I've seen a lot of articles from 37signals.com on HN but I have no idea who they are or what they do. They certainly seem quite innovative in terms of how they treat their employees, which is great.
Are they profitable? I'm curious if their generosity to their employees translates to their bottom line in measurable ways.
Almost more than their products, they're known for their very vocal broadcasting against the standard startup focus of investments, valuations, exits, etc...
Their books "Getting Real" and "Rework" represent their bootstrapping, sustainable-business values - they're not timid in speaking out against the nonsense of the modern startup conventional wisdom.
Personally, I think it's a very refreshing and empowering voice for entrepreneurs. It's not without controversy though, so dig in to their content for yourself to make your own judgement. (FWIW - "Getting Real" is a free PDF out there somewhere. I recommend it, though others may or may not.)
37signals is a web products company, most famous for Basecamp. Ruby on Rails came out of there.
I don't know if their generosity to their employees translates to their bottom line. I think it works the other way: they are profitable enough that they can afford to be generous to their employees. The 37signals model seems to be: 1) have amazing people working for you 2) treat them really well. It's highly effective, but you need to have cash in the bank to get to step 1.
Almost all their products are SAAS offerings in consumer internet. Flagship product being the project management and online collaboration software - basecamp (http://basecamp.com/ ) . They make money from subscriptions, and target the long tail.
>I've seen a lot of articles from 37signals.com on HN but I have no idea who they are or what they do.
If you also read the articles, how is that other stuff difficult to find out? It's like a google query away...
The make a SaaS offering for groupware (coordination, scheduling, chat, etc).
They also created the Ruby On Rails framework, related to which you'll see 2-3 articles per day on HN.
They also wrote a few business books, two of which have been NYT best-sellers.
The make several million dollars a year, and have tens of thousands of customers.
Their business, a standard profitable, bootstrapped business if a ever saw one, is often sneered by startup kiddies on HN because they haven't sold their company for VC mega-bucks or had a huge IPO, VA Lin^H^H^H^H^H^H Google style. (Normal companies are apparently passe in the web 3.0 age -- a new Apple would be something to point and laugh at, a Ben & Jerry's even more so).
Question was why was it being downvoted; being accurate wasn't one of those reasons. Easy to frame the original opinion without the snark, make the same point and avoid downvotes IMO.
Yes, but snark was part of the point --just as "sneer" seems to be part of the point on a lot of comments I read about 37 Signals or "lifestyle businesses". I wanter to counter than a little.
I find the very term "lifestyle businesses" condescending. They are bona fide businesses, nothing "lifestyle" about them. Not every business has to be on the stock market or cash-out for big bucks --or even make "billions"
You know what's cooler than a billion dollars? Doing what you like, making a living and employing as many people you can, without turning into a money making monster where what exactly you're making is not as important as ever increasing your revenues and finding new cash-cows.
Pivot, for me, is another word for "my goal is to make money, not to build something specific".
Not disagreeing with all that, just that you can counter the sneers without dropping down like them. And to be honest, I was really only here to respond to the initial question about downvotes! I don't really care about the labels - if you're making money and happy, who cares!
You know what's cooler than a billion dollars? A TRILLION DOLLARS.
In all seriousness though, I 100% agree with you, especially on companies that pivot to something lightyears away from their original purpose. Chasing money isn't always a bad thing, but it is when it's the only thing.
Are they profitable? I'm curious if their generosity to their employees translates to their bottom line in measurable ways.