Latest Posts (20 found)
Jason Fried 1 weeks ago

The joy of delegating to competence

AI workflows are technically impressive, but there’s a deeper reason people are really amped about AI agents. This isn’t just new tech, it’s new psychology. Until now, very few people have known what it feels like to delegate to total competency. If you manage great people, or lead great teams, you know how it feels to put someone in charge who will get it done, get it done right, and get it done without drama. That kind of delegation — that depth of trust — is pure joy. Delegating to competency lets you forget about it completely. That’s real leverage. And now anyone can experience that. What was rare is now widely distributed. Everyone can feel it. And it feels fucking great. That’s a big reason why the excitement is real, and fully justified. -Jason

ai AI career Career business Business
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Jason Fried 1 weeks ago

The big regression

My folks are in town visiting us for a couple months so we rented them a house nearby. It’s new construction. No one has lived in it yet. It’s amped up with state of the art systems. You know, the ones with touchscreens of various sizes, IoT appliances, and interfaces that try too hard. And it’s terrible. What a regression. The lights are powered by Control4. And require a demo to understand how to use the switches, understand which ones control what, and to be sure not to hit THAT ONE because it’ll turn off all the lights in the house when you didn’t mean to. Worse. The TV is the latest Samsung which has a baffling UI just to watch CNN. My parents aren’t idiots, but definitely feel like they’re missing something obvious. They aren’t — TVs have simply gotten worse. You don’t turn them on anymore, you boot them up. The Miele dishwasher is hidden flush with the counters. That part is fine, but here’s what isn’t: It wouldn’t even operate the first time without connecting it with an app. This meant another call to the house manager to have them install an app they didn’t know they needed either. An app to clean some peanut butter off a plate? For serious? Worse. Thermostats... Nest would have been an upgrade, but these other propriety ones from some other company trying to be nest-like are baffling. Round touchscreens that take you into a dark labyrinth of options just to be sure it’s set at 68. Or is it 68 now? Or is that what we want it at, but it’s at 72? Wait... What? Which number is this? Worse. The alarm system is essentially a 10” iPad bolted to the wall that has the fucking weather forecast on it. And it’s bright! I’m sure there’s a way to turn that off, but then the screen would be so barren that it would be filled with the news instead. Why can’t the alarm panel just be an alarm panel? Worse. And the lag. Lag everywhere. Everything feels a beat or two behind. Everything. Lag is the giveaway that the system is working too hard for too little. Real-time must be the hardest problem. Now look... I’m no luddite. But this experience is close to conversion therapy. Tech can make things better, but I simply can’t see in these cases. I’ve heard the pitches too — you can set up scenes and one button can change EVERYTHING. Not buying it. It actually feels primitive, like we haven’t figured out how to make things easy yet. That some breakthrough will eventually come when you can simply knock a switch up or down and it’ll all makes sense. But we haven’t evolved to that point yet. It’s really the contrast that makes it alarming. We just got back from a vacation in Montana. Rented a house there. They did have a fancy TV — seems those can’t be avoided these days — but everything else was old school and clear. Physical up/down light switches in the right places. Appliances without the internet. Buttons with depth and physically-confirmed state change rather than surfaces that don’t obviously register your choice. More traditional round rotating Honeywell thermostats that are just clear and obvious. No tours, no instructions, no questions, no fearing you’re going to do something wrong, no wondering how something works. Useful and universally clear. That’s human that’s modern. -Jason

hardware Hardware design Design Electronics
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Jason Fried 1 months ago

Introducing Fizzy, our newest product

Have you noticed that every issue and idea tracking tool you loved slowly morphed into boring, sluggish, corporate bloatware? Trello put on 40 pounds of cruft. Jira started charging by the migraine. Asana tried to become everything to everyone. GitHub Issues slipped into a steady state of decline. The whole category is a 20 car pileup of complexity. Time to route around that mess. Today we’re introducing Fizzy. Kanban as it should be, not as it has been. Fizzy is a fresh take on cards and columns, with a few twists, human-nature inspired defaults, and a vibrant interface that’s the opposite of the bland and boring software the industry has been flinging at you for years. Kanban has been around since the 1940s, and Trello brought it into the mainstream in 2011. Since then, some version of column-based kanban-style organization has found its way into any collaboration tool worth its salt. But most have over salted the dish. What was simple is now complicated. What was clear is now cluttered. What just worked now takes work. Fizzy presses reset, reconsiders what really matters, and presents a refreshing way to kanban that just feels right. It’s friendly, colorful, straightforward, and fast as hell. We still use Basecamp for our big, intensive projects, but lately we’ve been reaching for Fizzy to run the smaller ones. It’s perfect for tracking bugs, issues, and ideas, and it shines for lighter, self-contained workflows like podcasts or video production. We didn’t expect it, but Fizzy’s so good it might even cannibalize Basecamp on the lighter side of project management. We’d be thrilled. How much is it? It’s not much for so much. Everyone gets 1000 cards for free. Beyond that, we’ll host your account for just $20/month for unlimited cards and unlimited users. One price for all and everything. No tiers, no “contact us.” No pricing chart at all — just a price tag, like on a pair of jeans. And here’s a surprise... Fizzy is open source! If you’d prefer not to pay us, or you want to customize Fizzy for your own use, you can run it yourself for free forever. Have a great idea? Submit a PR to contribute to the code base and improve the product for everyone. It’s the best of all worlds. No excuses. Every idea comes back around. It’s time for take two on kanban. Fizzy’s our hat in the ring. Let’s make this platform insanely great, together. Come on in! Visit fizzy.do to check it out and sign up for free! -Jason

open-source Open Source business Business
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Jason Fried 1 months ago

A beta is like inviting guests over

There are plenty of opportunities to invite people to your product ahead of the formal launch. Alpha, beta, etc. My preference is only right at the end. Typically a week or two before we go live. When the product is in the very last throes of beta, barely beta. Essentially v0.99. At this stage we’re not really looking for deep fundamental feedback, although we’ll get some. We’re going with the version we’re launching, so it doesn’t really help to soak in second guessing. The main advantage to letting people in a bit ahead of launch is mostly for basic hygiene. It forces you to clean up, tie up loose ends, get some lingering stuff right you’ve been sitting on until now. It’s like inviting guests to your house for dinner. Hopefully you keep a fairly tidy house, but if you know guests are coming by, there’s just another level of cleaning and tidying and prep you tend to do. All those little messes you could live with become things you just don’t want other people to see, experience, or notice. So you take care of them. Guests are forcing functions. They help you do those last few things you know you need to do, but didn’t until now. It’s now. -Jason

business Business
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Jason Fried 1 months ago

Quality: The Concept2 RowErg

The Concept2 RowErg is one of the highest quality products I've ever used. Had one for years now, feels like it'll last another 100. Simple construction, durable materials, low maintenance. Comically easy to assemble. Tips up for storage, leaving a tiny footprint. The PM5 display is simple B&W, no touchscreen, just a few easy-to-use-when-sweaty rubberized buttons. Just two D batteries that seem to last forever. No plugs, no charging, no cables needed. Roll it around on wheels, steady once flat. Perfectly grips the ground, no wobble, no rattle, no movement. The whole thing is just right. I've rarely encountered a product so well considered. They knew where to stop. To me, this is a pinnacle product. The model to build towards. No matter what you make, aim to make it as well as the Concept 2 RowErg. And all that for under $1000. One of the few products I've paid this much for that feels like a steal. No affiliation, just a fan. https://concept2.com/ergs/rowerg -Jason

hardware Hardware sports Sports
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Jason Fried 3 months ago

The next product

New products don’t need to be revolutionary, life-changing, or disruptive breakthroughs to succeed. Entire categories can roll downhill, gathering complexity as they go. Each product one-upping the next until more becomes too much. The cycle feeds itself, never satiated. Competitors locked in a loop of mutual destruction through perpetual over-improvement. When that happens, the door cracks open for something new. The newcomer doesn’t have to meet the others where they are. It just has to feel right — like someone opened the curtains and let the sun back in. The type of product that lets people exhale and say, “finally!” Not groundbreaking. Just grounded. Standing where everyone else forgot to. -Jason

business Business
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Jason Fried 3 months ago

When design drives behavior

In some cases, design is what something looks like. In other cases, design is how something works. But the most interesting designs to me are when design changes your behavior. Even the smallest details can change how someone interacts with something. Take the power reserve indicator on the A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 watch. The power reserve indicator indicates how much "power" (wind) is left. It's pictured below on the right side of the dial. It starts with AUF ("up") and ends with AB ("down"). A fully wound Lange 1 (indicator up at AUF) will give you about 72 hours before the watch fully runs out of power, stops, and must be wound again. It moves down as the watch runs until you're out of power. Wind it again to fill it back up. Simple enough, right? An indicator and a scale for fully wound through unwound. Just like a car's fuel gauge. You have full through empty, with a few ticks in between to indicate 3/4 or 1/4 tank left, and typically a red zone at the end saying you really need to fill this thing up soon or you're going to be stranded. However, all is not as it seems on the Lange 1. There's something very clever going on here to change your behavior. First you'll notice five triangles between AUF and AUB. They aren't equally spaced. At first you might think it looks like each is about a quarter of the scale, and then the last two at the bottom would be like the red zone on your fuel gage. But no. The indicator follows a non-linear progression downwards. It doesn't sweep from top to bottom evenly over time. It's actually accelerated early. When fully wound, It takes just a day for the indicator to drop down two markers to the halfway point. From there, it takes a day each to hit the lower two markers. This makes it look like it's unwinding faster than it is because the indicator covers more distance in that first 24 hours. If the spacing were uniform, and the indicator was linear, the owner might not feel the need to wind it until the power reserve was nearly fully depleted. Then you might have a dead watch when you pick it up the next morning. So what's the net effect of this tiny little design detail that the owner may not even understand? Well, it looks like the watch is already half-way out of power after the first day, so it encourages the owner to wind the watch more frequently. To keep it closer to topped off, even when it's not necessary. This helps prevents the watch from running out of power, losing time, and, ultimately, stopping. A stopped watch may be right twice a day, but it's rarely at the times you want. Small detail, material behavior change. Well considered, well executed, well done. -Jason

Behavior design Design
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Jason Fried 3 months ago

What to do with $2M?

A young entrepreneur in his mid-20s just emailed me asking for some advice. He just sold a business and ended up with a couple million in liquid cash. He wanted to know if he should invest it, use it to build a new company, or do something else with it. My advice wasn't what he was expecting. I just said don't lose it. Do nothing with it. Put it in the bank. Something safe, earning a little, but not too much that it's at risk. Money doesn't need to work. It can rest. Leave it be. You're 26 — you can get back to work. A couple million liquid cash is a huge haul. Maintain! Don't lose. Always have that. And add more to that safe pile as you go. That's yours now. Keep it that way. -Jason

business Business career Career
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Jason Fried 4 months ago

Marketing is...

At its best, marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm. When you're truly pumped about what you're doing, when you're truly driven by the vision, when you absolutely must make something that you need and want, your enthusiasm leaves a mark. It's a brand. Not the noun, but the verb. At its worst, marketing is a transfer of everything else

marketing Marketing
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Jason Fried 4 months ago

An obligation to independence

One of the great privileges of owning an independent company is that you get to try all sorts of stuff no one else would ever give you permission to do. And you get to greenlight other people's oddball ideas too. You can — and should — provide cover for weird attempts, strange ideas, and "I mean this will probably never work but. " stuff. Often

career Career business Business
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Jason Fried 5 months ago

Knives and battleships

From time to time we get criticized for making "yet another to-do list" product. Or a chat product. Or a messaging product. Or something we've kinda sorta already made before, just in a different form, combination, or approach. "How about something else. How about something bigger. How about something completely different

career Career
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Jason Fried 5 months ago

A fly and luck

There was a tiny fly right by the drain, and I was about to wash my hands. Turning on the water would have sent it right down the hole. A quick end, or an eventual struggled drowning, hard to know. But that would be that, there was no getting out. Somehow, for a moment, I slipped into contemplation. I could just turn on the water, I could rescue it, I could use a different sink

ai AI ui UI writing Writing
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Jason Fried 7 months ago

Years of evidence

"Years of experience" has been a gold standard hiring requirement since forever. It's a terrible one. Someone can do something for years and have nothing to show for it. Seek people with "Years of evidence" instead. People with deep examples of work. Piles of stuff they've made. An overflowing collection of output they're proud to share

career Career
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Jason Fried 7 months ago

Turning back can be getting ahead

When you encounter a simpler system, a simpler idea, or a simpler implementation, you have an opportunity. You can say "it's not enough, it doesn't have, it wouldn't work". That’s the common reflexive response. Or you can reflect. “What is it about how we work that prevents us from using such a simple, succinct system

career Career programming Programming
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Jason Fried 7 months ago

Cover letters? Yes!

Whenever I write about our focus on cover letters during the hiring process, I'll inevitably receive the "cover letters are still a thing. " or "people still read cover letters. " response from a cadre of characters. Here's one from yesterday: https://x. com/amfonte/status/1924996546896036278 Yes, cover letters are a thing, and we absolutely still read them. And require them

career Career
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Jason Fried 8 months ago

On Legacy

I don’t think much about legacy. Yours, mine, anyone’s really. Do the best you can right now. For now. Not for later. If it’s useful later, great. But that’s only because it starts out useful now. Legacy isn’t an artist who was ignored all their life until they died. That’s just recognition and fame. Their work was already excellent then. Legacy. Who’s going to remember anyway

writing Writing career Career culture Culture
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Jason Fried 8 months ago

Why new when?

When we make something new, people often ask "why don't you just add that to Basecamp. " There are a number of reasons, depending on what it is. But, broadly, making something brand new gives you latitude (and attitude) to explore new tech and design approaches. It's the opposite of grafting something on to a heavier, larger system that already exists

web-development Web Development business Business design Design
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Jason Fried 9 months ago

Doing what you think, not what you thought

Whenever I talk about working in real-time, making decisions as you go, figuring things out now rather than before, I get a question like this. "If you don't have a backlog, or deep sets of prioritized, ranked items, how do you decide what to do next. " My answer:  The same way you do when your made your list. You make decisions

career Career agile Agile go Go
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Jason Fried 9 months ago

Go do business

Business isn’t something you learn in books. Or posts. Or threads. You can’t read your way to the right hire. You can't consume enough content to produce a product. You have to do. You learn business by doing business. Hiring by hiring. Products by building them. We know this is true in music. Never pick up a guitar. Go read 100 books on guitar. You'll suck just as much

business Business go Go
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Jason Fried 10 months ago

Randomly right

One of the great lessons of nature: Randomness is the most beautiful thing. Every forest, every field, every place untouched by humans is full of randomness. Nothing lines up, a million different shapes, sprouting seeds burst where the winds — or birds — randomly drop them. Stones strewn by water, ice, gravity, and wind, all acting on their own in their own ways. Things that just stop and stay

data Data data-analysis Data Analysis nature Nature
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