This chapter of the book starts with: Big day today for The Partner and I. He heads off overseas in a couple of weeks on a work secondment, to live, with his family, for six months, and it’s a 5 hour time difference. What you say? You can’t set up a business like that? You [...]
Our story
Getting Real from 37 Signals is a book and set of principles which has had a profound effect on us. We’re launching a new web business over the coming months. Watch our story unfold as we describe the ups and the downs and how we’ve applied Jason Fried’s Getting Real.
Go go go…
The first cut of the application went up on our test site last week. Despite it being green, ugly and having a bunch of alien (well, alien to me) debug boxes at the top of the screen, it was a wonderful moment. It’s real! It works (sort of)! I want to get out there and [...]
Hollywood launch
All things considered, with me sat here on the balcony on holiday still, I think we’re in pretty good shape. When we had our first dinner on 27th April, and began digging into the project during May, we felt that it would be possible to get our new baby ready for September / October time [...]
We love red tape
Thanks to everyone who commented and offered advice on the payment systems debate – we really appreciate it. A quick update on where we have got to. I can’t reinforce how much of a pain this has been – it’s definitely not something you can leave until later if your business is based out of [...]
I’m too busy to take a vacation
Bluntly, bullsh*t. How often do you hear this phrase when talking to colleagues? I hear it a lot – I’m far too busy… too much going on to go away… they need me in the office blah blah. At the end of the year you consult your leave card to find out that you’ve not [...]
But how will we get paid…?
I listened to a podcast of Jason Fried giving a presentation in the car last Thursday. He was presenting at the O’Reilly conference a few years back. He said that when 37 Signals set Basecamp live they had no way of accepting payment. He said that they knew they were going to give a 30 day [...]
Meet The Designer
Now that the majority of our design work is complete and we’ve revealed The Mark, I thought it was time to meet The Designer in the flesh – to prove he’s real and to get his honest opinions on how we’ve approached the brief… Some of you emailed and made comments to say we were [...]
Don’t you just hate that…Jason was right after all
This weekend I’ve been looking at the reporting side of our tool. After theorising for an hour or two with a spreadsheet and a mind map of the likely database structure I decided I was a total idiot and went back to basics instead. I began to draw the physical screens that our users will [...]
Can you handle it?
It’s now been 83 days since I first met The Partner for what I thought was going to be a friendly catch up dinner. We’re making good progress. The journey continues…
Show us the book then…
Whose story is this?
My name is Mark Copeman. I've been running online and offline businesses for a few years now. The Partner and I have decided to document publicly this new venture to show others what's possible when you follow the great guiding principles in this book...