Excellent Interview: Jason Fried of 37Signals

Timothy O’Brien of O’Reilly sat down with Jason Fried, a “managing member” of 37 Signals and asked a lot of great questions about the philosophy of running a small tech company. Much of what Jason says sounds like common sense and provides great insight and clarity that I think is generally missing from a lot of companies. Jason mentions that one of the best pieces of business advice he’s been given is:

Focus on the things that don’t change. - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and 37Signals only investor

Jason also comments on companies like MySpace:

I’m not sure the social stuff is really paying off for anyone yet.

Some other interesting tid bits:

• Focus on your products and customers, period.
• Minimize interruptions
• Teaching and transparency about what you do is a good way to get free media/PR coverage.
• Avoid VC funding and come up with creative and cheaper solutions

To watch the interview, go here.

Update: Jason Fried speaking at Business of Software 2008:

”…momentum, why roadmaps, specifications and projections are evil, and many other topics”. Here he focuses more on the specifics of software project management.