#8 Jason Fried, CEO of Basecamp | Making It Real Podcast with Jan Brinckmann

Jason Fried is co-founder of Basecamp (formerly 37signals), a
Chicago-based software firm which among others includes his
current venture HEY.com. Jason is the co-author of the
international bestseller Rework, which was published in 2010. He
also writes Inc.'s Getting Real column. Jason lives and builds
his businesses under the motto 'It's simple until you make it
complicated’. 





Jason Fried, CEO of Basecamp | Making It Real Podcast with Jan
Brinckmann | Episode #8





00:00 Jason's founding story and his personal way into
entrepreneurship


02:52 How Jason met his co-founders


05:16 Creating a company, dealing with taxes & accounting


06:50 Vesting for founders


09:03 Who should you found with?


11:10 "Don't create companies, build projects first"?


13:26 Advice on founding team size


16:05 What do you think about having someone on the team doing
marketing/sales?


18:06 Should you bring in external sales people?


21:18 Jason scratched his own itch - how important is that for
building a business?


23:46 Advice on finding a technical co-founder


29:00 How to put your first product out


30:16 How did you determine the first version for HEY.com?


32:52 How long did it take you to put it out?


35:40 How do you decide what to work on?


37:30 Main concepts Jason sees a lot of founders struggle with


40:13 Jason's take on focus and 40h work weeks


43:41 Do you apply the 80/20 rule a lot?


46:00 What keeps you excited?


46:44 Any advice for tricky situations?





You can find the free book 'Shape Up' that Jason mentioned when
talking about productivity and roadmaps on
https://basecamp.com/shapeup.