Jason Fried Quotes
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Entrepreneurs love to view risk as binary. The more you put on the line, the greater the potential for reward.
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If an employee can demonstrate results produced in a way that the company didn't think possible, then a new way forward can begin to take shape.
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Whenever I speak at a conference, I try to catch a few of the other presentations. I tend to stand in the back and listen, observe, and get a general sense of the room.
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If yesterday was a good day's work, chances are you'll stay on a roll. And if you can stay on a roll, everything else will probably take care of itself - including not working from the moment you get up in the morning until you nod off to sleep.
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When meetings are the norm - the first resort, the go-to tool to discuss, debate, and solve every problem - they no longer work.
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The reality is that companies are full of things that are left unspoken. And even when they are out in the open, the CEO is almost always the last to know.
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I live in Chicago but own some property up in Wisconsin.
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I used to think that deadlines should be ignored until the product was ready: that they were a nuisance, a hurdle in front of quality, a forced measure to get something out the door for the good of the schedule, not the customer.
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Your company is a product. Who are its customers? Your employees, who use it to do their jobs.
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Meetings should be like salt - a spice sprinkled carefully to enhance a dish, not poured recklessly over every forkful. Too much salt destroys a dish. Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.
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I'd love to see more businesses take this approach - intentionally rightsizing themselves. Hit a number that feels good and say, 'Let's stick around here.'
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I'm generally risk averse, and most great entrepreneurs I know are as well.
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What's bad, boring, and barely read all over? Business writing.
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We like to bully deadlines. Pick on them; make fun of them; even spit on them sometimes. But what a terrible thing to do. Deadlines are actually our best friends.
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It's easy to forget, as a leader, that when employees don't get the wide view, not only does the point of their work escape them, but it can also lead to real frustration. It's hard to feel pride and ownership when you don't understand where things are going.
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A diverse customer base helps insulate you; a few large accounts can leave you vulnerable to their whims.
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Fix a few things here, improve a few things there, launch a new feature every so often. That's coasting. And I don't want Basecamp to coast.
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We think of computers as smart and powerful machines. But your goldfish is smarter.
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These two staples of work life - meetings and managers - are actually the greatest causes of work not getting done at the office. In fact, the further away you are from both meetings and managers, the more work gets done.
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As the number of people who work at Basecamp has grown, I've noticed places where we could use more features, like management, structure, and guidelines. I've also noticed places where we've overengineered ourselves and should pull back.
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When it comes to making decisions, I'm not what you'd call a numbers guy.
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If you ask people where they go when they really need to get work done, very few will respond 'the office.' If they do say the office, they'll include a qualifier such as 'super-early in the morning before anyone gets in,' or 'I stay late at night after everyone's left,' or 'I sneak in on the weekend.'
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It may be irrational, but if you're local, the client often feels that, if worse comes to worst, they can knock on your door. They 'know where you live.' But when you're remote, they're going to be more suspicious when phone calls go unreturned or emails keep getting 'lost.' Stay on top of communications, and you'll reap the benefits.
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Most work is not coming up with The Next Big Thing. Rather, it's improving the thing you already thought of six months - or six years - ago. It's the work of work.