Comment by alberth | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alberth | Hacker News Reader

Just to summarize all the services 37signals has shutdown over the years:

- Writeboard [1]

- Tada List [2]

- Answers [3]

- Backpack [4]

- Product Blog [5]

- Job Board [6]

- OpenID support [7]

- Draft [8]

- Breeze [9]

- Softfolio (sold) [10]

- Basecamp Classic (still running but can't signup for new services) [11]

.

Then some "soft" services the were doing like:

- Podcast (last update was 2011) [12]

- Exit Interviews (last update was in 2011) [13]

.

Then you have Chalk and Campfire that feel like they are on life support, even though they are still operational.

.

[1] http://37signals.com/writeboard-retired

[2] http://37signals.com/tadalist-retired

[3] http://37signals.com/answers-retired

[4] http://37signals.com/backpack-retired

[5] http://reorg.co/breaking-37signals-retires-product-blog-2011...

[6] https://jobs.37signals.com/

[7] http://37signals.blogs.com/products/2011/01/well-be-retiring...

[8] https://twitter.com/37signals/statuses/208575895101902848

[9] https://basecamp.com/breeze

[10] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/10/37signals-lists-web...

[11] http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3114-basecamp-next-becoming-b...

[12] http://37signals.com/podcast

[13] http://37signals.com/exit

Edit: formating & added applications to the list

Some clarification on a few of these...

Writeboard, Tada, and Backpack were not shut down, they were sunsetted. That's a fundamentally different thing. What it means is that anyone who used Tada, Writeboard, or Backpack can continue to use these products just as they always have. No one was kicked off, no one has to stop using them. We just aren't selling them anymore to new customers.

Answers... we've tried a variety of customer forums over the years, but we just didn't find them effective. We're no longer trying these.

The Product Blog was basically consolidated into Signal vs. Noise, our blog. We'll be making more changes to how, what, and where we publish next year. I imagine we'll continue to tweak the mix over time.

Breeze we did close down completely. We refunded every customer who paid (which was about 1000 customers) and sent them their subscriber lists.

The podcast wasn't "shut down", we just haven't had time to do another one. I'd like to do more of these when we have some spare time. Some of what was in the podcast has been absorbed by other channels (Twitter, more interviews on other people's podcasts and sites, etc).

Sortfolio was sold and is alive and well at http://sortfolio.com. No one was left hanging here. From what we hear, revenue is up since the sale.

Basecamp Classic was absolutely not shut down. It remains a huge product for us - a significant number of our Basecamp customers happily remain on Classic and we'll support those customers forever. However, we don't sell it anymore - the flavor of Basecamp we sell today is the all new generation of Basecamp at basecamp.com.

Hope that helps clear a few things up.

That's a really interesting distinction you make between shutting down and sunsetting. Google tends to call their shutdowns as sunsetting their products -- do you think they are abusing the term?

I don't think there's an official definition anywhere, so I think it's fair for companies to call it whatever they want as long as they are clear about what it all means to their customers. The word doesn't really matter, what the word means is what matters.

I feel for jasonfried. If you build a business and stick to it, being careful not to open a new business that might disappoint your customers if you close it, you become fodder for "disruption."

But if you have the courage to try new things in a lean way, you become fodder for criticism that you don't keep your services running.

In the end, that's the price of trying new things. You have to have the iron pants to shrug and keep going even when people are telling you to do what everyone else is doing.

I would think that the Sortfolio sale represents a nice middle-road that could be taken more often.

I agree. Sortfolio was a natural fit for a sale. Nice product, consistent revenue stream, easy to separate from the other products, not too expensive for a buyer so lots of potential buyers, etc.

You could make such a list for Volkswagen, Boeing, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, or any successful company. Business evolves, and product lines are a part of that.

Is Campfire shutting down, too? I think that was the last 37s service I stopped using, about 6 months ago.

No, the campfire comment was me just making an editorial comment that it feels like that product is being neglected.

In about a year of using Campfire, I never saw a single bug fix or new feature. We've since moved to HipChat, and while it's not perfect, it's so refreshing to pay for a service that gets regular updates (not to mention has decent mobile clients).

This list is a sign of a viable business if anything else. Any company needs to stay forever young by keeping its offerings in line with the demand. Companies that fail are the ones that choose to ignore the reality.

Their business, their experiment. Besides "...we're all in a perpetual state of figuring shit out."

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