What really impressed me about Jason’s story was that he became a success doing things the way I’ve always thought they should be done. And more to the point, exactly the opposite of the way traditional management tells you it should and must be done. Some examples from his talk.

1. Don’t get venture money. Bootstrap your idea in your spare time keeping your day job. You don’t want anyone telling you what to do who doesn’t share your passion for what you’re doing.
2. Don’t have a board of directors. What do they know about what you’re trying to do?
3. Don’t write specs, write code. You can’t tell whether something is good or bad from a spec, only from working code. Do it quick. If it’s no good, throw it away and move on. People in organizations are dreadfully afraid of making a mistake. Don’t worry about it, just do it.
4. Don’t keep an enhancement or bug list. Trust your gut to do what’s most important. When you keep hearing the same thing from people you know and trust, go ahead and do something about it.
5. Try to do everything in two week increments. That is, don’t let people get bored doing the project. They do their best work when they’re excited about the outcome.
6. Don’t plan too much. My question to Jason was about whether or not his small 12 person operation would scale up. He said, “I don’t know and I don’t care. We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
7. Don’t hire any marketing people. Your customers are your best marketing dept.
8. Trust your employees. 37 signals gives each of their employees an unlimited charge card, to spend on whatever they want, however much they want. The company bought one employee flying lessons. Not because it would be a usable skill, but because it would make him a more happy and well-rounded employee. In their experience employees do not abuse the charge privilege, but use it sparingly, knowing that it comes of the bottom line.
9. Don’t spend money on an office. Keep employees in their own homes. That’s where they’re most productive. In an office it’s too easy to be interrupted and too easy to call a meeting. Meetings are productivity killers.
10. Charge money for your product from Day One. This is a complement to the Don’t take money from VCs rule. Nothing succeeds like revenue. If you have something worth paying for, people will pay for it. If it can’t sustain itself, find something else to do.

I’m sure there were more, but those are the ones that stuck with me. As a survivor of 35+ years in the software development business, I can personally attest to the practicality of these guidelines. I have seen the opposite fail miserably for my whole career, but every once in a while, I managed to become part of something that didn’t obey the rules, and those were the memorable successes.

Don’t let the management, marketing and financial suits tell you any different. Do what you know is right. If it doesn’t work, learn from the experience and don’t make the same mistake again. But please, don’t think you can ever get it right without trial and error. It’s so obvious it’s painful, but there are still legions of project and product and people managers who wouldn’t have jobs if not for torturing you with requirements statements, schedules and bug reports.

And one thing that he swears will never be added to BaseCamp, their project management tool: Gantt Charts. Hurray!!