Limits made Basecamp good, and cheap AI means its makers must now set their own limits
Built in 380 hours as "less software," Basecamp won by doing less, and simplicity is still why customers pick it.
David Senra · DHH: How to Build a Profitable Company Without Losing ControlIn Copenhagen, David Heinemeier Hansson had only 10 hours a week, not a day, to build a whole product.
Hansson, a Danish programmer known as DHH who builds software with the company 37signals, was working as a $15 an hour contractor for Jason Fried, who had hired him from Chicago while he lived in Denmark. He asked to be paid in Apple gear instead, an iPod and a MacBook. Because he was billing by the hour as a contractor, he knows exactly how much time went into the first version.
He remembers the number because of that contractor arrangement and the laugh about the Apple gear payment. The first version of Basecamp, the company's software for tracking projects, took 380 hours to build and was released in 2004.
It succeeded not despite the limit but because of it, Hansson says. The tagline was "less software." It was pitched directly against Microsoft Project and other heavy tools for big companies, with the argument that fewer features made it better. There was less to learn, less to teach, and the few things it did, it did very well.
That math has flipped. Hansson says 380 hours plus 10 artificial intelligence assistants today can build "a monstrosity like that of something that does a million things for a million people." He says the job is increasingly about holding back, "killing features that we think are good but are just too much."
He saw it with Basecamp 5, the first version of Basecamp built with AI help. Designers "were able to take features all the way to completion," Hansson says, and the team was at the cusp of shipping when a review stopped them. Hansson said that expanding the balloon would make it pop, and they would lose Basecamp's central selling point: that it is easy to use.
Everyone says their product is easy to use, he adds, and that claim is not credible coming from the maker. What matters is that customers say it. In surveys, simplicity is the number one reason people say they pick Basecamp, because it does not require training sessions to bring coworkers aboard. Hansson says he does not trust himself, or Fried, to protect that simplicity without a constraint to force the choice.
The constraint used to be time. Now they have to impose it on themselves.
Questions people ask
Who is Jason Fried?
Jason Fried is the co-founder of 37signals, the Chicago-based software company behind Basecamp, Hey, and Highrise. He hired Hansson in the early 2000s and the two have run the company together as a profitable independent business. He also co-wrote Rework and Remote with Hansson.
What is Microsoft Project?
Microsoft Project is project-planning software for managers at larger organizations to schedule tasks, assign resources, and track deadlines. It is powerful but is widely seen as complex and time-consuming to learn. That reputation is why Basecamp positioned itself as the simpler opposite.
Is Basecamp still around?
Yes, Basecamp is still sold as a subscription for teams and remains the main product of 37signals. The company has rewritten it several times and now sells the current version while keeping older versions running. Simplicity and flat pricing remain its main selling points.