Coming soon: 37signals University | Hacker News Reader

Coming soon: 37signals University

37signals.com

31 points_pius30 comments

Looks like they're looking to make money five times off the same material. Good for them :) I'm referring to:

"Repackaging allows you to earn money multiple times on the same content. It’s a great way to grow your revenues without significant marginal cost.

Money One: A lot of our ideas originate on this blog. We post articles which generate traffic. We make money off the traffic by running Deck ads in the sidebar. We make a few thousand a month off The Deck ads.

Money Two: We bundled up the best blog posts about our software development philosophy and turned it into a PDF book called Getting Real. We sell the PDF for $19. We’ve made a few hundred thousand dollars from the PDF.

Money Three: We take the Getting Real PDF and turn it into a paperback at Lulu.com. We sell the paperback for $25 and we make a few thousand a month on royalties. The paperback is currently ranked the 4th best seller on Lulu.

Money Four: We took the content from Getting Real and produced a Getting Real conference series. We held a few conferences a year and made about $50K per conference. We’ve produced about 5 of these conferences."

from: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1256-making-money-twice

Great comment, thanks for this as it really exposes the real motives for 37 Signals (which isn't a bad one btw)

I love how when 37 does this they are considered innovative or clever, but if some marketing/blog guru did the same thing they'd be run out of town for being exploitative or slimy (re packaging 'free content' for profit).

Hey I'm all for making more money but what I'm not for is a free pass for some while others get roasted for being 'marketing/affiliate promoting scum".

They are innovative and believe customers will buy content of value...still a rather new idea to some tech. participants and observers.

Also, they are completely honest and transparent in their endeavors....this very post by andreyf was taken from 37Signals post. They didn't have to tell all of us how much money they make or how they do it........I believe they are passionate about the community and exposing others to what they've done that works and not works.

I am amazed with all the negative comments. I have seen, firsthand, how often 37Signals works to contribute.

I love their idea and think many thousands will find it a benefit.

This reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Krusty opens a clown college after running out of other ways to make money off his name.

You really think they need the money? They're a small company that made a million dollars off their last book sales alone, and they have another contract right now. They're legendary in the computer world and they said they weren't at all damaged by the recession. Don't you think there's a chance that they just really, really, really like what they're doing?

I think they really, really, really like making lots of money.

There are much easier ways of making money if you're in their position. Teaching and preparing for a set of seminars like this is time-consuming and most likely exhausting. If they were in it for money, they could be doing much better.

There are much easier ways of making money if you're in their position.

What would one of those much easier ways be? Corporate training is a gold mine.

> Teaching and preparing for a set of seminars like this is time-consuming and most likely exhausting.

Those are the only two pieces that require extra work. They don't need to spend time on content creation, finding a market, or marketing in general. They have an audience, they know that audience has deep pockets, and they'll tell that audience the same damn thing they've been saying for 10 years. The only difference is the format and the price.

This argument is such bullshit. "If they were really in it for the money they'd be doing X" is giving them and anyone in that position too much credit.

Sometimes people, even successful people don't have all the answers to effectively make a "money printing machine."

They certainly seem to need constant self promotion.

I'm at a loss to know what they could say in a 'university' that they haven't said already.

It's called marketing.

Marketing is a lot better when it just 'happens' though.

Google wasn't marketed, they didn't start selling books about the right way to make a business, they just made something good and watched as people started using it.

Back in the day Larry and Sergey accepted every interview they were approached for and hammed it up all over campus posing for photos standing on balls and playing with toys in order to keep that "wacky geniuses" thing going and get on all the magazine covers.

Once they found a business model and could hire enough programmers to basically churn out a new feature/project every week, they had built-in marketing and enough brand to self-sustain itself.

Are 37signals already to that point? I don't know, maybe, but faulting a 10(?) person, self-sustaining, Chicago company for keeping their name out there by comparing them to a grow-as-fast-as-possible, well-funded, Valley startup-gone-gangbusters that's been the feather in the web's crown for the past 10 years is a little unfair.

Really? Because they avoid advertising themselves beyond their blog. Is writing a really good, useful blog self-promotion? If so, it's not the greedy sort that the terms "self-promotion" implies.

They certainly seem to need constant self promotion

Can you think of any profitable business that doesn't?

Yes. Tons.

That answer would be a bit more useful if it actually included examples, particularly if there's "tons".

I don't think they need the money, I think they want it. And that's perfectly fine, they can be doing this for both the money and passion.

Just replace 'need' with 'want' and there's your answer. There's no shame in wanting more, as long as you do something good with that 'more' you get.

It reminds me of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

In which way?

http://www.google.com/search?q=%28kiyosaki%7C%22rich+dad%22%...

https://www.richdadcoaching.com/

That's fine by me. I'm sure some of the things they'll discuss will be new to people. At least they're trying to help.

That said, I'll agree with Homer when in that episode, he said:

"Alright, alright! I'll go to clown college!"

"University" means a place to learn universally applicable knowledge, something which a trade is not.

ArsDigita had an "university"

Yes. I, too, really wish that places would stop calling themselves or their training programmes "university" inappropriately. A university is a centre of research, a place for deep and distinguished study. It is not a place for cheap training courses in pretty wrapping, and it is insulting to those who spend several years of their lives dedicated to learning at a real university to pretend that a few videos from a small commercial group is even on the same scale.

And anyone who presumes to teach others had better learn to write better than the first paragraph of that blog post first.

Yeah, University isn't the right term for this, or this:

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/careers/hamburger_universi...

I eagerly await the 2010 blog post by 37Signals telling everyone how dead simple it is to make money by starting a "university".

You may not like their style, but I bet they have the following they do because of a particular style of operation. If they were any different, I am pretty sure none of us would have known them as well as we all seem to do.

As a company, they or any other profitable company for that matter would try to maximize the profits. As long as the company doesn't get into illegal or shady activities, as capitalists (I assume most of you are), one should be o.k with it.

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