The 37signals Manifesto (original site from 1999) | Hacker News Reader

The 37signals Manifesto (original site from 1999)

37signals.com

44 pointsrevorad19 comments

Part of me deeply admires 37 Signals for their success, their people, and the quality of the work they do. Yet another part of me detests how they've always tried to sell themselves as some sort of movement, when in fact they're a business trying to make a buck, just like any other. Not that there's anything wrong with making a buck... let's just leave the "manifestos" to Marx and Engels.

This is the same thing that Apple does to impassion customers and drive their employees to ever greater heights. They create a facade of purpose built around their products and services.

It pisses me off when Apple does it too.

They are just a business trying to make a buck, and sadly, that is what makes them somewhat unique. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube are "successful" and get a ton of press, but they've yet to make a profit. 37signals isn't afraid to charge for a product they know is great.

37signals is really good at making you realize how these web companies might not be the best business to get into. Could there be a bubble slowing building that will eventually burst?

"just a business trying to make a buck"" While true, that's a bit too reductionist for me. They are trying to make money their way, not by chasing whatever they see that might make most the money. Creating a profitable business is one aspect of that, but perhaps a larger aspect is that they are unusually open about their opinions on design, process, and usability, etc. This is a reason they are a bit polarizing and find detractors as well as fans.

This is silly. There are thousands of websites that make money. The difference is, they don't go on and on and on about it.

The unique part is 37Signals seems to concentrate mainly on PR. They're not the biggest or best, they just shout the loudest.

Hey--the best create their own reality and get others to join in. What better marketing is there? Particularly if you back it up with execution.

I have to disagree with you. Creating a business based around something you believe in is arguably the #1 most powerful way to change the world.

Just because people make profit does not mean profit is their "only" goal. And like Paul Graham explained in his Y-combinator speech, there are certain services to humanity that simply would not work if they didn't make profit.

I think it's ridiculous to say that people like Steve Jobs are in it for profit. If Steve Jobs was after profit he would have been a highly successful wall street CEO or something. He does what he does out of personal ambition to improve the world. It's the same for 37signals and I would argue it's the same for Y-Combinator.

>He does what he does out of personal ambition to improve the world

Well that, yes, and a bit of vanity I am sure.

And probably a bit of profit too.

From number 33:

Mankind constantly analyzes radio waves from outer space in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Since this analysis started, almost all of the signal sources have been identified. 37 signals, however, remain unexplained.

I couldn't find a list of these signals, or a reference to the number 37. The wikipedia entry for 37signals says it's a reference to signals discovered by Paul Horowitz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Horowitz, but none of the links have stuff about specific signals discovered. Anybody know where I could find a list and/or descriptions of these signals?

From #31:

Yahoo - Simple and still the best.

Times have changed.

My favorite part from sec 03. "Most people can't even figure out how to program their VCR"

Is this even true? I know some folks who have (or had) trouble programming a VCR, but most didn't. So, aside from amusing anecdotal evidence, on what is this claim based?

The book A Small Matter of Programming suggests that people adapt quite readily to assorted complex systems (e.g. knitting patterns, baseball box scores) given a proper context.

This is not to argue for complexity, but that people will raise to the occasion if they think it worth it. Don't sell your audience short (but don't make things harder than they need be).

I still remember first seeing this when they put it up. Not many pages I remember seeing for the first time like that, but they were onto something pretty original at the time - clean designer and pithy aphorisms cut against the "eye candy" grain of the late 90s. For example, Gabocorp's Flash site was considered pretty awesome at the time.. archive: http://www.thefwa.com/flash10/gabo.html

I'm pretty sure the site didn't look as it's presented here though..

This is how the original 37signals site looked when we launched it in 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991127121651/http://www.37signa...

Who did you end up hiring from your notice in the upper right hand corner?

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