Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of 37signals, makers of the popular Basecamp project management software, which is still growing and very profitable after 20 years. He is going long and still having fun as an engaged CEO, building great products with great marketing that stands out.

Jason has long advocated for software founders to avoid VC funding and build sustainable businesses that are great for customers and generate healthy profits for the owners. His best-selling book, Rework, shared his practical approach for entrepreneurs.

In this wide-ranging interview, Jason discusses these important topics:

• How the core principles of Basecamp remain focused on simplicity and essential tools for project management after 20 years.
• Why Basecamp targets small businesses, avoiding the enterprise market that many competitors chase.
• Why software should fit the needs of the user, rather than forcing users to adapt to complex tools for big companies
• How profitability, not growth, provides the freedom to innovate and explore new ideas.
• Why competing against your costs is more important than competing against other companies.
• How small teams have the agility to win against big companies.

Quote from Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals

“My sense of independence has always been important to me. That’s why I became an entrepreneur: to do things the way I wanted to do them. Otherwise, why be an entrepreneur? It’s true when you work, you’re working for your customers. That’s always going to be true. But you still have a sense of independence. You get to make your own decisions.

“What people don’t realize is when you raise money, you don’t really work for yourself anymore. You really don’t. You work for someone else’s schedule, for someone else’s fulfillment, for someone else’s return. That never appealed to me.

“I want our products to explain themselves. I want our success to explain ourselves. I don’t want to have to explain myself on a quarterly basis to somebody who’s trying to get a return out of me. I’m not interested. So for all those reasons, it just wasn’t right to raise big funding.”

• Jason Fried on LinkedIn
• Jason Fried on Twitter
• 37Signals on LinkedIn
• 37Signals website
• Basecamp website
• HEY website
• Ruby on Rails website

This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io.

The Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel.

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.

Quote from Russ Perry, founder and CEO of Design Pickle

“The game for practical SaaS founders really comes down to recognizing that there is a large market size for very boring niche companies. Finding that niche is the fastest path to success. Don’t be afraid to be boring and specific.

“If I were to do Design Pickle all over again, I would have just picked a vertical niche, like we are the graphic design provider for feline mobile cutting trucks or something. There are easily 10,000 mobile pet grooming businesses in the United States, so probably just cat groomers.

“We just went super broad when we started, and it’s been fine, but it would have been easier for us to have focused on a niche. When you have such limited resources and time and money and capital, having that narrow niche makes it easier to maximize all those dollars and investments.”

• Russ Perry on LinkedIn
• Design Pickle on LinkedIn
• Design Pickle website
• Colorado River Partners

This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io.

The Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel.

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.

Sunando Bhattacharya spent 13 years as a business leader in managed IT services companies in India before starting his own cloud tech services business. This company grew slowly and an opportunity arose to create a software product for one of their clients. Two years later, in 2019, they had a few more Apiculus product customers and focused more on the product.

Apiculus is a complete "cloud-as-a-service" software platform for data centers to offer, sell, deploy, and manage cloud data services for their own customers. They focused on smaller data centers in emerging markets, including Nepal, Oman, Rwanda, and others in the Middle East and Africa.

The Apiculus business grew as it turned into a product-first company. They overcame many challenges during COVD and with customers and partners that didn't work out. In 2024, the company was acquired by Yotta, and Indian cloud technology company, in a strategic acquisition.

Quote from Sunando Bhattacharya, founder of Apiculus

"Somebody asked me what one thing you want for your company. I said I wanted my company featured on Great Places to Work. It's very important that the team that works with me finds this a great place to work.

"The only secret ingredient for tech companies is people. It's people who make the technology. And if you take care of your team, you take care of your people, you will always do well.

"This isn't just for services companies. Talent and ability are important. But for somebody to bring their best every day to work and deliver something world-class, which is world-beating, it needs a very different level of passion. And that passion will only come from your team if you take care for them."

• Sunando Bhattacharya on LinkedIn
• Apiculus on LinkedIn
• Apiculus website
• Yotta Data Services website

This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital. For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast.

The Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app.

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.