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Michael Sliwinski: Tell me about your career. You started as a designer and now in your company, you’re doing web apps like Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack and Campfire. What has changed? Are you still a designer? Jason Fried: I am. I started doing website design when I was in college. I don’t have a background in design; my background is actually in business, but I’ve always liked design and back in the mid– 90’s the Internet was starting to come on, no one was any good at this stuff yet, everyone was brand new. So I’ve learned from scratch like everyone else did, and didn’t know what I was doing, I just learned. It turned out I really liked it and was really pretty good at it, so I started doing website design. I started 37signals as a web site design company in ‘99 and we switched to making software in 2004/2005. But I’m still very much involved with design of the products. I design all the marketing sites and while I’m not as involved with the day–to–day design, I do more of the big picture stuff. I will sketch something and someone else will work on it, I might tweak it at the end. So I’m more like an editor. I set someone on the right track, they write something, they design something, I look at it and tweak it, adjust it to make sure it is good. Make it better and then we launch it.
MS: As a president of the company, apart from the design what else do you have to deal with everyday? JF: Whole bunch of things. There is the general administrative stuff, you know
things that come up in a business that you have to deal with... We just built our new office, so I spent 3 months there almost everyday while it was being constructed. Watching, making decisions, making tweaks, telling them this, telling them that, answering questions. I also do the hiring of staff, thinking about new products and features ideas. Also a lot of people want to meet for lunch so I have to do that occasionally. A lot of business stuff. Every day is a little bit different...
MS: ...and there are people like me coming and asking for interviews...
If you want to make something great you have to cut it in half. You’ve got to keep it short. dark out, I get more work done when it is dark. I go to the office most of the time. But at night I do work from home. I leave here at 5 pm.
JF: Yeah, I like that. I enjoy this actually, this is fun.
MS: I wanted to ask you about the work– life balance, for example with your family. How do you balance that?
MS: So there is really no typical day? Or are they any typical parts of day that you always have?
JF: I’m not very good at it. That’s the truth, but I’ve gotten a bit better at it lately. I just used to like work a lot, not that we had a lot to do, but I just really loved it. I still do, but I have to make time for people. You do have to be careful about this, especially when you love business. You can love people and you can love business. And if you are in love with two things it is hard to sort of figure out what gets what. And in many ways it is sort of easier to love a business, because business isn’t emotional, business doesn’t have its own needs or desires... so it is easier to love business and to not focus enough on people. It’s tough and I’m just getting better at it.
JF: Well, the thing that is typical for me is an Inbox. There are about 130 emails there every day. People asking questions about our products, our company, or they want some advice... so I have a lot of that to do, too. That’s about the only typical thing, everything else is based on what we are working on at the time.
MS: Are you more of a morning person, or late night person? How would you describe yourself? JF: I get up early, but I feel like I’m doing most of my best work the second half of the day. And then a couple of hours before I go to sleep only to get back on and work. I just like when it is
MS: I can totally relate to that. I love my business, too. This is why my wife is al-
I’m more like an editor. I set someone on the right track, they write something, they design something, I look at it and tweak it, adjust it to make sure it is good.