: a single account (37s got this right later), a real activity stream (Facebook style, reply to anything from the feed), an open-source codebase so others could extend it and tight integration of first level elements: Conversations, Tasks, Pages.
- shii 15y ago
  Self hosted Wave-in-a-box.
- oscilloscope 15y ago
  Redmine is great after Basecamp. Minimal, fast wiki. Repository viewers (svn, hg, git). Access control, which can be used to create public pages quite easily. Nested projects. GitHub's nice if you're focused on building software. Project wikis, home pages, code review, huge open source community.
  - kleevr 15y ago
    I just set up redmine about 2 months ago, and I'm loving it. Recently got my SVN linked up and now I can cross reference commits with issues in the tracker.
- jarek-foksa 15y ago
  I like Open Atrium (http://openatrium.com/ http://openatrium.com/) because of its modularity and beautiful deafult theme. It's based on Drupal, so if you were building Drupal websites before then you will find it very easy to customize.
- joefiorini 15y ago
  I have yet to find a project management app I like more than AgileZen. It allows me to model my workflow, assess against estimates and to top it off it's very pretty. There are a few things about it that bug me: notifications suck and there is no interaction between projects. Other than that, it's awesome.
  - windsurfer 15y ago
    Redmine? It has a ton of features, so it limits a lot of the more complicated stuff by default. Notifications are awesome, and cross-project stuff works beautifully when using subprojects (shared gantt, cross linked wikis, timelines, etc).
- Revisor 15y ago
  We use Assembla - between tickets, wikis, forum, chat, and unlimited repos we have all our project-management bases covered.
ianterrell 15y ago
I think Jason Fried and DHH might take issue with, "You proved yourself wrong, I think." In addition to "Say no by default," one of their other points of advice has been: "Let your users outgrow you." 37signals has found that there's more people to sell to at the bottom, and when customers need/want more, they're free to find it elsewhere.
- trafficlight 15y ago
  Then perhaps 37signals need to make exporting existing Basecamp data for easy importing into the "next step up" products. As far as I know they only provided a raw XML data dump.
  - nettdata 15y ago
    "Only"? How else would you have it provided to you? That's pretty well the most versatile form of the data you could get, I'd think.
    - mgkimsal 15y ago
      Agreed. It's really up to those other products to develop import routines for BC data. Wordstar didn't develop 'save as MS Word' functionality, but MS did WS imports just fine.
  - jasonfried 15y ago
    You can also export your data in HTML format so you can still view your projects locally on your own computer: http://help.37signals.com/basecamp/questions/164-can-we-export-our-data-if-we-don-t-want-to-use-basecamp-anymore-what-format-is-the-export-in http://help.37signals.com/basecamp/questions/164-can-we-expo...
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    You have it backwards: tools that want to be the next step in the chain should make it trivial to import Basecamp data. 37signals has done their part by making it easy to get data out.
spolsky 15y ago
The 37signals ethos of having an opinion and saying no a lot creates wonderful experiences and products for users who are new to a certain field. For someone who is new to project management, for example, the fancy programs with every feature and option are confusing and scary. Products like Basecamp are beautiful for these users. As users gain more experience, their needs become slightly more complex. They start to understand the simple product completely, and then they have the cognitive ability to understand more fancy bells 'n' whistles. For users who have been doing project management for a long time with any software product, they will have a long list of things that they know -- from experience! -- that they need. That is why there's a market for simple and there's a market for full-featured. Both are discrete markets, usually. Obviously every software designer strives for "power made easy" -- it seems easy at first, but there is power under the hood when you need it.
- fmavituna 15y ago
  Very good point, we moved from Unfuddle to Fogbugz exactly because of this. We grew out of Unfuddle (they are kind of following 37Signals about simplicity choice) .
  - jessedhillon 15y ago
    I followed the same path of Unfuddle to FB. I found Unfuddle to be an uninspired clone of Trac, however, which is exactly why I chose it -- I had used Trac and wanted a hosted version of that.
    - fmavituna 15y ago
      I liked unfuddle and assumed they would add features, however after 1 year of usage it was clear that they were not big fan of features and didn't add anything useful (at least anything useful for us). Which always amazes me, how a startup can spend a year without adding any good features or just add 1-2 minor features and try to get away with it...
      - applicomhq 15y ago
grandalf 15y ago
Basecamp seems to be designed exactly for a web design shop that wants to take on bigger projects and present an organized appearance to clients. More client management than project management.
petercooper 15y ago
You didn’t integrate the Writeboard into Basecamp. Worse, it hasn't been papered over well either. I can't load a Writeboard from Basecamp without some weird 1990s-style "we're loading your Writeboard" page hanging around for a couple of seconds. UI-wise, I'd be satisfied with it being separate if it weren't for the extra page coming up wasting time and making me think something happened.
- jasonfried 15y ago
  We agree. We're not happy with Writeboard integration in its current state.
  - petercooper 15y ago
    Glad to know it's on your radar :-) I sympathize with the 37signals attitude to piling on features but this is really more sanding off a speed bump.
atacrawl 15y ago
I was expecting the author to say something to the effect of "37signals added too many new features and now the software is confusing." So I was a little surprised to read on and learn that, no, 37signals kept their software somewhat basic, just as they said they would. I have a feeling the author will write a similar piece in a year or two after using Podio -- no software is perfect.
nhangen 15y ago
Just left Basecamp for Apollo for a few reasons: 1. Apollo has great customer service, and listens. 2. Apollo's interface doesn't look like Windows NT 3. Apollo is moving forward, while Basecamp seems to have stagnated/rested on its laurels. I think Basecamp is a good product, but it's not that good.
- kristofferR 15y ago
  Damn, this is exactly what I've been looking for! It's like Basecamp under active development with CRM integrated! It looks friendlier for external users/clients too!
  - applicomhq 15y ago
    Thank you for your ind words! Yes, we do develop Apollo actively. It's definitely a lot of work! Tony Mobily http://www.apollohq.com http://www.apollohq.com
mberning 15y ago
The customers you start off with are usually not the customers you end with. People grow, products grow.
trustfundbaby 15y ago
I'm just glad somebody said something about their prices ... they're ridiculous now.
- nfm 15y ago
  The cheapest Basecamp plan (Basic) is in fact $24/month, not $49 as mentioned in the article. If you run a full time consulting business, $24/month is a negligible expense for software that supports the core function of your business. I'd argue that all the prices are negligible as they scale with the size of the business. Even the Max plan ($149/month) is only $1788 per year, which is equivalent to less than 2 weeks worth of man hours. Logically, if using the Max plan of Basecamp saves you and your team 80 hours over the course of a year it should be a no brainer.
EGreg 15y ago
Just wait for what we are planning to release ;-)
timjahn 15y ago
I think the effectiveness of project management software depends greatly on the type of project being managed. For example, I don't consider Jira as in the same arena as Basecamp (and I've used both a good amount). I see Jira as a programming/development specific management tool, to be used by programming teams and maybe the managers of those teams. I see Basecamp as a far more flexible project management tool that can fit a wide variety of needs. It works great for organizing our Entrepreneurs Unpluggd events. It works well for some web dev projects and design projects, but not others. Basecamp isn't always THE solution. For some types of projects, it is. For others, it isn't. At the end of the day, the right answer is the project management software that helps you more efficiently organize your specific projects. Because Basecamp doesn't work for Joe and his projects doesn't mean it can't work amazingly for Sally and hers.
- ghaff 15y ago
  You make an important point. A few years back, when I was working for an IT analyst firm, I headed a project to find us new task/project management software. (Our existing application for this was old and homegrown and pretty bad.) The issue is that the significant majority of our tasks/projects were very small: Take a briefing with a client, write up notes, attach presentation, possibly include a followup note for sales, done. So project management software that was organized around the principle of a modest number of projects with milestones, actions, sub-tasks, etc. didn't really work for us. (Including the 37signals options.) We eventually settled on trac which worked pretty well for the purpose. And we'd probably have supplemented that with something more like Basecamp if we got into some more complex projects and simply handled them as a separate case. My broader point though is that I found that the "best" project management software depended on what you were trying to track.
kenjackson 15y ago
Refering to a Robert Scoble post while accusing DHH of being on insider bubble is really hilarious. There is no one more in the bubble than Scoble, and no one who is more blinded by the fact that he's in the bubble than Scoble. DHH was fundamentally right, even if the details were wrong. For 99.9% of apps there is a replacement app available on any of the mainstream phone platforms. The long tail maybe gets you a bit more polish, but its polish on non-core scenarios. Most people will decide based on the polish for their core scenario, not on Textalyzer.
languagehacker 15y ago
Am I the only person who couldn't get anything out of this post because of its bad grammar?
- sabat 15y ago
  Well, the OP is German, so I'm sure he's doing the best he can. And it's really not that bad -- certainly writes better in English than I can in German! :-)
dnugent 15y ago
Basecamp is a good product but only if you share its "opinion" on workflow and design. Obviously 37Signals has done well by sticking to a minimal set of features and catering to a very specific audience. We are of the mindset that software should fit the way you work, not necessarily the other way around. We're building a Force.com-like platform that allows you to create custom business workflow apps in minutes to handle not just tasks, but also lightweight crm, recruiting, and other business functions involving a relatively defined process. We provide a fast UI to access these records, so all you do is specify the schema and callbacks. We're still in beta, but happy to release some invites and work with members of the HN community -- http://www.devcomb.com http://www.devcomb.com
dmazin 15y ago
I don't think you've listened enough, because 37signals has stated repeatedly that it prefers customers to outgrow the services (as is your case) than to intimidate new customers.
imbriaco 15y ago
For those who say that 37signals has allowed Basecamp to stagnate, I'd trot out as exhibit A the changelog: http://basecamphq.com/changes http://basecamphq.com/changes Being very deliberate about making sweeping changes to an application with an extremely large number of very satisfied users is not the same as allowing it to stagnate. Having spent 4 years of my life working at 37signals I know first hand the incredible amount of energy that is devoted to it by an extremely talented team. That said, it's certainly not for everyone. And if you outgrow it, fantastic, feel free to move onto a new product that suits you better. We do this with many other aspects of our lives, why should software be any different?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- joelg87 15y ago
  I love the idea of that change history for each 37signals app. We're trying to be very open with our own product, but often very small fixes or changes don't make sense as an announcement on the blog. Does anyone know where Basecamp links to this change history page? The only link to it so far I can find is from their blog: http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-and-highrise-change-history-pages.html http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-a...
  - jasonfried 15y ago
    Change log for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire: http://37signals.com/changes http://37signals.com/changes
nirajr 15y ago
I got quite put off by lack of email integration in Basecamp and recently wrote this: http://goo.gl/Vthjb http://goo.gl/Vthjb I've, since, moved away from Basecamp and am almost completely on Jira now.
KeyBoardG 15y ago
My company pays a whole hell of a lot more for a far far more complex and way over bloated system. I applaud 37signals for their choices and sticking to it. The author here needs to just get over the fact that his needs outgrew the software and to seek another solution. No need for the dramatics.
richardw 15y ago
This is a story of success, not failure. He used BC and loved it for almost 6 years. I'd be very impressed if the next product Christian uses fulfills all his project management needs for the next 6.
rlobue 15y ago
I just finished reading ReWork, Jason Fried's latest book. The irony of this submission is that the book describes Christian to a tee: the customer who always wants more; the customer who has outgrown the product; the customer who compares competitors but would rather complain than move. I have to admire the way 37signals has grown over the last few years. Sure, they clearly don't integrate every feature. The user interface certainly works but has no iGloss about it at all. Pricing is steep and they hide the lower-priced plans. But it works: people still use the service. If you're a coffee shop you concentrate on your coffee. If you're an electrician, you concentrate on the quality of your work. Adding extras like "nice cable ties" are irrelevant. 37signals are concentrating on their core functionality. When the day comes that the majority of their users require X feature and that feature becomes a norm in Project Management, Contact Management, Collaboration, etc then I'm almost sure they will react: why wouldn't they?
becomevocal 15y ago
The fact that a user goes out of the way to broadcast that they're walking away from the service is a testament to how bad ass it truly was for them. Every developer should hope for that sort of torment at the end of use period for a user. Clearly it was a big enough part of their workflow to complain. Most (all?) of us developers / product guys fight with feature creep. I'm glad 37signals is there to remind us, by example, that it's OK for a software business to focus on a specific solution, sans bloat. There are users that will appreciate your vision - and gladly pay.
andrew_wc_brown 15y ago
I think every Project Manager has its place. I really like the development of Asana. http://asana.com/ http://asana.com/
dfischer 15y ago
Shameless plug: we built http://www.kanbanpad.com http://www.kanbanpad.com because we wanted something simple and intuitive. Basecamp never fit our flow.
bborud 15y ago
I was introduced to Basecamp through a project I was invited to contribute to. Before I had heard about the product, but I had never used it and as far as I can tell I wasn't significantly biased for or against the product or the company that made it. However, within days I came to hate Basecamp intensely. Not so much because it imposed certain structures and ways of working -- discomfort is to be expected when you learn a new tool. And, of course, sometimes, it turns out you can learn better ways to work from tools that force you into certain ways. No, what made me hate Basecamp with a passion is that the thing is slow. It is unacceptably slow. And the UI, be it the web UI or the various apps that existed for it at the time (late last year), did not manage to meaningfully mask the fact that the system was slow as molasses. The fact that 37signals, a much lauded company, would allow an important product to have such a glaring fault now means that I see anything that 37signals say or anything that is said about them in a different light. I am now thoroughly biased to think that they have no business telling anyone how you make good software. I can't help this, though I will acknowledge that this is an emotional response rather than a rational one. It also means that anyone singing the praise of 37signals now also seems suspect. Do they even form their _own_ opinions or do people just parrot the praise that people they look up to heap on the company. Slow apps are not cool. Companies that make slow apps without visible embarrassment are not cool. Basecamp is dead slow and it is perfectly okay to point out that the monarch appears before the court sans clothing.

251 points by railsjedi 15y ago

I'd really like to hear from hackers organizing their projects what software in this category they like best. I have liked Basecamp as a framework for sharing do-list items with colleagues (most of my colleagues and I work independently of face-to-face meetings most of the time) but I am willing to learn about other products or service. Efficency is key. What do you recommend to do best what Basecamp does?

windsurfer 15y ago
I absolutly love redmine. Easy to customize, hundreds of add-ons, tons of functionality (including turning off tabs you're not using) and lots of support. If you're a geek that manages your own server, it's the way to go for sure. There's even a "basecamp" theme that looks and works great ;)
michokest 15y ago
As a designer, I was frustrated using Basecamp before and that made me start Teambox. I chose the open-source way (like Redmine) and a simple feature set (like Basecamp), trying to make a more up-to-date version of what I thought project collaboration should be. Things I found missing on BC and I did implement on Teambox: a single account (37s got this right later), a real activity stream (Facebook style, reply to anything from the feed), an open-source codebase so others could extend it and tight integration of first level elements: Conversations, Tasks, Pages.
shii 15y ago
Self hosted Wave-in-a-box.
oscilloscope 15y ago
Redmine is great after Basecamp. Minimal, fast wiki. Repository viewers (svn, hg, git). Access control, which can be used to create public pages quite easily. Nested projects. GitHub's nice if you're focused on building software. Project wikis, home pages, code review, huge open source community.
- kleevr 15y ago
  I just set up redmine about 2 months ago, and I'm loving it. Recently got my SVN linked up and now I can cross reference commits with issues in the tracker.
jarek-foksa 15y ago
I like Open Atrium (http://openatrium.com/ http://openatrium.com/) because of its modularity and beautiful deafult theme. It's based on Drupal, so if you were building Drupal websites before then you will find it very easy to customize.
joefiorini 15y ago
I have yet to find a project management app I like more than AgileZen. It allows me to model my workflow, assess against estimates and to top it off it's very pretty. There are a few things about it that bug me: notifications suck and there is no interaction between projects. Other than that, it's awesome.
- windsurfer 15y ago
  Redmine? It has a ton of features, so it limits a lot of the more complicated stuff by default. Notifications are awesome, and cross-project stuff works beautifully when using subprojects (shared gantt, cross linked wikis, timelines, etc).
Revisor 15y ago
We use Assembla - between tickets, wikis, forum, chat, and unlimited repos we have all our project-management bases covered.

ianterrell 15y ago

I think Jason Fried and DHH might take issue with, "You proved yourself wrong, I think." In addition to "Say no by default," one of their other points of advice has been: "Let your users outgrow you." 37signals has found that there's more people to sell to at the bottom, and when customers need/want more, they're free to find it elsewhere.

trafficlight 15y ago
Then perhaps 37signals need to make exporting existing Basecamp data for easy importing into the "next step up" products. As far as I know they only provided a raw XML data dump.
- nettdata 15y ago
  "Only"? How else would you have it provided to you? That's pretty well the most versatile form of the data you could get, I'd think.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Agreed. It's really up to those other products to develop import routines for BC data. Wordstar didn't develop 'save as MS Word' functionality, but MS did WS imports just fine.
- jasonfried 15y ago
  You can also export your data in HTML format so you can still view your projects locally on your own computer: http://help.37signals.com/basecamp/questions/164-can-we-export-our-data-if-we-don-t-want-to-use-basecamp-anymore-what-format-is-the-export-in http://help.37signals.com/basecamp/questions/164-can-we-expo...
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  You have it backwards: tools that want to be the next step in the chain should make it trivial to import Basecamp data. 37signals has done their part by making it easy to get data out.

spolsky 15y ago

The 37signals ethos of having an opinion and saying no a lot creates wonderful experiences and products for users who are new to a certain field. For someone who is new to project management, for example, the fancy programs with every feature and option are confusing and scary. Products like Basecamp are beautiful for these users. As users gain more experience, their needs become slightly more complex. They start to understand the simple product completely, and then they have the cognitive ability to understand more fancy bells 'n' whistles. For users who have been doing project management for a long time with any software product, they will have a long list of things that they know -- from experience! -- that they need. That is why there's a market for simple and there's a market for full-featured. Both are discrete markets, usually. Obviously every software designer strives for "power made easy" -- it seems easy at first, but there is power under the hood when you need it.

fmavituna 15y ago
Very good point, we moved from Unfuddle to Fogbugz exactly because of this. We grew out of Unfuddle (they are kind of following 37Signals about simplicity choice) .
- jessedhillon 15y ago
  I followed the same path of Unfuddle to FB. I found Unfuddle to be an uninspired clone of Trac, however, which is exactly why I chose it -- I had used Trac and wanted a hosted version of that.
  - fmavituna 15y ago
    I liked unfuddle and assumed they would add features, however after 1 year of usage it was clear that they were not big fan of features and didn't add anything useful (at least anything useful for us). Which always amazes me, how a startup can spend a year without adding any good features or just add 1-2 minor features and try to get away with it...
    - applicomhq 15y ago

grandalf 15y ago

Basecamp seems to be designed exactly for a web design shop that wants to take on bigger projects and present an organized appearance to clients. More client management than project management.

petercooper 15y ago

You didn’t integrate the Writeboard into Basecamp. Worse, it hasn't been papered over well either. I can't load a Writeboard from Basecamp without some weird 1990s-style "we're loading your Writeboard" page hanging around for a couple of seconds. UI-wise, I'd be satisfied with it being separate if it weren't for the extra page coming up wasting time and making me think something happened.

jasonfried 15y ago
We agree. We're not happy with Writeboard integration in its current state.
- petercooper 15y ago
  Glad to know it's on your radar :-) I sympathize with the 37signals attitude to piling on features but this is really more sanding off a speed bump.

atacrawl 15y ago

I was expecting the author to say something to the effect of "37signals added too many new features and now the software is confusing." So I was a little surprised to read on and learn that, no, 37signals kept their software somewhat basic, just as they said they would. I have a feeling the author will write a similar piece in a year or two after using Podio -- no software is perfect.

nhangen 15y ago

Just left Basecamp for Apollo for a few reasons: 1. Apollo has great customer service, and listens. 2. Apollo's interface doesn't look like Windows NT 3. Apollo is moving forward, while Basecamp seems to have stagnated/rested on its laurels. I think Basecamp is a good product, but it's not that good.

kristofferR 15y ago
Damn, this is exactly what I've been looking for! It's like Basecamp under active development with CRM integrated! It looks friendlier for external users/clients too!
- applicomhq 15y ago
  Thank you for your ind words! Yes, we do develop Apollo actively. It's definitely a lot of work! Tony Mobily http://www.apollohq.com http://www.apollohq.com

mberning 15y ago

The customers you start off with are usually not the customers you end with. People grow, products grow.

trustfundbaby 15y ago

I'm just glad somebody said something about their prices ... they're ridiculous now.

nfm 15y ago
The cheapest Basecamp plan (Basic) is in fact $24/month, not $49 as mentioned in the article. If you run a full time consulting business, $24/month is a negligible expense for software that supports the core function of your business. I'd argue that all the prices are negligible as they scale with the size of the business. Even the Max plan ($149/month) is only $1788 per year, which is equivalent to less than 2 weeks worth of man hours. Logically, if using the Max plan of Basecamp saves you and your team 80 hours over the course of a year it should be a no brainer.

EGreg 15y ago

Just wait for what we are planning to release ;-)

timjahn 15y ago

I think the effectiveness of project management software depends greatly on the type of project being managed. For example, I don't consider Jira as in the same arena as Basecamp (and I've used both a good amount). I see Jira as a programming/development specific management tool, to be used by programming teams and maybe the managers of those teams. I see Basecamp as a far more flexible project management tool that can fit a wide variety of needs. It works great for organizing our Entrepreneurs Unpluggd events. It works well for some web dev projects and design projects, but not others. Basecamp isn't always THE solution. For some types of projects, it is. For others, it isn't. At the end of the day, the right answer is the project management software that helps you more efficiently organize your specific projects. Because Basecamp doesn't work for Joe and his projects doesn't mean it can't work amazingly for Sally and hers.

ghaff 15y ago
You make an important point. A few years back, when I was working for an IT analyst firm, I headed a project to find us new task/project management software. (Our existing application for this was old and homegrown and pretty bad.) The issue is that the significant majority of our tasks/projects were very small: Take a briefing with a client, write up notes, attach presentation, possibly include a followup note for sales, done. So project management software that was organized around the principle of a modest number of projects with milestones, actions, sub-tasks, etc. didn't really work for us. (Including the 37signals options.) We eventually settled on trac which worked pretty well for the purpose. And we'd probably have supplemented that with something more like Basecamp if we got into some more complex projects and simply handled them as a separate case. My broader point though is that I found that the "best" project management software depended on what you were trying to track.

kenjackson 15y ago

Refering to a Robert Scoble post while accusing DHH of being on insider bubble is really hilarious. There is no one more in the bubble than Scoble, and no one who is more blinded by the fact that he's in the bubble than Scoble. DHH was fundamentally right, even if the details were wrong. For 99.9% of apps there is a replacement app available on any of the mainstream phone platforms. The long tail maybe gets you a bit more polish, but its polish on non-core scenarios. Most people will decide based on the polish for their core scenario, not on Textalyzer.

languagehacker 15y ago

Am I the only person who couldn't get anything out of this post because of its bad grammar?

sabat 15y ago
Well, the OP is German, so I'm sure he's doing the best he can. And it's really not that bad -- certainly writes better in English than I can in German! :-)

dnugent 15y ago

Basecamp is a good product but only if you share its "opinion" on workflow and design. Obviously 37Signals has done well by sticking to a minimal set of features and catering to a very specific audience. We are of the mindset that software should fit the way you work, not necessarily the other way around. We're building a Force.com-like platform that allows you to create custom business workflow apps in minutes to handle not just tasks, but also lightweight crm, recruiting, and other business functions involving a relatively defined process. We provide a fast UI to access these records, so all you do is specify the schema and callbacks. We're still in beta, but happy to release some invites and work with members of the HN community -- http://www.devcomb.com http://www.devcomb.com

dmazin 15y ago

I don't think you've listened enough, because 37signals has stated repeatedly that it prefers customers to outgrow the services (as is your case) than to intimidate new customers.

imbriaco 15y ago

For those who say that 37signals has allowed Basecamp to stagnate, I'd trot out as exhibit A the changelog: http://basecamphq.com/changes http://basecamphq.com/changes Being very deliberate about making sweeping changes to an application with an extremely large number of very satisfied users is not the same as allowing it to stagnate. Having spent 4 years of my life working at 37signals I know first hand the incredible amount of energy that is devoted to it by an extremely talented team. That said, it's certainly not for everyone. And if you outgrow it, fantastic, feel free to move onto a new product that suits you better. We do this with many other aspects of our lives, why should software be any different?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
joelg87 15y ago
I love the idea of that change history for each 37signals app. We're trying to be very open with our own product, but often very small fixes or changes don't make sense as an announcement on the blog. Does anyone know where Basecamp links to this change history page? The only link to it so far I can find is from their blog: http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-and-highrise-change-history-pages.html http://productblog.37signals.com/products/2009/10/basecamp-a...
- jasonfried 15y ago
  Change log for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire: http://37signals.com/changes http://37signals.com/changes

nirajr 15y ago

I got quite put off by lack of email integration in Basecamp and recently wrote this: http://goo.gl/Vthjb http://goo.gl/Vthjb I've, since, moved away from Basecamp and am almost completely on Jira now.

KeyBoardG 15y ago

My company pays a whole hell of a lot more for a far far more complex and way over bloated system. I applaud 37signals for their choices and sticking to it. The author here needs to just get over the fact that his needs outgrew the software and to seek another solution. No need for the dramatics.

richardw 15y ago

This is a story of success, not failure. He used BC and loved it for almost 6 years. I'd be very impressed if the next product Christian uses fulfills all his project management needs for the next 6.

rlobue 15y ago

I just finished reading ReWork, Jason Fried's latest book. The irony of this submission is that the book describes Christian to a tee: the customer who always wants more; the customer who has outgrown the product; the customer who compares competitors but would rather complain than move. I have to admire the way 37signals has grown over the last few years. Sure, they clearly don't integrate every feature. The user interface certainly works but has no iGloss about it at all. Pricing is steep and they hide the lower-priced plans. But it works: people still use the service. If you're a coffee shop you concentrate on your coffee. If you're an electrician, you concentrate on the quality of your work. Adding extras like "nice cable ties" are irrelevant. 37signals are concentrating on their core functionality. When the day comes that the majority of their users require X feature and that feature becomes a norm in Project Management, Contact Management, Collaboration, etc then I'm almost sure they will react: why wouldn't they?

becomevocal 15y ago

The fact that a user goes out of the way to broadcast that they're walking away from the service is a testament to how bad ass it truly was for them. Every developer should hope for that sort of torment at the end of use period for a user. Clearly it was a big enough part of their workflow to complain. Most (all?) of us developers / product guys fight with feature creep. I'm glad 37signals is there to remind us, by example, that it's OK for a software business to focus on a specific solution, sans bloat. There are users that will appreciate your vision - and gladly pay.

andrew_wc_brown 15y ago

I think every Project Manager has its place. I really like the development of Asana. http://asana.com/ http://asana.com/

dfischer 15y ago

Shameless plug: we built http://www.kanbanpad.com http://www.kanbanpad.com because we wanted something simple and intuitive. Basecamp never fit our flow.

bborud 15y ago

I was introduced to Basecamp through a project I was invited to contribute to. Before I had heard about the product, but I had never used it and as far as I can tell I wasn't significantly biased for or against the product or the company that made it. However, within days I came to hate Basecamp intensely. Not so much because it imposed certain structures and ways of working -- discomfort is to be expected when you learn a new tool. And, of course, sometimes, it turns out you can learn better ways to work from tools that force you into certain ways. No, what made me hate Basecamp with a passion is that the thing is slow. It is unacceptably slow. And the UI, be it the web UI or the various apps that existed for it at the time (late last year), did not manage to meaningfully mask the fact that the system was slow as molasses. The fact that 37signals, a much lauded company, would allow an important product to have such a glaring fault now means that I see anything that 37signals say or anything that is said about them in a different light. I am now thoroughly biased to think that they have no business telling anyone how you make good software. I can't help this, though I will acknowledge that this is an emotional response rather than a rational one. It also means that anyone singing the praise of 37signals now also seems suspect. Do they even form their _own_ opinions or do people just parrot the praise that people they look up to heap on the company. Slow apps are not cool. Companies that make slow apps without visible embarrassment are not cool. Basecamp is dead slow and it is perfectly okay to point out that the monarch appears before the court sans clothing.