Basecamp Founder Seeks Topics For How-We-Work Videos

@jasonfried When do you decide to spin up a new tool in an existing project vs. creating a new project, especially if all the same people would be in both (if you had 2 projects)?

@cpinto http://basecamp.com/agents

We have an excellent example in our account I could show, but it contains private info I really can't share in a screenshare. But let me see if I can find something else.

@jasonfried Deciding between todos and cards. Both have pros and cons. One is more visual. Only one has hillcharts. When do you reach for one or the other.

In terms of what would be fun for me to watch it'd be "What just doesn't work well at basecamp but we're also not going to fix it"

For example at my company we're just bad at onboarding people in a way that feels not chaotic... but now we just own it and tell people "it's just going to take 6 months to figure out what's going on".

I know that wouldn't show off basecamp neccessarily but it'd be fun to know what you guys have just said "fuck it we're not fixing this EVER, it's in our DNA".

@jasonfried first two weeks of a completely new project, what does that look like? how do you kickstart new things at basecamp

@robzolkos We pretty much only use card tables these days unless something just needs to be on a simple list.

@Hiraweb3 We don't have meetings. So nothing to show there@!

@BradleyJohnsen Got everything neatly organized in Basecamp. Couldn’t imagine working any other way.

@jasonfried 🤔🤔🤔🤔☝️

@jasonfried Show us how you keep meetings short and sane

@LonnieJordan843 Assigned to an agent if we have any on a particular project. Just like a user. No different.

I heard @tobi say in a podcast, > It's not our customer's job to tell us what they need. Um it's our customer's job to tell us what the problems are that they're experiencing and we fall in love with those problems.

&& in another podcast say, > ...at some point, you understand [the problems] well enough to not solve the problems that people state, but build infrastructure in the form of primitives that can be composed to solve all the problems

Can you comment on this idea of distilling what the customers says into what your job is and how that translates into what you build?

@jasonfried collaborating with AI agents

@devbymonday No matrix of measurement, no metrics, no numbers. We evaluate the work itself, not representations of the work. And also how they are to work with.

how do you start your workdays?

would love to see a screencast (the less polished the better) + photos or anything analog (desk, notebooks, etc)

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any other routines? (closing workday?)

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how do you make time for, and jump on unplanned opportunities? (I think you talked about this before with the year calendar but curious to hear more)

@gaurabhmathure I go in completely unstructured. I just start somewhere and it unfolds. Just like if I was spontaneously showing someone at a coffee shop. "hey, check this out..." and I go.

@jasonfried How do you handle recurring, boring work that needs to be done but isn’t worthy of a project in and of itself.

@jasonfried Haw are Agentic Tasks handled?

Sincere request: I would love a show-and-tell on how you structure your thoughts when you're doing a 'how we work' demo. Many people do demos, but you have an inherently clear way in which you talk about your product, interspersing the 'why' behind the feature with the 'what it does'.

I understand that at this point it's natural, so it may be hard to deconstruct your own procees - but would love it if you could help the rest of us upskill our skill in clear and credible demos.

Thanks in advance.

Everything's in a project if it's in Basecamp. So if it's just a recurring personal task that isn't specific to any project, people often just make a single, general project for themselves (I have one called "Mine") where they'd put their own personal stuff. But generally, if it's just random and personal and unrelated to a project, use pen and paper.