I’m sure a true web2.0 historian will argue with me over who really started the trend, but as far as I’m concerned, the success of 37signals and their products really jump started this industry of simple, to-the-point, productivity apps. Whether you are talking about Harvest, Freshbooks, Blinksale, or [insert new invoicing/project management/brightly colored whatever], they tend to have 3 things in common:
- A very specific focus on the market, closely following the ideology of “do one thing, and do it well.”
- A tiered-pricing chart with a feature-complete/user limited free sampler at the bottom.
Pop quiz: What do (1), (2), and (3) have in common? - Built on Ruby or another popular open source framework.
They do this because 37signals does it. Because 37signals has made a terrific business model out of it. But that doesn’t make it the “end-all” option, just the best documented and easiest to emulate. They are the “37signals generation.”
Between my own needs and those of my various employers (currently a freelancer), I’ve managed to incorporate paid accounts for Highrise, Basecamp into my workflow. I also started using Freshbooks on my friend and colleague Brendan Nee’s recommendation, a service that accesses your Basecamp client roster via the provided API. My problem with this system is two fold.
- All of this API action is “one-way.” While I can bring contacts from section into another, changes made there don’t feed back to the original source. Some will say, “hey, what do you expect, it’s a third party application. 37signals has no obligation to facilitate this transfer.” OK, well then tell me why transfer from within the 37signals wall sucks just as much (see: managing contacts from Basecamp to Highrise and vice versa).
- Not only do you have to login a lot (sometimes with different usernames/passwords), but you also have to remember multiple subdomains with generic URL’s to the login page since all of these solutions are hosted. “Wait, was this account on xxx.clientsection.com, yyy.projectpath.com, or zzz.seework.com. This doesn’t bother a geek like me, but it can be a deal breaker when you are trying to convince a technophobic adminstrator to start using the project management here, but “remember to go overe here to actually send the invoice.”
I understand 37signal’s desire to partion their products in terms of service and need, but I DON’T UNDERSTAND AT ALL why I can’t have a universal login and control panel between complementary paid services like Highrise and Basecamp. I mean, sure, adopting OpenID was a big step, but I want these things to talk to each other like I know they can.
Also, by seperating core features between huge price points (Basecamp only offers time tracking at $50/month), I’m forced to signup for multiple services, with multiple subscriptions. I really couldn’t care less about free “Campfire premium” when I’m shelling out $150/month. It just doesn’t make sense.
Here’s what any one of these services needs to do to totally destroy the entire market: give me a complete website. Sample the best from the top services out there, and combine them in one. Instead of partitioning the service at price points, just make the options less advanced. If I could have contact management, project management, time tracking, and invoices at $12 bucks a month, and the option to enable RE-OCCURING invoices or accept payment online for a slightly higher price, I’d be all over it. But let me choose and pay for that portion. We all know that micro payments are a feasible reality thanks to Amazon’s FPS release. That’s clear value for price, instead of being suckered into a huge upgrade for one or two features.
I could go on forever about this, but this is the core: Its not about simplicity of scope, its about simplicity of use. Advanced users will pay for advanced abilities, but keep the offerings consistent.
And while we are on the subject: Hey 37Signals. We all know you are using Amazon S3 for your file storage, even though you go to great lengths to disguise the URL and prevent direct access. I like using the cloud as much as much as the next guy, but how about instead of offering ridiculous storage capacities like 500 MB, you extend that API you are already using to us customers and let us insert our own access keys. That shit costs pennies a month, and you aren’t fooling anyone.
Apart from these druthers, I have great faith in the industry. It will continue to evolve as more people embrace online applications. Sometimes it just needs a little prodding to get off its butt and keep improving/competing.
Bonus: If you haven’t seen this already, check out Apple’s profile of 37signals. It used to have a video attached which now terminates in a 404. Thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I found the short film here.
Expect more commentary on the state of cloud computing and web2.0 apps as time goes on. I’m officially acting on some start-up ideas I’ve been developing over the past year (with an awesome West Coast team). Just so you know.
A few points:
1. Software companies like making small targeted apps because smaller, specific problems are much much much easier to complete. The relation between app complexity and rate of failure is an exponential one.
2. Yes, it would be nice if 37sig’s API’s were two directional. I didn’t know they weren’t. (Although it’s nice that they facilitate even a one-way API. Many websites don’t think that far ahead!)
3. The multiple domain thing hasn’t really been an issue for me once I switched to OpenID. Or do you mean multiple hostnames for the 3rd party stuff? I’m not sure what your complaint is.
4. Re: tiered pricing vs customizable pricing, there are pros and cons to both. While you won’t hop up to the next bracket for time tracking, a lot of people do, and the difference in cost could be greater than the money they would get for people just paying a time tracking add-on cost. Remember, profit is the goal. Not quantity of users on any given bracket.
5. Re: S3, remember that disk space is really cheap, especially compared to bandwidth. Even if they’re using an S3 account as a backend file server, everything still passes through their servers and they still have to pay for the transfer. That, and see my point about the pros of tiered levels. The excess they make from people overcharging who are upgrading just for more disk space helps pay for their free level. And that in turn spreads good word of mouth. So, you could say that their business model depends heavily upon overpriced disk space. ;-)
Chaz! I was wondering where that bloglines hit came from..
1. I agree with you, except for the fact that a large group of their users (take for example freelance web designers) are consistently signing up for the same 3 services from 3 seperate companies. It seems logical that a service that offers project management and time tracking would include invoicing, no? Even if you get a smaller piece of that pie, the increased rate you could charge would make up for it (I think).
2. Any service competing in this field that doesn’t have API access has already missed the boat. For me, thats a flag that says this company isn’t competitive and isn’t interested in my business.
3. My complaint is this: I currently have to have two windows or tabs open at all times while at work. One that points to http://elihorne.highrisehq.com and another that points to http://elihorne.clientsection.com. Then when I need to pump out an invoice, I have to go to http://elihorne.freshbooks.com. If these are true online replacements to our native standalone apps, I need to be able to access them from the same top-most navigation.
4. I think a lot of people make that hop because they either don’t know any better or feel forced to because they don’t want to switch between applications (see #3). Who is to say how many people out there feel like me, and can’t justify $50 a month instead of $25 simply for unified convenience.
5. Bandwidth is currency, I get that. But its just the radical inflation that gets me. I’m all about making money hand over fist when your product is quality, but don’t thumb your nose at me when I pay you what I pay my ISP, and you give me 500mb storage in return.
Good to see you back!
I understand your fuss with 37Signals. I too hate the fact that there is no universal control panel between the services. For that reason alone, I am trying out 8apps.com for some of my brainstorming and group collaboration. While I like the idea, I think they could do it much better.
And the idea about extending out the API is pure gold…
@blake -
I scored an invite to 8apps a little while ago, but never got through the prerequisite “go through and find everyone you know, add them as a friend, etc.”
How do you like it in the professional context? With an upstart like that, I sometimes wonder about their % uptime, although obviously I have no real reason to doubt.
Woudn’t the API be killer? I absolutely love Basecamp’s file sharing abilities, but 500mb just makes me laugh. At least give me a gig. There are so many file sharing services handing that out that you DON’T pay a monthly fee.
Oh yea, these guys are in there too: Goplan.
You bring up some interesting points. I agree with your conclusion that the industry will keep evolving and improving with time & an increased user base. I look foward to watching the applications you discussed expand their offerings. From what I’ve read (and after talking to the freshbooks CEO when he visited San Francisco) freshbooks will be expanding to track business expenses. I’ve been impressed with the rate that they have been releasing new features and upgrades to their product. If a product like freshbooks merged or partnered with a company like mint.com you could have a time tracking application that could also track expenses and download & sort transactions from various company bank and credit cards. At that point such a service might have enough features to be a more flexible, web-based replacement for desktop accounting software like quickbooks, at least for service oriented companies. Then, if they partnered with a payroll service like paychex.com, it would really be a one-stop product. With all of these services integrated, less tech-savvy users would be attracted (there would only be one site to remember). I think its only a matter of time.
Continuing the thread:
1. Oh, I’m not disagreeing that adding invoicing to basecamp would probably be a popular move! Who knows? Maybe that’ll be their next app. Or maybe someone will make Yet Another Basecamp Clone that has invoicing. (And I don’t think I mentioned this last time, but I agree that the lack of integration between contacts in the various 37sig apps is really annoying. I’m hoping that eventually they’ll integrate highrise as basecamp’s contact manager, sort of like how they integrated writeboards into basecamp.
2. You use gmail, right? I don’t think POP3 counts as an API. Or does gmail not count because it’s free? API’s are more useful to have than not to have in general, but I don’t think that the effort of creating and maintaining API’s is always worth the effort from the business-owner’s point of view. I think it depends heavily on the nature of the application.
3. The highrisehq.com and clientsection.com though can be accessed from the same top-most navigation, though! I think it would be nice if they had a means of providing links to third-party services like freshbooks.com, but I don’t think they should feel bad for not doing so.
4. Pricing is always an interesting topic in software. People are weird with money and even weirder with spending money on software. Most of my thoughts on pricing is stolen from Joel Spolsky’s articles, particularly this one: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html So go read that instead of reading me paraphrasing Spolsky. ;-)
5. The question isn’t a matter of how expensive the raw materials are. Disk space is really cheap and bandwidth is sort of cheap. The bigger cost is in writing, maintaining, and improving of the “experience”. People pay 37sig for the experience, except you can’t put a price tag on “experience” explicitly. Instead you say “I’ll give you 500MB of Experience for $24/mo, but I’ll give you 3GB of Experience for $49/mo”. If people just wanted cheap disk space, they’d pay Dreamhost $10 for 150GB.
People are the real currency.
Man, I didn’t even think about mergers. Ok, good call. Forget “lifting the best ideas.” I’m sure many of these companies are running on credit card bills and dreaming of being picked up by something bigger.
@chaz
1. agreed
2. No API (yet!). See: google phone. Gdata to become hot commodity.
3. How do I access highrise from basecamp? do tell. I agree that we should have the ability to customize the tabs, although in the wrong hands could end up dirtying the whole experience. One thing that drives me nuts though: Google’s new uppermost toolbar set. Why the EFF can’t I choose which programs show up there, and which ones are relegated to the dropdown at far right.
4. will read.
5. I think this is changing. Bring on the cloud!!
3. If you use the same openid login for both sites, you’ll get a black bar up top with links to both. It doesn’t merge the two sets of tabs or anything, but at least you only need to remember one website.
5. Distributed computing/storage won’t change the fact that people are expensive. If anything, you will see a greater disconnect from consumer prices vs costs of raw materials as raw material costs get ridiculously low.
We have single-sign-on for Backpack, Basecamp, and Highrise. We give you access to all your accounts from a single bar at the top of the screen. You just need to log into one account and you’re logged into all your accounts across all the products. See:
http://37signals.com/openbar
Thanks for the feedback, Eli.
To clarify, the APIs for Basecamp, Backpack, and Highrise (documented at http://developer.37signals.com/) are all “two-way”: they allow developers to get data out as well as modify existing data or add new data. It’s the responsibility of API clients to make sure changes to data in client applications make their way back to us when appropriate.
@jason - As I’ve been told by Chaz in the last comment, you do offer that universal tie in. While my paragraph mentioning it now makes me look like an ass since I was so close to the solution, I will say that I’m hesitant to use openid unless its my only choice. I tend to lean towards using the first credentials provided for a service rather than a replacement (same case “admin” in wordpress and my school email address on facebook even though I went through the process of adding the gmail account). Perhaps making this added feature more noticeable upon login would encourage hesitants like me to make the switch. But I would still prefer to be able to link accounts “natively” and automate if possible. Like a multi-app customer bonus.
@sam - thanks so much for responding. The 37signals presence already makes me feel a little over my head (!) but I will attempt to defend my post. I understand that one can import from the other and back, but in my experience this hasn’t been automated. I don’t want to hit “update company” every time I know there is something new. It should be aware of it. It should happen without thinking. At least, thats how I feel. [EDIT for clarity: automated between mutual 37signals products. i'm not keen on 3rd party automation without explicit consent.]
Eli,
OpenID is nice. You should really try it out if you haven’t yet. Typing in your URL instead of remembering yet another username/password combination regardless of what computer you’re on is completely worth it.
[...] was a true pleasure to have two employees stop by EliHorne.com to clarify my post about the 37signals. Jason Fried mentioned the OpenID solution, which had previously been covered by Chaz, and Sam [...]
I used to be a Basecamp customers, and started to use Highrise for CRM purposes.
You are generally right, its disconnected and up to the “user” on how to manage those properly.
A few months ago we started using Central Desktop http://www.centraldesktop.com . These guys have virtually all the things that basecamp has plus a database feature which lets you create your own crm tool (custom fields and such). I also like the fact that they listen to their customers a bit more, without some of the 37s arrogance.
Just my 2 cents.