Being 37signals for free
I was joking with Rundle last week about what would happen if all the designers and developers in the Network got together for a weekend and copied the 37signals suite of products and then we just released everything for free. Now I am sitting here and that thought really isn’t that funny because I am wondering why nobody has done this yet? All of their products are simple and I’m sure most developers who have used them are thinking to themselves that they could do something just as simple in a short amount of time.
We see copycat sites all the time. There are tons of new “Diggs” popping up because development time is much shorter with online websites and applications than what we are used to seeing with desktop apps. So where are the 37signals clones? Also, has Fried ever thought about the possibility of someone releasing their products for free? He preaches building products people are willing to pay for, but what happens when your product is released for free? What do you do then?
Copycat sites have the disadvantage of being second, third or fourth to the market so usually the first entry is the one that reaps the rewards of advertising. When your business model is based on subscriptions you are almost depending on a lack of competition because things get a bit difficult once you are getting undercut with regards to pricing. Now when I say “free” what I am talking about is having the source downloadable where people can simply install it on their own servers. If you want to do a hosted model you could still sell advertising and run things for free or you could simply just do it cheaper than 37signals and add your own features.
Is it just me or is it crazy to think that the 37signals business model could be wiped away by one weekend of hard work between a group of developers? Well obviously it wouldn’t happen in one weekend, but what I mean is it all could start from just one weekend of work. Help me out because I feel I am missing something here.
UPDATE: People are saying you can’t build Basecamp in a weekend and that really isn’t the point of the entry. Consider a weekend to be a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, I don’t care. Also this could apply to anyone that has created a service like 37signals, but they are the only ones that pop up into my mind. And unless 37signals decides to enter the content space I don’t have any plans of competing with them.
The launch of the wireless internet technology has revolutionized the work of ISP companies. The internet phone as well as credit card processing system also enables the user to make order for web design as well as to pay the domain registration bill from the comforts of its room. Among the prominent online businesses internet marketing is regarded the best which is also a result of communication advancements.
I’m completely with you on this one Scrivs. I see no reason why a large group of talented designers and developers couldn’t get together and build (or should I say rebuild) all of those 37signals apps and give them away for free. Hell, if SideJobTrack offered more of the Basecamp features, I’d cancel my plan and switch now.
The problem you have is in the long term. Sure, no one can predict the future, but 37signals is more likely to continue to develop and enhance their products than a group of people who aren’t getting paid. Yet, if done correctly and with enough people involved, I don’t see why it couldn’t be done for the long haul.
So when do we start?
By Patrick Haney on April 5, 2006 1:11 am
Well it’s not like the features added are changing the applications that much so I guess the difference would be long term if you could continue to add features to the product at a good rate that would warrant paying for a service that you could get cheaper or free somewhere else. However, adding more features kind of goes against the whole ‘less is more’ philosophy.
As for when do we start, maybe if I am stupid enough I will get something up in the next couple of weeks. Let me think about it.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 1:34 am
Yes, you’re crazy. No amount of programmers could build Basecamp in a weekend, even if they copied the entire domain logic and interface completely (which means you’d have no decisions to make or problems to solve along the way).
But even if you could do it in a week, or a month, or a quarter — what about servers, sysadmins and support? Are those just going to magically fall from the sky?
I don’t understand why people can’t just pay for something that they find value in. If Basecamp (or whichever of their services you care to talk about) helps you do stuff, then it has a value which shouldn’t be ignored.
No, I don’t think 37s would be even remotely worried about a free competitor to any of their products — it just doesn’t make sense.
By Justin French on April 5, 2006 1:44 am
While I can totally see where you’re coming from, I kind of think that you’re very much underrating the thought and engineering that has gone into the 37 signals suite of apps. To assume that something even a fraction as stable, usable, and enjoyable could be whipped together in no-time… that just seems sorta ignorant. If that’s the case, why did it take a dev team headed by the crowned “Hacker of the Year” so long to roll something out? Sure they make a big deal about how they built it on the side, only 10 hours a week… but I tend to think that 10 David Heinemeier Hansson hours are quite a bit more productive that your average developer’s hours. I don’t know any average developers pumping out new agile dev frameworks in their spare time.
While I do think a copy cat type of app could be put together in a decently short amount of time, I do not think it would stack up at all to the 37 apps. And in addition, I think the lack of enthusiasm and customers would reflect that.
By Dan Carson on April 5, 2006 1:46 am
Maybe in magical fantasy land, where all the servers are free and support is plentiful and customers just somehow find you, that would be a risk.
Every time I have seen a product or service that has blatantly copied another, it always ends up somehow crapper than the original, like poor copies of the OSX interface on other OSs.
Say it did happen, and some group of developers literally cloned the products, and won half or more of the customers away from the originals….then what happens?
First, 37Signals end up with only the customers who value their products (and effort) enough to keep paying for it, and lose the others. Then maybe there will be some competition, where each product is improved to retain and grow their audience.
Who will you bet on winning that kind of competition? The company who came up with the popular ideas and interfaces in the first place, or the one who just copied someone elses work?
I know where my money would be…
By Mathew Patterson on April 5, 2006 1:53 am
I think if that were true, it would have been done by now. Not only that, I don’t think anyone could do what they’re doing for free. Especially with Basecamp. That service is very bandwidth intensive, because the amount of email notifications and and file uploads/downloads that occur with each project.
We offer some powerful SEO tools for free, but they’re very lightweight. For example, our SERP Tracker keeps track of search engine results performance for any domain and any keyword. However, since we’re using the Google API, and just storing text, the impact and cost is minimal. If we were providing a service like Basecamp, we would have to charge something, because the bandwidth and space cost would be enormous.
Another thing is talent. The guys at 37 Signals are talented. It’s not as easy as you might think to simply copy someone else’s good idea. Undoubtedly, whoever tries to copy them will have to make important design and architectural decisions along the way, and without good programming, usability, and ui talent, the copy will just end up being a piece of crapware.
By Jon Henshaw on April 5, 2006 1:58 am
Right. Just like Apple won the OS wars and Netscape won the browser wars.
By Jeff Croft on April 5, 2006 1:59 am
Justin: Okay, it doesn’t have to be done in a weekend, but are you telling me it couldn’t be done in a short amount of time? As for servers, I read that for the first year of its existence Basecamp was only run on one server and I don’t recall 37signals having a full support staff. I’m sure you are more than aware of the Open Source model and getting support from a community and even if you ignore the free model there are other alternatives to making money from this that would be enticing to people who participated.
I don’t have a problem at all paying for services I see value in and this entry has nothing to do with that. My point is what is stopping someone from simply copying what 37signals has done?
Dan: I know there was a large amount of time needed to develop these apps, but that’s the thing. All the research has already been done for you. By simplifying their apps so much 37signals may have shot themselves in the foot if someone decides to come along and duplicate them. Sure the simple stuff works great for the people who are actually using the system, but is it also great for the competition? Not sure what you mean about the lack of enthusiasm part and you can’t tell me a ton of companies using Basecamp wouldn’t feel more secure about having that information on their own servers.
Matthew: 37signals is a small company with a limited amount of resources. Servers are not that expensive and 37signals doesn’t use that many and again as I said before this whole support issue doesn’t seem like an issue to me because if Fried can handle most of the support issues for 37signals, what really is the problem with another individual or a couple doing the same thing with their product?
And there are more than a couple of examples in the history of business where the popular company with ideas and interfaces didn’t win out (ie Xerox).
Everyone: This post isn’t meant to demean the kickass work done by 37signals, but simply raises an issue that I have never seen discussed anywhere else.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 2:01 am
Jon: Are you telling me that Flickr requires less bandwidth than Basecamp? Can’t you get on that for free and even more important can’t you explore the site for free?
Hell, aren’t most image hosting services free? They are supported by ads, but they are free nonetheless.
Yes, they are a very talented group though that would be tough to match, but for some reason I am thinking you are giving them too much credit in that respect. I know that sounds like me just hating on them, but in all honesty they are creating UIs for missle navigation systems (maybe they should be though, less people having to worry about Bush blowing us all up by accident). And if you are entering into the same field as the 37 guys, why would you put together a team that wasn’t talented?
Right now 37signals is in Business Utopia. People will pay for their product and there is no competition around. That’s a very enviable position to be in.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 2:08 am
This post makes a lot of sense to me — not in a sense of being free per se — but in the ability to adopt to a different kind of industry. Basecamp like management tool is a must have for every kind of business or industry. That said, Basecamp is not open to change — they only cater to the design industry. Changes are not really major, but some requirement would be entirely different from those of a design community.
Also, companies turn deaf to using something like Basecamp, no matter how good it is, due to privacy concerns and the fact that their data is hosted on a service based site and not on their own i.e., Corporation paranoia.
By Chetan on April 5, 2006 2:08 am
Exactly what I was thinking.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 2:12 am
I’m in.
By Jon H. on April 5, 2006 2:13 am
“And there are more than a couple of examples in the history of business where the popular company with ideas and interfaces didn’t win out (ie Xerox).”
Sure, if ” if all the designers and developers in the Network” is equivalent to companies with massive resources like Microsoft, you might have a chance. We are not talking here about a huge company shutting down another one, it’s one small agile company vs some other agile people. Only the second group don’t have any ideas of their own.
“simply raises an issue that I have never seen discussed anywhere else”
Every time anyone ever releases a pay service online, you will hear this topic come up over and over. Very rarely does anyone actually follow up and do it though. Give it a go, I’d love to see it happen.
By Mathew Patterson on April 5, 2006 2:25 am
Well I never said I was going to do it since I do have my own stuff to worry about and running over 37signals wasn’t really on the 9rules business plan :-P. I do think it would be interesting to see what would happen if an equally talented group of people decided to take on this task.
And why wouldn’t the second group have any ideas of their own? One of the motivations for doing this might be because Basecamp simply doesn’t do something you want to do or does something in a way you don’t like.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 2:29 am
“Is it just me or is it crazy”…
Not only are you not crazy but every single time I look at what they are doing I ask the same thing…”why in the world isn’t anyone else doing this and doing it better”. BC is not a testament to how great what they are doing is (it’s actually full of holes) but rather a testament to the horrible disconnect that exists between the people that are usually designing and selecting these applications versus the people that are using them. So in that sense I guess what they are doing is great but frankly I’m amazed the cult like following. I guess that’s how desperately people crave applications they can actually use.
I just finished evaluating about 100+ such solutions and no one is doing what BC is doing at a similar level. You either have 101 hodge podge solutions that look like a webs application designed from a Frontpage template or you have the powerhouses that aren’t going after the BC market. There are much better and more expensive solutions. But there is not a single solution that combines the extreme ease of use and low pricing model that BC does.
By David Haddad on April 5, 2006 2:43 am
And why wouldn’t the second group have any ideas of their own? One of the motivations for doing this might be because Basecamp simply doesn’t do something you want to do or does something in a way you don’t like.
Absolutely - if this is all based on meeting some currently unmet need, then it is a different story. Your original line was “copied the 37signals suite of products and then we just released everything for free” which didn’t suggest a lot of new ideas to me :)
By Mathew Patterson on April 5, 2006 2:47 am
David: That’s pretty interesting. Would you mind shooting me over a list of the products you looked at? I would love to take a look at that.
Matthew: Fair enough, but I figured that it was assumed that sooner or later innovation would have to happen. It would be silly to simply wait for 37signals to release a new feature and then just copy them. Almost like if Linux and Apple waited for Microsoft to release a new OS before doing anything to their’s…
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 2:50 am
Why not make something really awesome, to rival Basecamp and then sell it at a 1 time fee…something like $49.95.
If you decide to purchase it you have to install and run it on your own server and you would get free updates as they are implemented.
That seems to remove the “no money” problem as well as the “massive bandwith” problem as well as the “hosted application security fear” problem.
I would love to see something like this happen!
By Sean Alsobrooks on April 5, 2006 3:23 am
I saw a wiki type tool the other day that was being directly compared with one of the 37 Signals tools… Both names escape me right now, but what I remember is that the company kept asserting ‘we’re coming at the problem from a different angle!’. I think that’s what products like the 37Signals suite inspire, instead of direct copying, their competiton come up with innovative ways to attack certain problems. Also, if you look at remember the milk etc, you’ll see that their most basic tools have indeed been copied.
If you do have the time and incination anyone, may I suggest building a web based accounting system. Noone else seems to want to do it, and that will give you a whole pie, not just a slice of 37signals’s, and we will be your first customer (and be happy to pay you!) :)
By Natalie Ferguson on April 5, 2006 3:53 am
Great post Scrivs. I’ve been wondering the same thing for a long time. I don’t think it’s something that could be done in a weekend, but any one of the 37signals apps could be built in a relatively short time, and I too am surprised no one has done it. The truth is that all their apps leave something to be desired.
Also, I think alot of companies really do have privacy concerns as Chetan mentioned above. Do we really want 37signals having access to our projects and internal conversations? Are we so naive as to think that they don’t take a peek from time to time?
I think it’s also worth mentioning that you don’t need to build anything nearly as scalable as, say, Basecamp. It is significantly easier to build an application designed to run on your own server for you own needs than it is to build an service that needs to scale to tens of thousands of users. As Sean suggests above, someone could do really well developing a product to sell for a one-time fee.
I think there are also alot of hosting companies and service providers that would love to offer these products to their customers, if only to sell them $9/month hosting accounts.
By Gus Nasis on April 5, 2006 3:56 am
To copy or not. I guess 37Signals didn’t invent anything original, they just do it well and thats what people pays. Well polished products. Translated to Open-source movement, where conventions aren’t sellable or ideas are banks, what open-source people do is other thing, they offer service and customizing.
I did the base Basecamp design within 2 hours, with better semantic markup and css than they does. Every thing i saw from them was invented, discovered, masked, fixed, etc. I don’t see the point.
They own a name, an image and a service, that’s all. Colors, conventions and ideas are belong to anyone.
By mini-d on April 5, 2006 4:12 am
It again makes me aware that as a web designer and developer a majority of my commisioned work is infact reinventing the wheel and also finding new things to do with the wheel. That is a matter of course and I firmly believe that no matter what has been done there is always a way to improve it - I have yet to see the perfect website or application that couldn’t benefit from a little under the hood tweaking. That is for me one of the main drives behind all my work, not to copy but to find different interpretations and new ways to do old tasks.
The fact is that I believe it will be done better by someone one day or at least to their different specification. Whilst 37 signals might be on top in this aspect currently, that situation will change. I also think that without too much reaslising the gauntlet has now been laid down to match basecamp - let the games begin!
By karmatosed on April 5, 2006 4:23 am
Yeah, right. Why just can Sony, Createive and others just get togather and produce an iPod killer over a weekend - that thing is so simple.
I still don’t get, why are you obsessed with 37S…
Why be copycats when you can go and create something different and still great. Or can you?
By Rimantas on April 5, 2006 4:58 am
Easy there tiger. There is no obsession with 37s or anything like that. Fried is too short for my tastes :-P But seriously looking at all the success stories in our Web 2.0 era their’s is really the only one that involves a paid subscription model so it makes sense for me to look at it. No point in looking at Facebook, Flickr, or Del.icio.us because those are free and have their clones already.
And um the iPod isn’t comparable since you are also getting the only mp3 player that works with iTunes and the iPod itself is a cultural status symbol. Kind of like you aren’t cool if you aren’t on MySpace, you aren’t “hip” if you are using another mp3 player.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 5:05 am
And as I said before my focus is on 9rules growing so you asking me if I can create something different and still great might not be that relevant, unless of course you see the 9rules Network as being something different and great ;-)
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 5:07 am
Wow, lots of ignorance on display here today. No, you can’t whip up Basecamp in a weekend. Go ahead, try. You’re in for a much needed reality check.
By Tomas Jogin on April 5, 2006 6:12 am
A simple read through the comments would have shown that we established that already Tomas. Thanks for the reality check though…
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 6:17 am
Of course someone(s) could replicate 37s work. There are a lot of people who could make it better too. I personally prefer OpenOffice to MSOffice, Apache to IIS, HTML-Kit to Dreamweaver etc. The free/open source model is dependant only on the drive of the team doing the developing.
If someoone wants to provide a good alternative to 37s stuff they’ll do it. That can only be good for competition. One company providing products in isolation is a recipie for stagnation.
By Kev on April 5, 2006 7:00 am
Scrivs: Not really. What you’ve “established” here is that Basecamp can be copied in X time, which of course is absolutely true and I congratulate you all on that stunning assessment. Actually, any product can be copied in X time. (Boggles your mind, doesn’t it? Just imagine the possibilities!)
Basecamp is great because the team that built it is truly talented. Truly talented people will rarely settle for just copying someone else’s work and releasing it as their own, which is why most copies suck compared to their originals. But, if you can find a talented team that is willing to settle for copying someone else’s work instead of coming up with something of their own… well, then that team is probably not as talented as you think.
By Tomas Jogin on April 5, 2006 7:06 am
“Well I never said I was going to do it since I do have my own stuff to worry about and running over 37signals wasn’t really on the 9rules business plan”
Exactly. The same goes for the rest of the group of “really talented designers”. Why drop paying work to spend weeks (and don’t kid yourself…it would take weeks) developing something that already exists and you can have for $12/month?
That’s why no one has done it.
By Adam Thody on April 5, 2006 8:47 am
I totally agree with you Scrivs. Actually I could easily imagine components like Basecamp being available soon in big communities like Joomla. Even if fe/especially CMS’es like Joomla are a huge collection of applications and definately not always ‘user-friendly’ if correctly applied they have a huge potential as company (online) intranet.
‘Simplify’ this into a usefull CMS extensions and a good administrator and there you have ‘the open source danger’ you are speaking off.
By madbull on April 5, 2006 9:02 am
A side note: The “Hacker of the Year” didn’t get that title for writing basecamp, but for writing Rails (something infinitely more involved).
A second side note: There are tons of open source packages for managing projects. They just don’t get praise/press because they aren’t simple. They are rather complicated some of them, and don’t do the job very well.
I think process/flow will be the major difference maker in this “Web2.0″ application era. Making the process better, faster, easier, less prone to error. Technical achievement is entirely different from this other UI achievement.
By JohnO on April 5, 2006 9:06 am
I have to say, I think some people have missed the point… I understand that anytime a corporation with a loyal following (Apple or any number of boybands springs to mind), anytime their name is brought up people get very hot headed.
When I read the post by Scrivs, I have to say I agreed. I like 37s and their products, and I respect what they are trying to do. I can understand why 37s have such an amazing following. However, I understand that 37s have put themselves in a pretty vulnerable position. What they have created is a suite of products which, to be fair, are pretty simple and straightforward. Replicating them now could be done pretty quickly and easily. Not that anyone would want to simply replicate what they have done, but it is possible. And I think what Scrivs is saying is that, in order to hold their position, 37s are going to have to work.
As new technology, design trends, etc. etc. come about in the next few years, 37s are going to have to stay ahead of the game or someone else will be releasing products which undercut theirs. 37s are unique and original, however, the unique part can be easily lost, and once a better version of their product comes along the original part will be forgotten.
I thought the same about Six Apart once upon a time. They were a much celebrated company within the ‘community’ with an amazing product in Movable Type. As I recall, Movable Type was being used by a large selection of bloggers. But Six Apart lost that crown, because they could not compete with the millions of other free blogging tools which started to be developed. They could be bigger and better than MT, because once you know what the competition is offering, it is much easier to make your product one step better.
Six Apart, of course, started charging for their product. They went after a different market by charging obscene amounts of money, thus ensuring their survival. And WordPress stepped in to fill the gap that had been left.
Just my thoughts.
By Daneeeboy on April 5, 2006 9:08 am
Sorry, still at first coffee coffee of the day. I’ll watch out more next time :shame:
By madbull on April 5, 2006 9:09 am
Can’t build Basecamp in a weekend? I think people are underestimating the abilities of our designers/developers, and we should try to prove them wrong.
By Colin D. Devroe on April 5, 2006 9:36 am
Well, Fred over at webreakstuff.com has been threatening to release his “GoPlan” application as open source for some time now:
http://www.webreakstuff.com/work/
By Alex Hutton on April 5, 2006 9:48 am
scrivs, I haven’t read all of the 34 comments preceding mine; apologies if this duplicates someone else’s thoughts.
I think your suggestion that Basecamp could be copied effectively in a short time betrays three fallacies:
First, you assume that you’d be copying a static target. By the time an army of open-source programmers had reverse engineered Basecamp version n, 37signals would already be on to version n+1, or n+2… So yes, you could produce a copycat product that lagged behind the original in features and polish.
Second, part of the reason you and a team could copy the product is that 37signals has already done the heavy lifting of architecting the software and user experience. But in order for the copiers to benefit from BC’s innovation, you assume that the architectural design decisions are transparent to the reverse-engineers. I doubt this is the case. Example: early adopters of Basecamp will recall that performance has improved considerably over the last 12 month or so. How? Why? That’s non-transparent.
Third, even if the decisions are transparent enough to be easily copied, you’d still have to do *something* to differentiate your open source product–and each piont of differentiation requires a decision. Some of those decisions are going to suck, especially if they’re made in the “we’re whipping this up just to show we can” mode.
(I don’t mean to cast aspersions on your design or development abilities. My criticisms would apply to any similar project. See, for example, the attempts to clone Mint using Rails).
By since1968 on April 5, 2006 9:58 am
Well, to really build something like a Basecamp clone I’m not sure the OS model would be successful. I mean, if you had a team large enough to make the burden of developing the app less significant (and thus faster), then you’ll have so many cooks in the kitchen that the main dish will either be generic as hell or totally over seasoned.
Everyone will be putting in one more feature that will require some other feature that will have some additional things that need to be added to make it fit within the application. What a pain in the ass. Not only that, but with every change comes less usability and more potential for errors.
People ask me if I’ve ever considered making a downloadable version of a service I provide and I seriously considered it for like a month but ultimately decided against it for a couple reasons: 1) Piracy is a bitch and 2) Support is even worse. Not to mention the additional time that would be involved with making the installer, creating user-friendly installation & coding documentation and managing software upgrades. Yikes.
So, what I think you’re missing isn’t just the wildly inaccurate time estimate to build the initial app, but also the amount of work involved with keeping the app simple and the upkeep required when releasing something like that as a free or for fee download.
What’s more realistic is someone releasing a different-yet-not-dissimilar project app that they’d built for in-house use ala Alex’s comment #36, not an actual Basecamp clone.
By R. Marie Cox on April 5, 2006 10:02 am
Wow, lots of comments already. Here’s why you’re not seeing open source Basecamp clones:
37sigs:This is Basecamp and we’re making money. Here’s Rails too. Now you can make money!
Us: We like making money and we will!
The tech pundits: WEB 2.0 BABY!!
By Nolan Eakins on April 5, 2006 10:21 am
How can you compare a Yahoo! owned business like Flickr to 37 Signals’ Basecamp? It’s like comparing apples to oranges. The only reason why some of those services are free is because they have financial backing, period. Companies like my own don’t have financial backing. There’s no way we could afford to host a free Flikr-like or Basecamp service.
By Jon Henshaw on April 5, 2006 10:32 am
I can compare it because Flickr wasn’t always owned by Yahoo or had any backing. When they got acquired Caterina says that they were almost in the black. Did you think they were owned by Yahoo the whole time and were never popular before Yahoo?
And if you read any of her articles she always talks about how poor they are. Seriously though servers aren’t that much so I still don’t understand why people are caught up in the server aspect of things.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 10:40 am
Sure, you (anyone) could knock off “better” version of BC for free. But, what you’d probably have a much bigger challenge with is capturing the brand loyalty, the following, charisma and overall marketing success of the signals.
That, I would argue, is the secret sauce — not the product(s) alone.
By Mark on April 5, 2006 11:01 am
Adam, you said:
“Exactly. The same goes for the rest of the group of “really talented designers”. Why drop paying work to spend weeks (and don’t kid yourself…it would take weeks) developing something that already exists and you can have for $12/month?”
Um, I call that the entire open source software movement. People using their spare time to create kickass software. Ever heard of it?
Jon: The reason that Flickr uses many servers is because they have thousands of concurrent users. If software like Flickr was produced and given away for free (downloadable, open source clones are the subject of this entry) to use on your own server, you would need a fraction of the computing power and resources since only a few people would be using it. And Basecamp was run on one server for a year, are you telling me your company can’t afford one server?
Another thing to keep in mind (not Jon, everybody) is that a lot of the functionality of Basecamp, Backpack, and Ta-da is now built into the Ruby on Rails framework. Things like draggable to-do lists were nearly impossible to do a year ago, and now you can use the RoR framework and script.aculo.us to put it together easily. What makes 37s software so quick and simple is that RoR makes certain tasks much easier, and those tasks just happen to be the core of all 37s products.
Ruby on Rails, Prototype, and script.aculo.us are the nitty gritty backend frameworks/code that 37s uses to build the backend and frontend of their software. Those tools were made available for free, and with the guys who update them working at the helm of 37signals, they’re updating them with the stuff that 37s uses day in and day out to make their applications easier to develop.
The core of 37s products is open source, so there’s nothing truly proprietary involved in their applications, thus the barrier to enter their market (and use their own tools to clone their software) only involves people power and skills. David has done wonderful things with Ruby on Rails, however I know many developers who I consider having world-class talent and any of them could eschew their morals and take some time to clone whatever app they felt like.
So the question is this: if a group of designers/developers got together and literally cloned the 37s products using RoR/Prototype/Script.aculo.us and released it as open source software, what would happen? That’s what Paul is trying to get to in this entry, and I don’t think people have really addressed that main issue yet. Would 37s fail? Would people actually use the open source versions of their software? Would 37s and the open source versions still thrive?
By Mike Rundle on April 5, 2006 11:11 am
The cult of personality would keep them going for a while. The open source version would eat into their bottomline eventually but to what degree is uncertain.
I think there is a large percentage of current BC users that just don’t want the hassle of installing and maintain their own open source version of the software and financially it makes sense to just pay 37s to do it for them. Many in the cult of personality would feel like they were betraying 37s and still others wouldn’t go open source because they might feel they were missing out on any new features and enhancements (features and enhancements that either the OS community wasn’t following suit with or that they couldn’t develop for themselves).
It is less clear what would happen if another version, a for-pay competitor, was brought to market. Actually, scratch that - capitalism would happen.
Please note I am not disparaging 37s in any way. If anything I’m throwing a little barb out to the fans. =)
By John B on April 5, 2006 1:07 pm
Mike: I do think you’re right, a lot of people so far, including myself, haven’t entirely answered the question head on. Rather have derailed it a bit. As far as your refinement of the question, I don’t think 37 signals would fail. I think an earlier poster made a good point. If the 37 signals guys built a lot of the tools that would be used to copy their own products… what are the chances that they have something 5 times better than that in the pipes? I could potentially see a small share of people making the switch to a “copy-cat” app… but at the same time I think the majority of basecamp users and companies would rather just pay the monthly fee to not have to worry about anything other than using the app. So I think the hit to 37s would be minimal at best.
By Dan Carson on April 5, 2006 2:20 pm
If someone did create a free version of Basecamp, I would continue to use and recommend Basecamp. I use Basecamp for critical projects and trust 37s with my data. I’m not willing to risk saving a few dollars a month and have the free app be down for who knows how long.
People are often more willing to pay for what they need than go with a free solution. We know that free is not always the best buy in the long run.
There’s several free operating systems out there but I pay for Mac OS.
By Britt on April 5, 2006 3:17 pm
There’s no doubt in my mind that a talented team of designers and programmers could make a BaseCamp equivilent, but the problem is definitely brand loyalty. If I saw an open-source distribution of the BC copy and the real BaseCamp and had to choose, I would easily choose BaseCamp. That wouldn’t be a hard choice at all for me, especially considering BaseCamps reasonable price (~$10 a month). I don’t actually have a BaseCamp account, but when I need a project management app, I know exactly where I’m going.
If you copied the program, the biggest problem you would have is keeping up with 37signals. They just work too efficiently and too innovatively. It may work for a year or two, but after that, it’s over.
By Kevin on April 5, 2006 3:25 pm
What if you could host it on your own server (which was actually part of Scrivs theory) ? Free and GNU/GPL.
By madbull on April 5, 2006 3:43 pm
Hosting it on my own server might very well be a deal breaker. I would have to consider support but I do like that control.
By Britt on April 5, 2006 4:07 pm
Does your desire to put them out of business have anything to do with the fact that 9rules has been a complete and utter failure?
By Rory Marfaim on April 5, 2006 5:39 pm
Yes, and one of these days my Jason Fried voodoo doll will work.
By Scrivs on April 5, 2006 5:43 pm
You couldn’t just copy a product, slap another name on it, put them out of business, and expect them to not sue you. Also, , its not just the products, guys. These guys have a huge influence on every piece of development going right now. I mean, just look at the labels for this comment box. background #ffffcc is a 37s convention if I’ve ever seen one.
By FredS on April 5, 2006 6:01 pm
I’ve have been wondering why no one has done this too. I actualy searched Google a month or so ago for “Basecamp Clone”.
It’s funny because designers and developers who are capable of easily building an equivilant system are using Basecamp daily (and paying for the privilage).
By Philip Pond on April 5, 2006 7:02 pm
Colin says he can do it in a weekend. I’ll check back in two days.
By Geoffrey on April 5, 2006 8:14 pm
I’m a huge fan of 37signals, so maybe I’m being a little bias when it comes to my opinion. Whatever… I’m expressing it anyway!
I think 37signals will stay in business for as long as there’s a market for hosted apps. Most people probably don’t want to go through the hassle of downloading and hosting their own software. It’s just one more thing to deal with that keeps them away from getting their real business done. Now that’s not to say that everybody is going to do that because there will always be those few who will do it just for the control.
If there was a hosted Basecamp clone, it wouldn’t last long. The servers and hard disk space would just take up too much room and they would be bringing in no income to support it. Unless of course it was ad based and you saw a few ads on every page. I don’t know about everybody else, but I would definitely pay $10 a month to not have ads.
On another note: I can definitely see 37signals’ influence on this site. Just looking at the comments form, you can see the required fields highlighted in a light yellow, just like 37signals uses. There’s nothing wrong with using that technique and I’m sure 37signals doesn’t mind. I actually use a similar highlighting technique on my sites and it works great!
That just shows how much great sites (like 9rules) are influenced by 37signals and similar companies. As long as that is true, they’ll have a healthy business.
By Kevin on April 5, 2006 8:17 pm
ring ring, dude.
By FredS on April 5, 2006 9:25 pm
Hmm… Too many comments to reply to. First, re: Flickr… they had a $400,000 grant from the Canadian government to start with. (Why doesn’t Texas have such resources available?)
Building a BC-like service from scratch, releasing it for free, and hoping it will fly is a tough proposition. First, you have to assemble talent. Sure, there’s lot of it. But as R. Marie mentioned above, too many cooks in the kitchen makes for a crappy meal. Leadership is key. Without vision, the project dies.
Second, even if you succeed in creating the app, releasing the app as a free install will limit your adoption to the technophiles. Which maybe that’s okay… It’s simply the difference between being Wordpress or Blogger.
Finally, people must eat eventually. And drive cool cars. Great talent will find a way to get paid what they deserve. Obviously Apple pays more than Wordpress does, and thus Matt has taken the bulk of his time elsewhere. Free and Open Source software is a labor of love, and you can’t kid yourselves into believing otherwise. Without a business model or somebody else’s money, you’ll only go so far before time, expenses, and life in general catch up with you.
Since we launched Blinksale 8 months ago, I’ve watched as several other “copycat” services have launched (or announced their pending launch). None of them worry me. It’s not that I’m ignorant, or think Blinksale is untouchable (that sort of thinking gets you in trouble).
I just know how incredibly difficult it is to build an application like this, and how many hours we’ve poured into it, and how much cash it has involved. It is next-to-impossible to calculate all the little details that will crop up. So when I see another group of unfunded (key word) developers try to copy “Application-X” in their spare weekends, I tend to think, “Have fun. You have a long, hard road in front of you.”
By Josh Williams on April 5, 2006 10:08 pm
“David: That’s pretty interesting. Would you mind shooting me over a list of the products you looked at? I would love to take a look at that”.
Sure, where do I send it? When I click on “contact” all I find is the same content that’s also under “about” which is also the same content that’s on your man page. No contact info. Can’t find any on this page either.
By David Haddad on April 5, 2006 10:16 pm
Basecamp can be built in a pretty short amount of time. Its a blog with few extra features ;) What do you have:
- projects
- messages with comments
- todo lists with todo items
- milestones (can have optional relationship with messages and todo lists)
- files (with optional relationship with messages)
- time tracking (with optional relationship with todo item)
- application log
The only tricky part about this app are permissions. Different people have different permissions and see different listings. It is not so hard do build, but its the most complex part of the application IMO.
Get yourself a good PHP hacker and you’ll have Basecamp in one month. I know because I made one for myself :)
By Ilija Studen on April 5, 2006 10:45 pm
Can 100,000 people signup for your Basecamp clone? Can you do exports? RSS? SSL? I’m just playing devil’s advocate. There’s a reason there aren’t a bunch of hosted apps like Basecamp out there. I think Josh hit the nail on the head… you have to have attended a Getting Real workshop. No, just kidding! It’s because this stuff is tough. Saying anyone could build a Basecamp clone and achieve the same kind of success is like saying anyone can self-publish a PDF book and sell 5,000 copies. It’s just not true.
By FredS on April 6, 2006 12:03 am
I was talking about building a Basecamp as an application, not as a business. Thats a different story and I don’t want to go there :)
By Ilija Studen on April 6, 2006 12:30 am
What exactly is your point? There’s a lot of things that can be done in a short period of time. It’s not about that. It’s about actually doing it.
It’s like saying “I know XHTML, CSS, WordPress, and Photoshop. What’s stoping me from creating a community based on awesome content? I’ll put 9rules to shame.”
Well, technically we all COULD. But 9rules/37signals kick ass, so we haven’t invested the time yet.
I’m not a 37 fanboy, I’m just saying, this post sounded somewhat whiny/bitter and full of weak logic. Don’t get me wrong either, I’m a longtime, loyal reader of yours.
By Brad on April 6, 2006 1:56 am
Ahhh… I didn’t see this until now:
“Everyone: This post isn’t meant to demean the kickass work done by 37signals, but simply raises an issue that I have never seen discussed anywhere else.”
I take it all back. I took the entire post the wrong way. My bad ;)
By Brad on April 6, 2006 2:01 am
Anyone spot a morale here?
Let’s suppose that you do manage to gather a talented team, build a Basecamp killer app and release the beast for free.
1 - If you choose the hosted way, you’ll have to go with adds which already makes your product inferior to Basecamp to start with.
2 - If you choose to release the source code for download, you are limiting your audience to the “technophiles” or the enterprise market.
And guess what, that’s not 37Signals’ market. They are aiming at small businesses that value CONVENIENCE. The convenience of not having to figure out how to install a project management tool. The convenience of not having to figure out how to use a project management tool. The convenience of not being distracted by anything else than their project.
So any which way you look at it, chances are you won’t gain a single customer from the BC audience, simply because you’re fishing in a different pool.
By Tim W. on April 6, 2006 2:14 am
meh. Too much noise. Let’s just try it and see what happens.
Let me know where/when.
By Adam Michela on April 6, 2006 2:17 am
If I had money to spare to live without income for a couple of month I’d build those apps (preferrably improved versions) and release them like Shaun Inman did with Mint. From the success of Mint I’ve learned there’s some serious money in slick looking one-time-fee apps that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Mint isn’t something that’s hard to build. Same thing for Basecamp or other 37Signals products. It just takes time to do the polishing and make the UI look and work as slick as humanly possible.
I love Basecamp but I hate the hosted environment. I’d be more than happy to shell out $50 or $100 to get the app and run it on my own server without limitations. I’m sure thousands of others would love it just as much as I do. I’m in fact really surprised that no one didn’t release a one-time-fee variant on this software yet.
Preferrably it would be written in PHP and not Ruby on Rails too because it’s still not that easy to find a host that does Ruby on Rails. It definitely isn’t in the Netherlands.
By Marco on April 6, 2006 3:33 am
Actually I think it is quite easy to resume. It can be made. It will be made one day and distributed (probably even for free). 37signals will have made ‘the’ prototype and continue (hopefully) to improve their products and release new ones to stay on top of the market.
A lot more small businesses will use an ameliorated product, wether 37signals or open source.
The Web2.0 spirit will continue to be spread. The open-source application will go the same way as most open source projects. The community will ‘need’ a decent (and huge) bookmark manager, some other shit to display on their personal gamer sites, probably a flash chat with video as well aso aso. Both products will ‘grow’ but go their own way. I already find 70% of useless AJAX crap out there, totally sexy but even more useless.
Competition will keep 37signals ‘fit’ and loads of usefull, probably not Web2.0 anymore because too huge, applications/extensions will rise. If you’re new and looking for something it will become harder. You’ll have to look at hotscripts or probably even have 24 options in Fantastico. Wether you have a nerd/geek in your company who tells you ‘I know that program very well’ or you go for the easy option, in this case BC. Can you believe today people actually still pay for Typepad.
But please forget the idea that bandwith, server space are too expensive. Build a kick ass application, with the correct deontology and you will as well have paying as free clients. I see lately more ‘pro’s’ at Flickr than anything else.
By madbull on April 6, 2006 7:48 am
You can’t compare 9rules to 37signals and Mint. The apps of 37s and Mint have nothing unique - they CAN be reproduced. However long it takes or however talented you have to be, it can be done.
9rules has it’s unique selling point in the uniqueness of all the blogs in it’s network. Anything which is based on content, as 9rules is, is in a much safer position in the long run than anything which is based on producing, storing or sorting that information. A blog entry will always be unique and original (providing it hasn’t just been copied and pasted of course)… an app can be replaced quite simply in all honesty.
By Daneeeboy on April 6, 2006 9:45 am
The only people who would use a hacked up free service are the same people who will never pay for a real basecamp account (like myself :P). It’s just another market.
The same could probably be said for linux; everyone who ever downloaded linux probably used an illegal version of windows anyway.
And about building an app in a short amount of time (even a month):
I’m not sure who said “it’s basically a blog with extra features”, but that’s exactly what I thought about all kinds of web apps before you sit down with your local php programmer and try to make something for public consumption.
By Brian Andersen on April 6, 2006 7:02 pm
Impossible.
This is at least the second time you’ve brought up the idea of a group of skilled programmers knocking out a serious web application in a weekend, and it doesn’t happen because it’s not possible.
There are a number of specific reasons this is fantasy. While multiple developers may be able to individually develop features and bug fixes for a web application, there has to be a common ground built for all of these to stand on–a foundation–that doesn’t lend itself to instanteous collaboration.
Imagine the application as a series of branches–each branch can hold one developer. The application starts from a single branch, and then as functionality is added, it divides. These bottlenecks will exist not only when the application is first written, but at certain times during its development–each time it splits, you’re talking about room for one more developer, and their branch may dead end right there. You can’t put the cart before the horse. You can’t write something like TinyMCE before you have a textarea with data to manipulate. You can’t write code for profiles before you write code for users.
More important than the too-many-chefs idea is the time it takes to code a fully featured web application. Well commented, maintainable, efficient code doesn’t come out in its final form the first time–and even if it came out looking like diamonds, that doesn’t mean it’ll work correctly.
Proper development requires time for planning, time for design, time for implementation, and time for troubleshooting. If throwing manpower at programmng was an efficient method for speeding up the process, companies like Microsoft and IBM would be able to turn out entire suites of applications in hours.
Things just don’t work that way.
And to whoever said you can’t reproduce 9rules, you’re making an irrelevant arguement. You can’t reproduce the 9rules *community* any more than you could reproduce the community that write Peppers for Mint, but you could reproduce the concept and implementation.
While I do think it’s a great site and hold many 9rules affiliates in high regards, it’s not unique. It’s a community disguised as an advertising tool disguised as a community. Web 2.0 at its finest.
By Jonathan Barket on April 7, 2006 5:24 am
An open source version would have a small impact but not huge. Many companies would want to have their own in house version but there are still hundreds of companies that either don’t know enough to be able to implement it or just don’t care.
As far as a competitor goes there are a couple of issues. One is that they already have figured out how to scale their product and while you’re product is dieing they are having smooth sailing.
Second is price. The lowest you can charge is the cost of running the service. While I’m sure 37 signals is making a profit I’m guessing the price different to the consumer would not be too large. They could change less then the cost of running the service but I’d venture that it would be hard to find someone willing to fund a 37 signals copycat company. I could be wrong.
Third is branding. When I’m in the supermarket and I see the generic cola next to Coca Cola I go for the name brand every time even though there is probably no difference. It would be hard to create a strong branding if your branding is “Just the same as 37 signals”.
So would a competing product have an impact? definitely. but I doubt it would effect 37 signals too much. Not to mention that though they are keeping it simple I don’t think anyone ever said Basecamp was code complete. They are still improving it and striving for a better product. So it’s not a standing target, it’s still moving.
By Stefan Hayden on April 7, 2006 8:04 am
I’m currently planning on creating something *like* (not just a copy; it’ll have its own pros and cons) Basecamp, in Python of course. I have a little over 20 diagrams/concepts laying around, so I should be able to start coding soon.
I think a weekend would be a nice goal. Maybe I’ll try it next Saturday (not tomorrow).
By Veracon on April 7, 2006 10:51 am
Don’t be an a** scrivs. You b***h and whine when people copy websites and stuff like that. Now you want to do it. Be realistic here.
By John Dejauner on April 9, 2006 1:42 am
It’s strange how everyone starts complaining about whining everytime someone tries to raise a question about something popular. It’s not like questioning something good makes it less good. Quite the contrary. The more competition, the more gain for the end users. I don’t know how it’s like in the US and everywhere else, but here (in Norway) we have laws to ensure competition. Monopoly gains nothing for the users, whether it is accomplished simply by providing great services ( like 37signals ) or by more unfair means ( like MS ).
After reading through all the comments, it seems to me almost everyone agree copying 37signals’ apps or even making something better could be accomplished by a talented team in a reasonable amount of time (maybe not in a weekend, but in a couple of months). Why not go ahead and do it? Even if nobody decides it’s worth their time, at least they are aware that it is possible.
Also, (slightly related to the blog post), I wonder why so few people are building open source Rails apps. I mean, with such a great framework that one person can roll out a working app in a matter of days, let alone a team of open source developers? It probably would be unfair to compare Rails to PHP, since everyone and their dogs have access to a php enabled server, but still, the number of php based open source applications is amazing.
By Simen on April 9, 2006 6:52 pm
Mike said:
“Um, I call that the entire open source software movement. People using their spare time to create kickass software. Ever heard of it?”
Give me a break, you’re not talking about building some new kickass software, you’re talking about bootlegging something that already exists so you don’t have to pay for it. That’s not the essence of open source.
If you want to create a viable alternative to BC with some kind of added value, and some innovation then that’s different, but taking something that already exists and copying it to distribute it for free is not open source, it’s bootlegging.
By Adam Thody on April 11, 2006 11:02 am
Are 37Signals paying you to keep mentioning them in your posts Paul? I mean seriously, don’t you have something better to write about on Whitespace? There are 100s of ‘web applications’ out there, billions of different web designs, yet you continually rant about the same old shit.
By Jake on April 12, 2006 1:12 am
Reason #49934 not to have comments on this site.
By Scrivs on April 12, 2006 1:17 am
drama bomb!
By Jake on April 12, 2006 1:24 am
Thanks for the press, Scrivs and Co.
A few things…
1. You severely underestimate the time, vision, and leadership it takes to bring *any* product to market — especially a consumer/business product used by non-techies. Basecamp, Blinksale, Typepad, Flickr, etc — they are all “simple” tools on the surface. It’s what you don’t see that’s the hard part. It’s not a matter of getting some talented people in the room. That’s the easy part. Making the right decisions at the right time for the right reasons is the hard part. The decisions involve design, development, marketing, promotion, support, analyzing customer feedback, what to add in or leave out, etc.
2. There are already hundreds of project management apps out there. Do a search for “Project Management Software” on Google. So you’re “tool-in-a-weekend” idea isn’t just going to compete with Basecamp, but it will also compete with the hundreds of others tools already established in the market. Basecamp didn’t create the space, it entered the already well established space. We had a different take on project management/collaboration, we didn’t just copy another player. If you have a better idea go for it, but there’s little gained by copying someone else.
3. Talented people are busy. They aren’t sitting around waiting to copy the next big thing. And talented people also prefer to work on something meaningful, not copying someone else’s hard work so they can save $12/month. That isn’t satisfying work and when you aren’t satisfied at your core then the product will reflect that.
4. Where’s the motivation? Why spend months and months copying something that is pretty good already? People are motivated to spend their time making something considerably better than what’s out there, not making something that’s on par with something out there. There are plenty of great new ideas to be developed — why not spend your brainpower and energy on those?
5. There are very few successful ad-supported software products. Are there *any* from anyone besides the huge companies that can afford to subsidize new products with revenue from other endevours? Ad-supported content is different from ad-supported software. It’s not as easy as saying “If you want to do a hosted model you could still sell advertising and run things for free.”
5. It’s already been 11 days since you posted this. That’s two weekends and a handful of days. Any progress?
By Jason Fried on April 16, 2006 11:24 am
Thanks for the press, Scrivs and Co.
A few things…
1. You severely underestimate the time, vision, and leadership it takes to bring *any* product to market — especially a consumer/business product used by non-techies. Basecamp, Blinksale, Typepad, Flickr, etc — they are all “simple” tools on the surface. It’s what you don’t see that’s the hard part. It’s not a matter of getting some talented people in the room. That’s the easy part. Making the right decisions at the right time for the right reasons is the hard part. The decisions involve design, development, marketing, promotion, support, analyzing customer feedback, what to add in or leave out, etc.
2. There are already hundreds of project management apps out there. Do a search for “Project Management Software” on Google. So you’re “tool-in-a-weekend” idea isn’t just going to compete with Basecamp, but it will also compete with the hundreds of others tools already established in the market. Basecamp didn’t create the space, it entered the already well established space. We had a different take on project management/collaboration, we didn’t just copy another player. If you have a better idea go for it, but there’s little gained by copying someone else.
3. Talented people are busy. They aren’t sitting around waiting to copy the next big thing. And talented people also prefer to work on something meaningful, not copying someone else’s hard work so they can save $12/month. That isn’t satisfying work and when you aren’t satisfied at your core then the product will reflect that.
4. Where’s the motivation? Why spend months and months copying something that is pretty good already? People are motivated to spend their time making something considerably better than what’s out there, not making something that’s on par with something out there. There are plenty of great new ideas to be developed — why not spend your brainpower and energy on those?
5. There are very few successful ad-supported software products. Are there *any* from anyone besides the huge companies that can afford to subsidize new products with revenue from other endevours? Ad-supported content is different from ad-supported software. It’s not as easy as saying “If you want to do a hosted model you could still sell advertising and run things for free.”
5. It’s already been 11 days since you posted this. That’s two weekends and a handful of days. Any progress?
By Jason Fried on April 16, 2006 12:08 pm
lol… as you can see from all the pro 37 Signals responses its not really the technology or the design that set 37 Signals apart. Its their ability to sell themselves and their philosophy in a way that is appealing to people currently. They make little 37 Signals Disciples and I don’t mean that in any bad way. Its good amazing that they’ve been able to keep that up. More power to them.
To compete with that you wouldn’t just need to build similar products, you’d have to build and sell a competing personality or the products would have to come from a company with existing good will in the web design market.
By Leslie on April 17, 2006 5:19 pm
First I think the question should be “Why would would someone clone basecamp for free?” rather than “Why not?” Where’s the incentive? To save $25 bucks a month?
It’s easy to go around and look at the best graphic design and the best application design (the web makes it so easy) and start to get the feeling that it’s all so simple. The thing is, though, putting something together that works as well as Basecamp is tough. Look at the tens of thousands of web applications that languish in obscurity because they just don’t work that well. It’s easy to go in after the fact and say, “but it’s so stripped down and lacks 100 features I need.” Well there are 100 apps with those 100 features, and chances are you would never stick with a single one of them because they just end up getting in the way.
Love it or hate it, Basecamp succeeds because of strong adherence to a vision. If you go open-source with something like that it turns into ground beef before you know what happened. Sure some people will use it because they want to tweak the source code to provide exactly the features they want. But it’s not gonna bite into Basecamp’s core market: professionals who don’t want to configure the damn thing, just use it.
By Gabe da Silveira on April 18, 2006 3:54 am
I think that building Basecamp in a weeked or even 4 weeks would be a problem. It’s not the functions that are hard to build it’s more like the lack-of-functions… ie.
“If I had more time I would have wrote you a shorter letter” type deal… ie. it takes hard work to make something minimal.
my 2 cents!
By Kevin Airgid on April 27, 2006 11:28 pm
Very good discussion. I think cloning or getting ‘inspired’ by BC or any other product of 37 signals can be done. And it can be sold too.
It may not be as successful as 37 signals but it can generate enough to be profitable. The key will keeping it at lower price with same or better quality.
History shows, no one stays on top for ever. So, we never know. The clone may takeover as MS did with Apple.
By eghanvat on May 8, 2006 5:54 pm
Idea of providing Basecamp clone I made as open source project started here (thanks Scrivs). With alpha 1 it officially starts (not an idea any more).
Go to http://www.activecolla.com/ and have fun. We are far from 1.0 but it works and you can play with it.
Ilija
By Ilija Stude on June 29, 2006 7:14 am
Ups, I’m so nervose. Its http://www.activecollab.com :)
By Ilija Stude on June 29, 2006 7:15 am
I think that open-source is the way to go, and many more open source projects are popping up and giving businesses a scare. People *can* make money off of open-source programs, and ultimately, the goal is to release something for free, and make money off of it, such as selling merchandise or advertising.
Copying web applications and making them free is a great idea. Although the businesses making the original applications won’t be so happy, the consumers will, and that is what’s best (unless of course, you are the business that made the original). The more open-source, the better, and I’m beginning to think it’s becoming a business. The business where you don’t sell your product. It’s going to be an interesting idea.
By Steven on July 7, 2006 1:10 am
I think the 37signals were good illustration for this case - because their products are pure simplicity. All they do, is carefully decide on the level of functionality through the products, but the features in general are nothing new or revolutionary. If you want to copy 37signals products, you just need to code it, and you’re just copying their cook-recipe of features for product. Other subscription services won’t face this problem that much, for example online media management, office replacements or similar - those actually have some “advanced” backend, that isn’t quite easy to reverse engineer, and thus it will provide some protection against copycat for way longer time than simple 37signals stuff. I guess, 37signals will try to come up with something like that too, something highly essential for the product usage, advanced enough to not be obvious how to do. Now what would that be for simple stuff they create? That’s what they need to find out, or they really face big existencional problem.
By Petr on July 7, 2006 4:25 am
I checked out the code, its pretty clean and looks similar to Rails (even in PHP :) )
Did you use a framework such as CakePHP or something else for this?
Good luck
By supreme_spectator on July 7, 2006 8:19 am
I posted a review and screencast of activeCollab (open source Basecamp) - check it out.
By Eli on July 10, 2006 6:55 pm
Great work Ilija!
By Eli on July 10, 2006 6:56 pm
I don’t think 37Signals have got much to be worried about, they do what they do well. Who wants to think about running their own hosted application instead of paying a few bucks a month to get somebody else to take care of the lot.
By Ross Hill on August 1, 2006 10:17 am
Nice article, thanks
On a side note, making revenues from free & open source software is one of the most frequently asked questions these days. While there have been a few successful examples of companies (like MySQL, Red Hat etc) which are making money, I’d surmise that these are still very early days for open source revenue & profit models.
While open source as an operational paradigm certainly has been having exceptional success against proprietary and closed-software models in the recent past, in my opinion, a lot more thought need to be given and experimentations done before the emergence of viable revenue models for the free & open source models that can successfully compete with the current proprietary software revenue model. Some specifics of the business models are emerging fast, but it will take a few years for the market to test each of these out and hopefully, the fittest will survive.
A site that focuses exclusively on revenue models from free, open source software is Follars.com – Free, Open-source Dollars - http://www.follars.com !
Ec @ IT, Software Database @ http://www.eit.in
By eIT on August 1, 2006 11:28 am
Ahhhh, grasshopper. You do not understand. 37Signals is not successful because they build great products or because their technology is so cool.
They are successful because the understand more about communication than other companies. More specifically, they understand the principles of direct marketing very well.
Study and learn, young Padowan.
By Ryan on August 10, 2006 5:56 am
Lots of posts!
BaseCamp is an amazing solution to any medium sized company. Eventually we have a BaseCamp clone (activeCollab), so it remains to be seen whether people would choose an open source version or a paid hosted version.
If you think like a business man, you would prefer to pay $25 a month to 37s rather than paying 15 odd $’s for a decent hosting and don’t forget the constant maintenance issues which you will have to take care of personally. The amount paid to BC is well refunded when you have projects completed that earn you thousands of $’s.
Again if you are a large company who is paranoid about your data being peeked by the BC guys, don’t use it, go for MS project and Project Server (which ofcourse costs hell of a lot more and has more features than BC) and host it on your dedicated server. If you think pragmatically, even if the BC guys peep into your private company communication will they be able to use it? and if suppose they use it will 37Signals ever again have the credibility that they have in the industry? I think 37s team are no dummies!
All said open source is cool, it gives people with less financial power more flexibility but not everybody has time to manage their internal software and their business together. That’s why probably even today Microsoft and Oracle are doing more business than MySql, and probably that’s why we have Paid Version of MySql doing business. If you think you can do everything in the world, what would you do when you fall sick?
-AGK
By AGK on August 22, 2006 5:00 am
Basecamp is too expensive… I’m a freelancer developer from Ukraine, I have very small month incoming, near 500-700 USD, and I also need some collaboration suite which has more than free basecamp account has. And I will use free project management suite, even if there will be some pieces of text ads like google adsense. And I know many people who loves basecamp and who can’t use it because it too expensive. Free opensource project management suites have future, I sure.
By Q-Zma on September 14, 2006 12:10 am
A. Rails (and other frameworks like it) make programming stable apps fairly straightfoward and easy.
B. 37 signals will not go out of business because basecamp is not their primary income. It was origianlly built as an in-house project management tool and they thought it was so cool they built out a subscription thing…
C. Basecamp was not devised entirely by 37 Signals. It draws heavily from the book “Getting Things Done.”
D. Hosting services like Dreamhost already include products like activecollab for one step installation that does no require an tech knowhow.
E. I always thought that Basecamp was wrapped up in Ruby-mania. It was one of the first apps built with Rails. And therefore garnered a lot of back slapping from other Ruby developers. However it is reallly not that unique.
By Kevin K on September 27, 2006 4:22 pm
Basecamp suffers from too much success and the arrogance that follows. They know it all.
Many of us also do not like their product model, and would rather purchase and load their app on our own server. We would gladly pay $500 - $1,000 for our desire to run it on our box.
By Bill Hill on October 2, 2006 10:42 am
Hello All,
I have been looking for some really good client/projects/team/task management tool but basecamp being the most popular and easy to use tool is leading this industry.
I found some clone of basecamp but all are equally pricy.
Activecollab is free to use basecamp clone.
try easyprojects.net - they have almost all features which an IT company may think of.
Am also planning to build an extended version of basecamp - going to try my luck in this industry - spending a few thousand dollars for building this tool. Wish me luck.
I will post a news on http://www.efactoryatwork.com when i make this tool live for public.
Have a great project management experience with activecollab till then.
Regards
Manish Bhalla
By Manish Bhalla on October 3, 2006 9:46 am
I have free activeCollab installs @ http://www.basehut.com
By Adam on October 31, 2006 7:22 pm
We have developed a clone of basecamp (complete UI experience - not like Active Collab) that has integrated an email system done the 37signals/gmail way, and a blinksale clone. It works on PHP4 and PHP5, postgre, mysql or sqlite, and it is 100% localized.
I would like to know how much people out there is willing to pay for a product like this. We might convince our customer to set up a new Company making profitable business around this if we see a good business model around it. I feel 37signal has the marketing hype for freelancers and design studios, but others might need a standalone version for keeping their privacy.
By Joe Stanford on November 17, 2006 6:53 pm
We use basecamp for every project at our company, and have been for awhile. I have to say for all its uses it severely lacks in many areas and leaves me wanting. For a discussion tool it is not very organized, I would rather use a forum and wish that the messages area could (optinally) be organized like a forum. But unfortunately forums lack in other areas that basecamp doesnt. I wish you could format messages easier too, right now its pretty crappy.
As a professional company, what matters most to use is functionality and reliability. We will take the one that cost money over the free one if it has better functionality & reliability. If a free tool has more functionality, we will use it - but only if its reliable. It is not reliable or doesnt have a lot of support then its not worth saving a few bucks.
So if you can make a tool that has functionality where basecamp lacks then you might have something. If its just going to be an exact clone then it makes it much more difficult for a company to justify the switch.
By Jacob Correia on November 21, 2006 3:06 pm
Im interested Joe… tell me more!
By Chad on December 2, 2006 7:18 pm
37Signals is in the business of convenience. Unless the hosting companies make installation of activecollab as easy as clicking a button, i don’t see how all these open source apps will run them out of business.
By Steve on December 15, 2006 8:41 am
One thing that I love about this post is the way it inspired Ilija Studen to develop and opensource http://www.activecollab.com/
Thank you Ilija.
By Startups.in/India on December 21, 2006 1:35 am
“We have developed a clone of basecamp (complete UI experience - not like Active Collab) that has integrated an email system done the 37signals/gmail way, and a blinksale clone. It works on PHP4 and PHP5, postgre, mysql or sqlite, and it is 100% localized.”
Joe, where is this app? Do you have a beta for download?
By Triggercat on December 21, 2006 11:15 am
Hello guys where i can read more about this topic?
of course i know about http://google.com , but can someone derect me with links?
bye
By ranoiszcx on January 11, 2007 8:16 pm
Cloning a successful product, especially from 37 signals, won’t be able to compete on the same playing field as their base success comes from their innovative philosophy.
By Josh Walsh on March 19, 2007 1:28 pm
I think the author answers his own question in this post:
“There are tons of new ‘Diggs’ popping up because development time is much shorter with online websites and applications than what we are used to seeing with desktop apps.”
Yes there are a ton of Digg clones but none of them are Digg. Cloning something doesn’t make it popular, it just makes it a clone. If you copied 37Signals products, even if copied them perfectly, it still wouldn’t hurt them much. The people who are using that software don’t have the time to host their own solution, and they don’t want to mess with ads. Besides they are already using the 37Signals products, you would have to have something that made your product better to get people to switch.
We all know how much better OS X is over Windows and look how hard it is to get those people to switch. The same thing applies here.
By Readmore on April 6, 2007 10:09 am
This post is just pure ignorance. Scrivs is not a programmer and should not be talking about how easy it is to code anything. Even good programmers can look at a prototype or feature list and severely underestimate the time it will take to deliver a working product. The the devil is always in the details. You never conceptualize all the little things that have to fit together until you actually do it. If this is a problem for experienced programmers, you can imagine how utterly clueless an HTML jockey like Scrivs would be.
I’m not particularly a 37signals fan. I don’t use their products for my own business. But their products are well polished. There is a lot of subtle interaction and AJAX going on. Even if you used Ruby on Rails and you ripped off all their HTML and CSS directly, there is no way anyone could clone Basecamp in 100 hours of work. Sure, you could get the basic features in there, but it would likely be very buggy and missing many of the AJAX niceties and other features that are in Basecamp, but never crossed your mind.
By Gabe on April 17, 2007 4:11 pm
“I see no reason why a large group of talented designers and developers couldn’t get together and build (or should I say rebuild) all of those 37signals apps and give them away for free.”
I agree with it.
By scott on April 30, 2007 12:04 pm
While you’re at it why don’t you get a few more developers and re-write Windows in a “weekend”…..
What a ridiculus article.
By bob on May 16, 2007 8:55 pm
We people can’t only appreciate a really good job like Basecamp and give value to the people who invested their time, effort, creativity on it ?
Basecamp is a simple but powerful application that does exactly what it is meant to, no fluff, just what is proposed !
By Leo on May 18, 2007 9:37 pm
I don’t nkow if you noticed but the next version of ActivCallab (the one with the really important features like time tracking) will be a paid version. Kind of reminds me of MovableType starting to charge money and Wordpress appearing. I wonder wats the next activeCollab clone will be.
By Avi on July 25, 2007 1:06 am
@Avi
Where did you read this?
I can’t seem to find that info…
By Keven Ages on July 25, 2007 2:39 pm
Keven, check their blog archive. They are going for a dual license.
By Franky on July 25, 2007 3:39 pm
For anyone interested, there is an opensource fork of activeCollab at Project Pier. It has multiple developers (Ilija was the only real developer on aC) so it will remain open and free. Note that is has just released a new version and is being actively developed to include a plugin architecture as well and many of the most requested features like time tracking.
By Ryan Cross on September 14, 2007 11:56 pm
The reason 37 Signals is successful is the same reason that Apple is successful: there’s an opinionated bastard in charge who has great judgment. You can’t clone that. 37 Signals could open source their code and in 24 months their stuff would STILL be better than anything else out there.
I pay them $99/month for BaseCamp and $5/month for Backpack. There’s much not to love about the price and the software. But I keep paying because it gets the job done. Well.
By Phil Hodgen on October 31, 2007 9:09 am
Yep, agreed with Phil. Great idea back in April 2006, but it seems like 37signals is still alive. And the $55/month they get from me is money well spent in my book. But if any of you guys did actually build the Basecamp killer, let me know.
By Jason Pontius on November 9, 2007 1:24 pm
Our solution is called http://www.ProWorkflow.com - project management software and we have many thousands of users in the 1-100 user level. I can tell you from experience that copying the code and building a similar tool is only a small part of it. Think about 37s’s overheads, backend management systems, networks, marketing commitments (paid and social), security, support, sales, backups, billing, 24/7 requirements, load balancing, monitoring etc. All this comes at a cost to 37s (or in our case, to us).
You’re fooling yourself if you think you can put all that in place and then offer it for free. Serious companies like us and Basecamp & others, put great infrastructure in place to protect customers’ precious data and provide great service offerings.
I see some people in this list complaining about the cost of the service. Remember that it’s a ‘Service’, not a ‘product’. You can easily replicate the product, but to recreate the service requires infrastructure and this comes at a cost.
On the point I said about people complaining on price - wanting free tools… We charge $15 per user per month for ProWorkflow. This amounts to 0.50 cents a day! Small price for efficiency I reckon. To be completely honest, if a company can’t afford 0.50 cents a day to pay for project management software to create efficiencies (and save money/time), then the problem isn’t the cost of the solution (Basecamp, ProWorkflow etc). The real problem is that your business is either not making any money, or you simply don’t think the solution provides value.
Think about this for a sec. Would you rather spend 0.50 cents a day for a robust solution to protect your important data? or for the sake of 0.50 cents, look for a free tool, but run the risk that the solution may let you down, go under, perform badly, not be backed up etc!
How much do you value your business? Some people on this list obviously don’t think their own businesses are worth a few cents a day! Sheesh! ;-)
By Julian on February 7, 2008 2:29 pm