from Hacker News

37 Signals hates competition

by dimitry on 6/11/08, 8:36 PM with 62 comments

  • by brianlash on 6/11/08, 8:51 PM

    For what it's worth I think this is a weak argument. The posts at Signal v Noise never encourage you to "slow down" for the sake of slowing down... they just encourage you to think about starting up in a different light. If you can take life as a startup founder easier, yet be more productive or generally have a more fulfilling experience, so much the better.

    Anyway it seems an unlikely strategy that to quell competition 37signals tries to injure everyone's productivity by way of deliberately poor advice. I just don't see how the author makes that logical step (or the point isn't defended well).

    Only my take.

  • by davidw on 6/11/08, 8:56 PM

    I'd like to read some good, well thought out criticism of 37signals, but this isn't it. Unfortunate, as David U is a smart guy:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ulevitch

  • by ricardo on 6/11/08, 10:15 PM

    This comes across as a rant from someone who doesn't understand how 37Signals became successful.

    They seem to practice what they preach. It may not be the right approach for everyone, but it definitely works for them.

    How does having only 10 employees after 9 years not count as growing slowly?

  • by petermarks on 6/12/08, 2:16 AM

    My biggest criticism of 37 Signals is how easy they make selling simple products out to be. It's hard to imagine their success without the onslaught of positive attention rails has given them.

    That said, this protectionist deliberate misinformation theory is pretty absurd.

  • by gscott on 6/11/08, 8:57 PM

    From the article, I doubt it is 37Signals plan to make others develop more slowly so 37Signals retains more customers.

    Consider SalesForce and others that have the same and greater functionality.

    There are hundreds of options in the same space, SurgarCRM, phpGroupWare, my own officezilla.com. There is plenty of choice and it is not like 37Signals dominates in any way. They are far from the dominate leader in there space (and they don't claim to be).

    I don't believe they have a lifestyle business, they have a very good business that is profitable and growing. They might not claim to be out marketing & promoting, but it sure does seem like they have plenty of marketing and promotion through "submarine" tactics rather then overt (here is our ad) methods.

  • by allang on 6/11/08, 10:35 PM

    Since when is competition something a business should foster? They should, in fact, do everything within their power to make competition as hard as possible. This typically happens with things like patents, trademarks, copyrights, exclusive agreements, etc.

    But it doesn't really matter because this blog post is a statement, not an argument. It is equally as persuasive as an entry which says the exacty opposite ("37 Signals loves competition") since the blogger gives no reason for his position.

  • by far33d on 6/12/08, 4:23 AM

    I generally hate the meta-conversations about story quality and the necessity for a down-arrow - but this story was the most awful (and obvious flame-bait) story I've seen voted to #1.

  • by andreyf on 6/12/08, 1:18 AM

    PG! I want my downvote-story button!

  • by tptacek on 6/11/08, 11:30 PM

    "And for my sixth blog post, following up such gems as 'Rickrolling has been retired. We get it. It was funny. It’s over now. You can stop.', quoted here in its entirety, I am going to perform the amazing feat of baiting Hacker News."

    We get it. It was funny. Can you stop now?

  • by extantproject on 6/11/08, 10:24 PM

    37 Signals has sustained revenue. They are not a startup in the same sense as YC or Silicon Valley thinks of a startup but they have the linchpin of a healthy business -- and every healthy business dislikes competition.

  • by ntoshev on 6/12/08, 6:27 AM

    The article doesn't have anything to say, except that they hate 37signals. Why does this get promoted here?!!

  • by wumi on 6/11/08, 9:15 PM

    simple argument: huddlechat

    37signals should be (and apparently is) afraid of simple integration with the Gmail/Google apps suite by Google.

    They would eat 37signals lunch.

  • by nuggien on 6/11/08, 9:20 PM

    amen.

  • by Flemlord on 6/11/08, 10:12 PM

    100% agree. The "advice" coming out of 37 signals is completely ridiculous. Don't hire overachievers. Only work 4 days a week. Take 6 weeks of vacation.