We are truly honored to host Jason Fried, co-founder of 37Signals and the mastermind behind Basecamp, and Hey for one of our deepest episodes. A leading critical voice in startup culture and product design, Jason delves into challenging conventional business approaches with a focus on simplicity, enjoyment, and nimbleness. In the second part of the conversation, Jason also hints into what he calls a Post-SaaS era that he intends to kickstart with a new suite of products called Once.

This is a landmark episode for us, as we're joined by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37Signals and the creative force behind Basecamp and Hey. 

A true critical thought leader in startup culture, product design, and organizational development, Jason shares his deep insights into the transformative power that comes from challenging traditional business norms - be it bootstrapping, subtracting, restraining, or creating shorter cycles - in a world where increasingly, “more” is considered better. 

As an acclaimed author of International Bestsellers -  like “Rework”, “Remote” and “It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work” - Jason offers unique perspectives on customer and product strategies, intuition in decision-making, and the importance of human touch in technology.

He also shares insights on 37Signal's multi-product strategies and touches on their upcoming product "Once", which promises to be the first post-SaaS product. 

This episode has got it all, and speaks on untouched conversations like never before. Don’t miss out.

Key Highlights

👉 A deep dive into approaches that challenge traditional startup culture and product design principles - bootstrapping, subtraction, simplified metrics etc.
👉 Restraints as powerful enablers organizational strategy
👉 A centralized product editor vs. a decentralized structure approach in an organization
👉 Understanding the dynamics and strategies behind managing and growing a multi-product company
👉 Short term vs. long term goals and getting buy-in from the organization
👉 Why AI isn’t a magical duct tape, and how do you tackle leveraging AI's capabilities and preserving a product's unique identity
👉 Understanding how friction can be either incorporated or overcome in the creative and development process
👉 The Next in SaaS and what is “Once” building

Topics /chapters

(00:00) Intro - Enjoying Building Simple Products
(03:17) Navigating constraints and restraints
(10:39) Getting buy-in from your team 
(16:04) Being empathetic with customers 
(21:16) Building purpose in an organization
(28:04) Modularity, Composability, and Integration
(33:32) AI is a universal duct tape 
(38:45) Path to Multi Product
(43:01) What “Once” was (and will be)
(49:53) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://boundaryless.io/podcast/jason-fried 


Episode recorded on November 16, 2023

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Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

The Boundaryless Conversation Podcast: Season 5

#90 - Enjoying Building Simple Products with Jason Fried

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