Jason Fried
Jason Fried is the founder and CEO of Basecamp, a project management tool that helps companies function more efficiently by streamlining the communication channels within them, as well as the author of Rework. Last week, we read through the company’s blog Signal v. Noise, which shares “strong opinions and shared thoughts on design, business, and tech.” We recommend reading through more of his posts, but decided to focus on three here that we found to be especially interesting:
In this article, Jason Fried explains why he doesn’t create concrete goals for himself. A goal, he considers, “goes away when you hit it. Once you’ve reached it, it’s gone.” He believes that when working on the projects he wants to work on, assignments shouldn’t be broken up into separate goals because they should flow into each other seamlessly. Having a goal would break this process, making him feel stuck after its achievement because it demands having to come up with a new goal to complete next.
Our class was somewhat conflicted about this article, since it could be argued that each of the assignments he was given was a goal in itself. Many students dismissed this blogpost by stating that this might be an entrepreneur acting like he is different from others. The disparity, however, is due to how each of us perceives goals and approaches problems in our own lives. Fried proposes that the inherent divisions created by a series of distinct goals conflict with the nature of creative flow. “I just want to keep going,” he writes. “Whatever happens along the way is just what happens.” For others, goals might not possess this flow-breaking quality, and instead can be beneficial because they incentivize progress in a desired direction.
Mind the Gap: How to spend your time when there’s nothing left to do?
In this post, Jason Fried comments on designers’ incessant desire to keep improving–always. This “always,” he explains, is problematic, as it detracts from projects that actually require attention. While designers may want to spend more time tweaking the final details of a project because there is always room for more improvement, Fried equates devoting time to these activities to wasting time. He emphasizes the importance of differentiating between projects that need your time and those that merely desire it–time spent on projects that only desire it should be re-prioritized and spent on something else.
This seven-line blog post consists of a brief list of “inactionable” pieces of advice. Through this post, Fried suggests that people should stop wasting their time trying to follow lists of “actionable,” problem-solving advice from others, and instead question further and focus on exploring their own solutions.
The accessibility of information provided by the internet has made it unprecedentedly easy to find answers. However, these lists of prescribed, actionable advice halt our own thinking by creating the illusion that all of the answers have already been found. By following these lists, we might impede ourselves from exploring different and potentially better solutions. The process of questioning and searching for solutions is often more enlightening than the solution itself, which Fried sums up in his closing piece of advice: “Figure it out yourself.”
Big Takeaways
For our final meeting, we each shared our takeaways from everything we have discussed this quarter. Here were the biggest themes:
- Businesses are about people.
- People are moved by stories.
- There is no typical entrepreneur.
- Don’t overstretch your company–sustainability is key.
- Have a mission, and stay true to it.
(Graphic inspired by Ryan Teo)
And, a few last questions from some our classmates to think about as we wrap up the course:
- How might we disconnect the institution of a business from the ideology of making money at all costs?
- Are you really your own boss, or do your suppliers, customers, and investors become your boss?
- How do I become a human-centered entrepreneur? What are my next/first steps?
