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37Signals: Jason Fried’s Web Design Company that launched the first commercial product Basecamp!

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37Signals is a remote software firm, which is, later on, changed its name as a Basecamp. Earlier, it worked in the field of web design. However, Basecamp shifted its focus towards web application development since 2004. Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, Campfire are the best-known products of the company. It is based in Chicago, Illinois and three web designers set up the firm back in 1999.

Jason Fried is one of the founders, presently serving as the CEO of 37Signals (Basecamp). Under his policies, the firm continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era. Let’s see the journey of 37Signals, from web design company to web application development firm.

The Backstory of Foundation

It was a web design firm set up in 1999 by E. Kim, Jason Fried, and C. Segura. As a matter of fact, they named it after 37 radio telescope signals. Earlier, the firm worked for other several organizations to build and re-design their websites. The business was also running great and the company acquired lots of projects in a few months. But keeping track of all things got complicated as well, the team was somewhat disorganized. As a result, taken projects dragged on too long, miscommunication between team members increased, and things began to fall out of the track.

That time, Email was only medium for handling work, but it had limitations for long-running projects taken by the company. And so, founders realized that a better project supervision tool is a must to keep the track of all things. They searched several tools which can help them to organize the work to be done, communicate ideas as well as to share work with clients. Well, they found few, but those were complicated and hard to use.

Basecamp was born

After using several project management apps, the needs of owners didn’t fulfill. Thus, they opted to build a simple app on their platform. Soon, they started to use the tool for project administration with the clients. However, this tool showed results; projects ran better. As well, their clients appreciated the organization and improve communication. In fact, 37signals’ clients started asking about the software they were using for project managing.

That’s how the product of a 37Signals called Basecamp was born. Founders priced the software fairly and launched it in the market in 2004. 37signals adopted a new strategy in 2014, the company entirely focused on the flagship product. Also, renamed the company’s name from 37signals to Basecamp.

Basecamp boomed

37Signals’ first commercial product was Basecamp. After its launch, the Basecamp software used by many for project management. Churches, schools, consulting firms, publishers as well as governments started using Basecamp for its better project supervision. Thereafter, the firm launched several other applications in the market. Includes, Backpack, Campfire, Highrise, etc. Also, the web application Ruby on Rails, which was created for internal use of the company made public in 2004.

In 2014, Basecamp first hit the market, 15,000,000+ people have worked on a project with Basecamp. Since then every week, thousands of firms sign up to use Basecamp. As everything runs smoother with Basecamp, people like to use Basecamp for their project management. Basecamp enabled better handle on the business, in return, the teams become more self-sufficient. Also, Basecamp apps are available on various platforms including, iOS, Android, Mac, and PC, integrations.

Other Products of 37Signals

Apart from Basecamp, the company launched several other products in the market. In 2006, it launched an online chat platform called Campfire. However, it then merged into Basecamp 3. Thereafter, a free web application framework known as Ruby on Rails made open source in 2004.

Glimpse to Founder Life- Jason Fried

Jason shared a great contribution to set up 37signals in 1999. Also, he is the makes of Basecamp and other web-based tools of the company. He attended the University of Arizona to study Finance. Apart from that, he is Rework’s co-author. In addition, he is also a columnist at Inc. Magazine known as Getting Real. Where he published his articles monthly.

Presently, he is serving as the president of Basecamp, earlier known as 37Signals. Under his guidance, the company continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era.

Bottom Line

The first commercial product of 37Signals, Basecamp is becoming popular amongst several firms that needed a better project management platform. In 2004, only about 45 clients were using Basecamp, which increased every year. Presently, more than 3.3 million peoples are using Basecamp for better project management. In fact, the number is rising day by day!

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Basecamp, A Company that Created Mystique in the World of Web Applications

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Every business, rising from a small start-up to a flourishing company needs smart management tools to become more efficient and work in a proper hassle-free manner. The main problem that arises when you don’t have appropriate tools for managing a project is the communication gap between the company and the clients. And, this is the biggest threat to any existing business which can lead to extreme loss and even dissolution.

But, how about a web application where everything from creating your schedules to managing multiple chat heads of clients can be carried out? Basecamp, a private company, is one such platform that provides web applications where every necessary tool is combined together in a single software to make your work much easier and better.

Though Basecamp released its first web application publicly in 2004, the history of the company dates back to 1999, when a company named 37signals was formed with just four team members.

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Image Source: basecamp.com

37signals

In 1999, Jason Fried, Carlos Segura and Ernest Kim founded 37signals in Chicago, Illinois, as a web designing firm. The main motive of the company was to help other business companies improve their websites and make it less complex.

Initially, the company was doing quite well, but as the number of clients started increasing, the founders found themselves in a much-disorganized situation and started losing the demand for its service. As the trend of business communication follows, 37signals also marketed and managed projects through emails. And, this is what needed a very significant change to bring them out of the dealing topsy-turvy. 37signals realized that the method of getting updates via emails isn’t efficient enough, and it hinders proper communication. So, they planned to create a project management tool, which will have features like tracking progress, alerting deadlines, bookmarking important messages, managing emails, receiving notifications and much more. Basically, they started working on building up a web application with an arsenal of perks for every businessman around the globe.

After building the application, they started implementing the features, while interacting with their clients. This way, they received feedbacks of the tool internally, which was exceptionally positive. Realizing the demand for it, the company finally released Basecamp publicly in 4th February 2004. This was the first step towards something way bigger and over the years updated version of Basecamp like Basecamp Next and Basecamp 3 were also released.

The Growth

After the release of the application, they offered everyone one free project, in order to give clients the experience of management. And in case they still wanted to continue, they were asked to sign up for any one of the three paid packages.

Their first target was to make $5000 a month, which means $60,000 annual revenue. But they achieved it within six weeks only. This triggered their determination, and they realised that they are on the right path. Since the business was increasing rapidly after the launch of Basecamp, 37signals wanted to shift their field of interest from web designing to building web applications. So, they stopped taking any more clients for web designing and fully focused on modifying Basecamp. Today, Basecamp is used by the majority of firms and is the best project management tool across the world.

The tool became so popular that everyone starting from the business firms, software developers, educational institutions, and even, the non-profit organizations used this application to make their projects better. In 2014, the company was to Basecamp, after the software package (flagship product) Basecamp.

In 2004, David Heinemeier Hansson, partner at Basecamp, created Ruby on Rails, a free web application framework which was later released as open source.

In 2015, Basecamp 3 was released which the founders claim to be the best ever version of Basecamp with maximum modification and features.

When Basecamp was released in 2004, only 45 clients signed up for it. But the numbers started increasing so gigantically that by the next ten years 1,544,456 clients signed up, and, the number has almost doubled by now.

The Success

Basecamp and Ruby on Rails are two of the most successful products of 37signals (now Basecamp). Most popular sites like Twitter and GitHub use the Ruby on Rails framework.

Today, Basecamp has around 54 employees dealing with a diverse population working for the same goal that is creating better projects. Several books have also been published by this team like Zero to One and Rework.