0:00

Welcome to Rework, a podcast by 37signals about the

0:02

better way to work and run your business. I'm

0:05

your host, Kimberly Rose. And this week we're

0:07

talking about business partnerships. And the saying goes

0:09

that if you've been in a business partnership,

0:12

it's kind of like being in a marriage.

0:14

And I'm joined today by Jason Freed and

0:17

David Heinemauer Hanson, co-founders 37signals who have been

0:19

in that business relationship marriage for more than

0:21

20 years, longer than a lot of people

0:23

stay actually married. So I'm

0:25

sure there's some secrets to your

0:27

success that we can share with

0:29

our audience. Before we get started, Jason, I

0:31

think maybe if you'll pick us off and kind

0:34

of tell us the origin story of the two

0:36

of you guys getting together. I know we've heard,

0:38

if you've listened to the podcast for any period

0:40

of time, we've started by saying like, David only

0:42

worked 10 hours a week to start, but clearly

0:44

that has progressed. So kind of tell us how

0:46

did this all get started? He works 11 hours

0:48

a week now, I think. It's about on

0:51

every other week, 10% me every other week. Well,

0:55

I've been building, I'm going to use

0:57

air quotes for this software for

0:59

a few years prior to meeting David. We're

1:02

using FileMaker Pro, which is this database thing

1:04

where you can make your own databases and

1:06

I would design the interfaces. This is how

1:09

I got an interface design. And

1:11

then I wanted to bring one of these products to the web. I

1:13

wanted to do something that wasn't FileMaker based because you

1:15

had to download FileMaker Pro and the whole thing. So

1:17

I'm like, can I make a SAS tool? Essentially, this

1:19

is way before SAS even had a name. So

1:22

I had this idea to make my book thing, call

1:24

it single file. And I was going to bring this

1:26

book database online where you can track your book collection

1:28

to see what you have and enter the ISBN number,

1:31

look up the data online, pull it down, the whole

1:33

thing. So I started using

1:35

PHP to write this primarily because a

1:37

book I found on, I was looking for books,

1:39

programming books. And one of the books was a

1:42

PHP book. And the example was a book database.

1:44

So I'm like, I should probably, this is great.

1:46

Should just copy this basically. So I kind

1:49

of got fairly far, you know, and

1:51

then I got stuck. And

1:53

then I posted something online. I said, I'm

1:55

stuck here with pagination was the specific thing

1:57

I was stuck on. Like, how do I

1:59

show? The record and than fifty more

2:01

and fifty more and fifty more show

2:03

how many total pages their word to

2:05

bottom is. Links were once in a

2:07

one, two, three, four, five six or

2:09

whatever and I didn't I do. I

2:11

posted something online and David responded knighted

2:13

know David David had been reading our

2:15

our blog and serves aware of our

2:17

company and his response was very thorough,

2:19

very fair, very kind. It was not

2:21

like I'd flip in response was i

2:23

get detailed thoughtful response This is great

2:25

Thank you! So much research to go

2:27

back and forth and. Potentially.

2:30

That can I can I see you know

2:32

the whole thing he made and like sure

2:35

and he looked at his like this is

2:37

absolute shit muslim to redo this am I?

2:39

okay fine so so of he rigid v

2:41

p this or first thing we ever built

2:43

together and we launched a thing called single

2:45

file and then I'm that sort of or

2:48

so I'll stop there. And. What year

2:50

we talking about? But year as best that

2:52

this all happened. To find

2:54

one yet two thousand, It as Monza. Two

2:56

dozen, One. Two. Thousand One. Yep, Two

2:58

Thousand One. Yes. And so I'll stop there with

3:01

like the Which has we did other things that

3:03

slept with us, essentially how we hooked up and

3:05

we found that with your work. And.

3:08

That relationship started. I mean across.

3:11

Continents I was in coming Denmark

3:13

good news. In Chicago we have

3:15

seven time zones between us and.

3:18

In. The beginning which was interesting. We actually

3:20

did him and talk on the phone

3:22

until I think like six months into

3:24

it. So he was really a full

3:26

on remote working relationship. He was emails

3:28

it was a i think the it

3:30

was a messenger we were using at

3:32

the time was called and it was

3:34

good enough. I think this is one of

3:36

those some. Foundational. Experiences

3:38

for both of us that if we

3:41

could build something real, get to market.

3:43

On. Two. Thousand and One

3:46

collaboration tools and techniques. With these scars

3:48

amount of time we had together with

3:50

the computing power that we have I

3:52

always use that as a reference whenever

3:54

I measure the hardship of anything we're

3:56

doing. today. it's you know what if

3:58

we could do it. In two thousand

4:00

one. using. These tools

4:02

primitive to us and.

4:05

We're. Essentially, still try to do the same

4:07

thing a me this the irony of

4:09

the web. Like ninety five percent of

4:11

every web applications are Nibs Sas application,

4:13

and absolutely every be to be Sas

4:16

application is essentially single file. It's.

4:18

Have wept You I in front of

4:20

a database of allows you enter, stop

4:22

and retrieve it's that's all it is

4:24

but. I. Think a lot

4:26

of folks have wraps a difficult

4:28

time dealing with the reality of

4:30

the mundane this of their existence

4:32

since our. I

4:35

don't I don't think we do. generally speaking

4:37

when it comes to work you like yeah

4:40

we make web interface is a tough. Databases

4:42

would be doing it for twenty years and

4:44

there's a lot of value in that is

4:46

a lot of it. That's just all that.

4:49

Databases are amazing. They were us invaded a

4:51

long time ago. we barely changed them and

4:53

it's a good anyway. that's a tangent I

4:56

think the young sort of constraints so I

4:58

think this is the point to take away

5:00

the we had. Quite. Severe constraints

5:02

on our way of collaboration, on

5:04

our overlap, on our time, our

5:07

resources. All the things to get

5:09

things going. And. Just

5:11

was a big deal. You still make self and

5:13

you could make great stuff and I I still.

5:15

Fondly. Remember single file. I remember

5:18

scraping amazon.com when someone would enter that

5:20

I as be a number for the

5:22

book. I would look up like and

5:24

just take the image that Amazon have

5:26

time to put it in. Sorry David's

5:28

us to the lot of good stuff

5:30

around it. but he was real and

5:32

they were real people like them. But

5:34

also he was the big success like

5:36

by modern standards was the success at

5:38

all by. Present Day Sanders: Two

5:40

thousand One The I mean it was was nice. What

5:43

we get is like a few thousand people to use

5:45

a good most I think. But

5:49

wonderful. great learning experience great thing to

5:51

to get going to first time you hit the

5:53

ball that mean you can make a home run

5:55

i mean it's actually took was working on quite

5:57

a few projects together before base camp what

6:00

it was and is. Okay,

6:02

so I'm imagining that these early

6:04

days, David was kind of working

6:06

as a contractor, like you're just doing

6:09

work as a contractor for a few

6:11

hours a week. But I think there's

6:13

a big difference between like, I'm just having this

6:15

guy do some work for me to like, we're

6:17

now in business together to kind of talk me

6:19

through that transition. It was

6:21

even shadier than that. I don't think I was paying

6:24

him in cash. I was paying him

6:26

computers. So when he like, he was

6:28

in Denmark, he couldn't get the latest Apple stuff, just

6:30

they didn't distribute that way back then. And

6:32

so whenever we come to the US, I like give

6:34

him like a box of computer equipment, basically, I think

6:36

is what it was. So he's like, Yeah, I think

6:38

you've earned two laptops or whatever. I mean, you attract

6:40

his hours and we sort of add it up and

6:43

here you go. So that's how

6:45

that worked. Well, so we've been working

6:47

together for a while for clients now.

6:49

So we were doing work for the

6:51

first client I think

6:53

we ever worked for was this company called

6:55

Summit Credit Union, which was this company in

6:58

Madison, Wisconsin, they needed an intranet. Now

7:00

prior to David joining up, he

7:02

wasn't actually joined up. But prior to David being

7:04

available, let's say, my company

7:07

37 Signals was just doing website design. So just the

7:09

front end of things. And these guys came to us

7:11

and said, Can you like build a whole intranet for

7:13

us? That includes the back end intranet

7:15

by the way, Stone Age term, old

7:18

school thing, people don't really have them so much anymore.

7:20

But they're fantastic. It was like, who works

7:22

here? What are all the files everybody

7:25

needs? And like a wiki like

7:28

document center, like that was

7:30

kind of literally like ran the company,

7:32

which is what again, most companies still

7:34

need, frankly, and is way too complicated.

7:37

But they asked us to build one, or they had

7:40

one, I think we're remaking it or something like that.

7:42

Anyway, I needed someone to do the back end like

7:44

David, why don't we do this? So we did that

7:46

together. And that was the first project we worked on

7:48

together. And then we did a few more for a

7:50

fellow named Richard Byrd. And I think we did maybe

7:52

another one, I'm not quite sure. And then had this

7:54

idea to make base camp. And

7:57

so I'll kind of again, maybe stop there. But that's sort

7:59

of the The transition was sort

8:01

of, hey, help me with this homegrown thing to

8:03

like, let's do some real client work together. Now,

8:05

we've got some work under our belt. Like, we've

8:07

done some things together. It's been a couple of

8:09

years now, basically. Like,

8:11

there's something here. We enjoy working together.

8:14

We see things the same way. We're

8:16

really frustrated by complicated things. And there's

8:18

something here. Now, I

8:20

don't remember, except maybe David has a better memory than I

8:22

do on this. I don't remember exactly when like partnership

8:25

discussions happened. But

8:29

maybe you remember. I don't remember exactly when that

8:32

started. Yeah, it came up

8:34

after we launched Basecamp. And

8:36

we had launched Basecamp, and Ruby on

8:38

Rails had been released. And I was

8:40

looking at the end of my studies.

8:42

I graduated in 2005. And

8:45

I knew sort of, all right, what am

8:47

I going to do after that graduation? Either

8:49

there's an opportunity here to continue to work in

8:51

the Spacecamp thing, or this Ruby on Rails thing

8:53

is taking off. Where should I direct my efforts?

8:57

I think part of the magic

8:59

of this was exactly as Jason said. By that

9:02

time, this is now, I think

9:04

early 2005 was when we finalized things.

9:06

We've been working together for almost four

9:08

years. And this is, I

9:10

often hear this about people picking business

9:12

partners. And it sounds like essentially an

9:14

arranged marriage. Like that there was no

9:16

time before that there was just like,

9:18

hey, I need a business partner. You

9:20

seem to be available. Should we go

9:23

into business together? That to me sounds

9:25

nuts. I've

9:27

worked with a lot of people. Very

9:29

few of them would I want to go into

9:31

business with, sort of on an ongoing

9:33

multi-decade basis. But with Jason, it was

9:35

so much easier to go, this makes

9:37

sense, because I know him, I know

9:41

how we work together, I know how we

9:43

view the world, because we've literally been working

9:46

on things together for several years in advance.

9:48

So by the time my

9:50

decision point came up after graduation that I needed

9:52

to figure out what to do, it

9:55

felt just natural to say, you know

9:57

what, if we're going to continue to work together,

9:59

then. I want to be a

10:01

partner in this. And I

10:04

think what's also interesting about that is it

10:06

happened like a year after the release of

10:08

Basecamp and things just always get difficult

10:10

when you're trying to divvy up something that's

10:13

worth something. Thankfully, Basecamp wasn't really worth a

10:15

lot at that point. So it was much

10:17

easier for me to approach it and say

10:19

like, hey, if we're going to

10:22

work together going forward, you got to

10:24

make me a partner with this thing. But

10:27

I think it was just made

10:29

so much easier by the fact that I think, well,

10:31

Jason can answer for himself. But it didn't seem like

10:33

to me, at least, that it was a big risk

10:36

that I was going to gamble on a

10:38

person and a personality that I didn't

10:40

have full insight into that might turn

10:42

out to be someone totally different. I

10:44

mean, one of the key reasons, I think

10:47

maybe it was Paul Graham who mentioned that the

10:49

number one reason why businesses'

10:51

startups fail in the early phase

10:53

is that the founders fall out,

10:56

that they don't want the same thing, they don't have the

10:58

same work ethic, they just

11:00

view the world in a different way

11:03

that it's actually quite difficult to find

11:05

someone that you're compatible enough with to

11:08

not only just go the distance, but also

11:11

go the stress, go the attention, go all

11:13

these other metrics that you're going to be

11:15

measured on when you're trying to build something

11:17

together. So I think it

11:20

was just a continuation of everything we've ever

11:22

done in the sense that like there

11:25

was no risk, just like with Basecamp, there was

11:27

no risk with Basecamp. Startup mythology

11:29

is full of people bragging about how much risk

11:31

they took. And sometimes you need to take some

11:33

risk, and that's great for some kinds of businesses,

11:36

but there's also this huge swath of domains. We

11:38

don't need risk at all. But Jason and I

11:40

could start working together just

11:42

on a contract basis, then we could elevate that

11:44

to working on a project together, then we could

11:47

see how that project even went before we went

11:49

further. So we didn't

11:51

waste a lot of time like, oh, how much

11:53

do you own a this or that before there's

11:55

even anything? I Think that those

11:58

foundations made it easier for us. To

12:00

just. Sail. Through without

12:02

a whole lot of drama in the

12:04

I'm arrangement. Using was

12:06

is that I'm and you know this just

12:08

goes to show you don't really. That.

12:11

Things to sort of happen in situation present

12:13

themselves like. I recently started a business with

12:15

two other founders cofounders Carlos in earnest and

12:17

I'm subsequently few years in. one of them

12:19

left another one last six years after. that's

12:21

how solo at this time which made a

12:23

lot easier. So I'd run the business by

12:25

myself, robot to at Partners by myself and

12:27

made a lot easier to bring David and

12:29

had there been to at a partners also

12:31

in this day would have been a force

12:33

like he probably wouldn't have happened to me.

12:35

Frankly like it's complicated it has to be

12:37

Things are people want different things? it's a

12:39

total mess and that's how my think base

12:41

camp already been up. We had a million

12:43

bucks revenue at point probably close to it

12:45

may be I don't know total from of

12:47

what it was on by two thousand six

12:49

I think actually talked it to base also

12:51

was like a million bucks for me I

12:53

think was in was quite a bit less

12:55

than average. Everyone as much as two thousand

12:57

five or less in that job you know

12:59

it, it wasn't his. To do

13:02

with do with some through some equity that

13:04

I'd built by building the business by being

13:06

around the business for five years. More to

13:08

some of that, but we're basically starting essentially

13:10

kind of from scratch year prior to this.

13:13

We're. Web Design Company were no longer at this point

13:15

out that was told he made the transition. but

13:17

we're not doing web design anymore so it's not

13:19

like a new business, a new opportunity yet. We

13:21

were together for your handful of years so it

13:23

just sort of. As. David said the risk

13:25

was low, but it's not even just. That's.

13:27

The part of it. But. There was can

13:29

be low in the partnership can be bad. It's

13:32

not like was a good partnership and the rest

13:34

was low. So like let's go for this. Is

13:36

it like a new frontier? why not? You know

13:38

as can ourselves. I think we're like a few

13:40

rounds in negotiation. Initially they've had this one piece

13:43

and I think he earns more. Forget exactly how

13:45

that went to think there's two steps and then

13:47

I'm It was the of street for to agreements,

13:49

arrangements, whatever And and that's how can become. Ultimately.

13:52

In. Fact that dumb that agreement

13:54

be the operating agreement as it's

13:57

called for, Nosy is since really

13:59

kind the the, it seems a

14:01

little. But. That document is almost

14:03

untouched from twenty years on. We had

14:05

an original operating agreement drawn up, and

14:07

it's just fascinating to think of contracts

14:10

being that long lived. I mean, I

14:12

know in the grand scheme of things

14:14

his previous Japanese restaurant the can trace

14:16

it's a landlord contract back to the

14:18

eleventh century, something for turn him in

14:21

modern science and technology times. This idea

14:23

that there's still this piece of paper.

14:26

I think I might actually have the

14:29

original piece of paper with actual wet

14:31

signatures on. It's from two thousand and

14:33

five or whatever. When when I joined

14:35

the company that was sort of drawn

14:38

up, it's just kind of fascinates that

14:40

things can have that kind of longevity.

14:42

And. He i looked it up and like the average in the

14:45

U S. The average. Marriage

14:47

is like. Eight years so

14:49

he places like. A long

14:51

last said most people who are getting married

14:53

which is kind of crazy. So tell me

14:55

what some of those secrets to success are.

14:57

Because as you said, you know sometimes businesses

14:59

don't work because the sounders have a fallout.

15:01

You guys have gone on the distance. What

15:04

are some of those. Secrets. Making

15:06

it work well I would say or

15:08

that. Does the reasons I don't know

15:10

what does feel it maybe the reasons for

15:12

so David's on the technical side and more

15:14

in the design such we very different domains that

15:16

we serves look after. It but

15:19

we have this this central of

15:21

were shared vision on the business.

15:23

Or in and we sat of each other's

15:25

hair for the most part. otherwise staple bit

15:27

more my hair and the design sykes is

15:29

easier than Com and on design. I can't

15:31

really comment on tax so but but for

15:33

the most part we we respect each other's

15:35

domains. we sat of each other's domains but

15:37

then we make very. we're very smart, was

15:40

in business in the middle and I think

15:42

that's a really core important part of this

15:44

really important part. Think we're both desirable programmers

15:46

is is so much easier to butt heads

15:48

in actually like. The. Sink. While the

15:50

collisions that happened in a business and a few

15:52

around for by six seven, eight years and years,

15:54

whatever and you're doing the same thing every day,

15:56

you're gonna see a not differently that you can

15:58

buy. had too many times I think. The opponent

16:00

of happening quite quite a few times

16:02

or someone wants a lot more like

16:04

an. They. Want to go big in

16:06

sewage and someone else? What to say? Small

16:09

that's hard to basically tells ya that about

16:11

the same and then like I did, semi

16:13

personally like. I just have great admiration, respect

16:15

for his skills and abilities and talents and

16:17

I'm always in all of what he's able

16:19

to pull off and do. I think that

16:21

in any relationship you need to it really

16:23

admire the other person. I will speak for

16:25

him towards me but like I think that's

16:27

an important part of it because otherwise you

16:29

build up resentment and that's just not a

16:31

good recipe for anything. period. Flat out so

16:34

I'm and I think it's. Pretty.

16:36

Simple. And I think

16:38

also we have a very low tolerance

16:40

for bullshit. A very low tolerance for

16:42

i'm complexity for things that don't make

16:44

sense for waste we don't. We.

16:46

Don't like those things in those are also

16:48

important things not to like together. I think

16:51

if you're very opposite view on those core

16:53

fundamentals you're just going again can be end

16:55

up putting has too often at some point

16:57

like. The. Bruise starts to bleed and

16:59

then you'll like this. socks I don't want to

17:01

do this anymore. The seven she'll anymore sick. One

17:03

thing that we we butted heads before but and

17:06

you heal because we don't keep butting heads so

17:08

you're gonna buy had sometimes to keep butting heads

17:10

you were wounded doesn't heal and then. You're

17:13

in trouble. That's where the things that sort for part.

17:16

Is actually one more thing I without actually the

17:18

know the key by It's. We.

17:20

Don't have external pressure bearing

17:22

down on us from someone

17:24

else. That.

17:27

Compression. I think pushes

17:29

people. Up Together

17:31

and Apart. In. Bad ways: when

17:33

someone else when you're doing this for actually ultimately

17:36

for someone else Iraq we don't have that. Which

17:38

is which is a decision we met. We didn't

17:40

take out said money from new and run the

17:42

business so we don't have that pressure or telling

17:45

really really helps I've I've just heard so many

17:47

stories about Founders You get along under are great

17:49

whatever but someone else is just forcing them into

17:51

a position they don't want to be in and

17:53

have no choice but to Barrett Door and then

17:56

ultimately they don't want to do anymore. yeah

17:59

i think key moment or

18:01

key aspect of this as I

18:03

see it is this notion of

18:05

the power sharing agreement and

18:08

power sharing is so much easier as

18:10

Jason says when you have distinct domains

18:13

that you get to have it

18:15

quote unquote your way within the

18:18

field that you're the expert on

18:20

and that can happen if Jason and I

18:23

were both designers we were both programmers we

18:25

were going to have opinions and power struggles

18:28

about the same domain and we were

18:30

going to have it all the time

18:32

it's so much easier when

18:35

you have this distinction that most of the

18:37

time we work on

18:40

I work on programming and Jason worked on

18:42

the design side and it's natural that if

18:44

there is a tension or a conflict about

18:47

some of those things you defer you

18:49

go like you know what hey on product

18:52

vision Jason's ultimately

18:54

going to make the call I'm going to

18:56

make a plea I'm going to make my

18:58

opinions known but I know

19:00

going into that discussion that we're

19:02

not arm wrestling that like

19:04

the point is not for me to beat him

19:07

because we've already set up an

19:09

established power sharing agreement where when

19:11

it comes to this like that's

19:13

his decision and the same way

19:15

the other way like if for whatever reason

19:17

Jason was incredibly fond of the cloud and

19:19

thought that we should never have left or

19:21

whatever that would have

19:23

brought a lot of tension into it and it

19:25

just doesn't happen and then in that shared space

19:28

in the middle on the business side I think

19:30

it does help that we are so aligned

19:32

like this how we've been able to write

19:35

many books together and I think it's not

19:37

always obvious to the reader which chapters written

19:39

by who and so on we can blend

19:41

our styles and we can speak each other's

19:43

talking points in a way that feels sort

19:46

of authentic and natural but

19:49

it is I think this notion

19:51

that the power sharing has to be

19:54

fairly explicit that is actually better

19:56

when it is and this is also one of those things you

19:58

can trace all the way back to the foundation Jason

20:00

owns more of the company than

20:03

I do. He brought more of it into

20:05

it. There was brand equity and there was

20:07

whatever, some startup things that he brought into

20:09

it. And you know

20:11

what? That's a recognition that's been there since

20:13

the beginning and it helps diffuse a lot

20:15

of the conflict, I think, when you can

20:18

go, do you know what? On this one

20:20

area, we both agree that if there is

20:22

a disagreement, I'm going to take the lead.

20:24

And in this area, I agree that you're

20:26

going to take the lead. And

20:28

then for the rest of it, where it's a little murky in the

20:30

middle, you know what? We'll just trade. There's

20:33

almost nothing we've made decisions about,

20:35

even large decisions where I wouldn't

20:37

go. Do you know what? If

20:39

Jason really cares about this point, all right, let's

20:41

see where it goes. And it goes

20:44

back to this risk factor too. We

20:46

don't have someone else breathing down on a

20:48

neck. Like if we miss a quarter, what

20:50

does that mean? It doesn't mean very

20:52

much. It just means that like, all

20:54

right, maybe profits are slightly lower and

20:56

we share that take a slightly

20:59

smaller cake, but it even it's cut the same

21:01

way. This is the other thing, right? Like if

21:03

I go like, oh, Jason, you want to try

21:06

a crazy business experiment that I think is not

21:08

going to pan out, what's the worst that's going

21:10

to happen? You're going to feel as much pain

21:12

on the profit side as I am. There's steak

21:15

on their skin in the game on both

21:17

sides in a way that really makes

21:19

it easier to go like, I'll just trust you

21:21

on this one. And you can trust me on

21:24

the next one. Enough

21:26

history to go, even if you're

21:28

really wrong, you get to be

21:30

wrong like a lot. Like you

21:33

can be wrong five times in a row. And you know what,

21:35

the business is still going to be here. I went

21:37

wrong all the time forever. You

21:39

eventually do go out of business, but I

21:42

think it just really loosens things up, loosens

21:44

things up that any individual

21:47

decision, I can't think of

21:49

a single one that was so crucial that

21:51

I thought, shit, if Jason is wrong on

21:53

this, we're done. So

21:56

when you don't have those kinds of

21:58

criticalities, I think it just lowers. the

22:00

temperature in most of the decision-making

22:02

rooms. Notwithstanding that, I think also,

22:06

we've had, have had some

22:08

aggressive disagreements at times, usually

22:10

over product decisions, but

22:13

that has also just, when you

22:15

work together for long enough, you see, you

22:17

know what, sometimes I'm right, sometimes he's right, it's

22:20

gonna even out, it's gonna be fine. Okay,

22:23

so you guys are very similar in a lot

22:25

of ways about your business philosophies.

22:27

I mean, you're writing the books together. How

22:30

are you guys different? Other than just design

22:32

side and tech side, like, how are you

22:34

guys different from each other, either personality wise,

22:37

or things that the other person

22:39

does that you've learned from, you've

22:41

incorporated into your own life since

22:44

this 20-year partnership? I'm

22:46

guessing that people would probably say

22:48

that I'm more patient, but that's not

22:50

a good thing necessarily. So it's

22:52

just probably like, I may be willing to give

22:55

things one more try when David's like, no, this

22:57

is fucking not gonna work. And he's, you know,

22:59

often right. That's the case. My

23:02

instinct is to, you know, depending on what it

23:04

is, if it's not super critical, let's try another

23:06

time or try a different way, whatever. I think that's maybe

23:09

one of the things. David, do

23:11

you agree with that? Yes. And I

23:13

sort of describe it in a

23:15

slightly different way too. I think,

23:17

Jason, as I see it, you

23:20

like to expand, expand horizons, expand

23:22

options, expand experiments. And

23:24

I provide the opposite function, I narrow.

23:27

So when we've tried

23:29

a lot of things, I'm like, all right, now it's

23:31

time to narrow this down, not to narrow it down

23:33

to a decision. And I think this is

23:35

part of the magic is that there

23:37

is a yin and yang to it,

23:39

that you need both sides of it,

23:41

you need times of expansion, and you

23:43

need times of narrowing. And if you

23:45

only have expansion, you know what, that's probably

23:47

not gonna be great. And if you only have

23:49

narrowing, that's not gonna be great either. So I

23:52

think it's almost like a decision making

23:54

flip side of the fact that we have

23:56

different domains when it comes to programming versus

23:58

design that we have different. different

24:00

dispositions when it comes

24:02

to idea generation, experimentation,

24:04

all these other things.

24:08

And oftentimes, like,

24:10

we're not even that far apart, we're just apart on

24:12

the timeline. So I'll be

24:14

after three months, for example. All right,

24:17

time to narrow. And Jason will be

24:19

like, yeah, I'd like to give another

24:21

three months on the expansion. But eventually,

24:24

usually, we converge on

24:26

the fact that all right, now we have

24:28

given this experiment or this idea long enough.

24:32

And it's rare, I'd say that

24:34

once the facts are in,

24:36

or once the sentiment is in, or the vibe

24:38

is in, that we actually see things that differently.

24:41

It's mostly in negotiating the timeline and

24:43

the duration of how long we're willing

24:45

to let something run. I'm

24:48

willing to let things run far

24:50

shorter than Jason is. And

24:52

I think you need a little bit of that push and pull. This

24:55

is the other thing of where even when

24:57

I think about back to the most ferocious

24:59

discussions we've had, they usually all were about

25:01

product, like which how the feature should be

25:03

some new thing we're working on base camp,

25:06

that pressing function, when it's not about

25:08

the sort of power struggle, it's not

25:10

about like who gets to have control,

25:12

it's about how do we squeeze the

25:14

best idea out of these opposing forces,

25:17

that's actually positive. And I've seen a lot

25:20

of businesses too, where the

25:22

founders are not willing to engage

25:25

fully on that, not willing to pull the

25:27

lever back and forth. And you

25:29

go like, you know what, you're not getting to the best

25:31

idea here, you're not getting to the

25:33

best examination of what we're trying to go

25:35

because you're not willing to subject it to

25:37

that amount of force. And I

25:39

think having the knowledge

25:42

and faith

25:44

in the fact that even when

25:46

we do push relatively hard, we

25:49

can walk out of that room and go like, all right, what

25:51

should we have for lunch? Okay,

25:53

well, thanks for sharing all that. I know

25:56

people listening just don't really know the back story

25:58

and how it all work together.

26:01

So thank you for sharing that. Rework is a

26:03

production of 37 Signals. You can find show notes

26:05

and transcripts on our website at 37signals.com podcast. Full

26:07

video episodes are on YouTube and Twitter. And if

26:09

you have a question for Jason or David about

26:12

a better way to work and run your business

26:14

or working with a business partner, send us a

26:16

text or leave us a voicemail at 708-628-7850 and

26:18

we just might answer it on an upcoming

26:23

show.