01 / Overview

37signals / Basecamp

A company history · 1999–September 2026

37signals began in Chicago in 1999 as a web design firm founded by Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, and Ernest Kim. By the time Basecamp turned it into a software business, Segura and Kim had left. David Heinemeier Hansson, who first worked with Fried in 2001, became his business partner in 2005.

The company’s history then follows several changes in direction. Basecamp’s success financed a family of small web applications. Maintaining that family became difficult, and in 2014 the company took Basecamp’s name and concentrated development on its main product. Some other products were sold, some acquired separate management, and several stayed online for existing customers.

HEY, launched in 2020, made it a company with two major subscription products again. The 37signals name returned in 2022. Its subsequent work includes self-hosted software under ONCE, the kanban app Fizzy, and developer tools. DHH’s Linux project Omarchy grew alongside that commercial work.

The chapters follow these changes in sequence, then examine the books, interviews, and communications that made the company widely discussed beyond its customer base.

The source library records access limits and uncertain dates. Prices and company-reported figures are dated in the text.

02 / The original partners

From three founders to a different partnership

1999–2005 · The web design firm came before the software company.

How Fried, Segura, and Kim came together

Before 37signals, Jason Fried worked as a freelance web designer. He had also made small software products: his Audiofile program cataloged music collections, and he sold copies directly to users. His later account of that work describes an early preference for making something useful to himself and charging other people who wanted the same thing. Fried interview

Fried met Ernest Kim while interviewing for a job at Organic Online’s Chicago office, where Kim was creative director. Fried declined the job, but they stayed in touch. Carlos Segura, a mutual acquaintance with an established graphic-design practice, wanted to do more work on the web. When Kim was ready to leave Organic, the three decided to start a firm together. Fried says each contributed $10,000, giving the business $30,000 in initial capital. Founding account

They founded 37signals in Chicago in 1999. The original website presented 37 numbered statements about design and the work the firm would accept. Its specialization was web design; it did not promise every service a large agency might offer. The site itself demonstrated the position through unusually spare presentation and direct statements about clients, usability, and writing. Company profile · Original manifesto

Segura supplied the name. Fried later recalled that he had watched a PBS Nova program about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and unexplained radio signals. The name gave the firm an identity independent of any founder’s surname or a particular software product. Naming account

What happened to the other two founders?

Carlos Segura left around 2000*. In Fried’s later account, the web did not suit Segura as well as traditional graphic design, and he lost interest in that part of the business. Fried described the separation as friendly. Fried’s account

Segura continued his own design and type businesses. A July 2006 discussion hosted by 37signals identifies Segura Inc., the T-26 font business, and 5inch, which sold designed blank CDs and cases. He joined that discussion with Richard Bird and Jim Coudal, using 37signals’ new Campfire chat product. 2006 discussion

Ernest Kim left around 2002–03*. Fried and Kim had continued the agency after Segura’s departure; Kim then left before Basecamp launched. Armin Vit’s report of Fried’s 2008 AIGA presentation gives 2003, while Fried’s later recollections place it around 2002. The public accounts reviewed here do not establish the financial terms of either founder’s departure. AIGA report · Later recollection

Kim subsequently worked in footwear. In March 2010, he returned to the Signal v. Noise comments to respond to Fried’s criticism of a Nike shoe. Kim identified himself as a Nike running-footwear product manager and explained choices behind the Nike Free line. Fried had brought the discussion to his attention. This provides a direct record of what Kim did after 37signals, and of continued contact between the former partners. Kim’s response

*Approximate departure years. The earlier event report and later founder recollections differ slightly.

A small agency with a public body of work

The firm’s public experiments made its design judgments available to people who had never hired it. Under the 37better name, it published unsolicited redesigns of familiar services, including banking, shipping, and shopping interfaces. A reader could compare the proposed interface with a service they already knew. These projects gave the company concrete examples to discuss alongside its manifesto.

Other projects served different purposes. eNormicom parodied dot-com branding. Design Not Found collected error messages and interface failures; that work later fed into Defensive Design for the Web. 37express offered a single-page redesign in a week for a fixed fee. The firm also sold a $79 report evaluating search on 25 e-commerce sites. Matt Linderman’s retrospective records these experiments and credits Kim, Segura, and Scott Upton among the early contributors. Early projects

Signal v. Noise extended this practice into regular publishing. It gave the team a place to discuss its work, examples from elsewhere, and business decisions. That readership would become important when the firm had software to sell: Basecamp launched to people who already knew how its makers thought about design.

DHH first joined as a collaborator

In 2001, Fried posted a programming question while building Single File, a web tool for cataloging books. David Heinemeier Hansson, a Danish reader of the blog, answered it and eventually rewrote the application’s code. Fried was in Chicago and Hansson in Copenhagen; they initially worked through email and instant messaging. Their relationship then expanded into client projects, including an intranet for Summit Credit Union. First collaboration

Basecamp came later. Hansson was still a part-time programmer when its development began in 2003. After Basecamp launched and Rails had been released, they discussed making him a partner. In their December 2023 interview, Hansson placed the completed agreement in early 2005, near the end of his university studies. Fried continued to lead design and the business; Hansson led programming. Thus, the original design firm’s three-founder structure had given way to the Fried–Hansson partnership associated with its software years. Partnership account

03 / Basecamp takes off

The internal tool becomes the business

2003–2006 · Development, first customers, and a new ownership arrangement.

As 37signals took on more design work, keeping clients and colleagues aligned became a problem of its own. Basecamp gave each project a shared place for messages, tasks, and milestones, so the latest information did not have to be reconstructed from separate email conversations.

Building it while still serving clients

Ryan Singer dates the first prototypes to July 2003. Fried led design, Hansson wrote the application, and Singer worked on interfaces and product details. Hansson contributed roughly ten hours a week from Denmark. The team developed Basecamp alongside paying agency work, then used it with clients. Those clients’ interest in using the same tool for their own work helped establish that the problem extended beyond the agency. Development account · Client response

Previews and an existing readership

Signal v. Noise published product previews before launch, including the dashboard in January 2004. The launch post thanked readers who had commented on earlier previews. A reader also referred to a launch mailing list. Dashboard preview · Launch post

Fried recalled a few thousand blog readers in a 2010 interview. In 2025, he recalled an audience of about 1,500 and roughly six weeks of previews. These are approximate retrospective estimates, not verified subscriber counts. 2010 recollection · 2025 recollection

The initial offer

Basecamp offered one project free, a 30-day trial on paid plans, screenshots, use cases, and free workshops in Chicago. The product initially lacked native file uploads. Launch terms

Macworld covered it on February 25, 2004 as a tool that brought blogging to project management. It highlighted designers, consultants, freelancers, and clients; RSS, iCal, and XML export; and monthly plans of $19 for ten projects, $39 for 25, and $59 for unlimited projects. Macworld report

The company celebrates February 4 as its launch date; the surviving announcement displays February 5. Fried’s fifth-anniversary account also records the original basecamphq.com domain and one dedicated server for the first year. Anniversary account

Revenue target and shift from services

Fried told Product People that the initial target was $5,000 a month within a year—about the annual value of one $60,000 design project. He recalled reaching it within roughly five to eight weeks. About a year after launch, product revenue exceeded consulting revenue and they stopped consulting. These are founder recollections. Transcript, 11:34

The company launched with prices but without billing code. The trial period gave it time to finish collection. Fried later said their merchant-account provider initially refused annual prepayment because of the risk of charging for services not yet delivered. Launch Now

Referral credits, December 2005

Any Basecamp account could join the affiliate program. A referred customer’s first paid month earned the referrer up to $50 in Basecamp credit. The reward was service credit, not cash. When a commenter asked whether a free account that upgraded within two months would qualify, Fried replied that it now did. Program and replies

Basecamp also supplied the basis for an influential developer project. Hansson extracted reusable programming infrastructure from the application and released Ruby on Rails in 2004. Rails let other developers build web applications using the same framework. Its audience extended beyond people who needed project-management software, giving Hansson and 37signals a continuing place in programming discussions. Framework history

The first product family brought prospective customers

Fried explicitly described the free Ta-da List, a shared checklist tool, as an advertisement for Basecamp and Backpack, its page-based organizer, in 2006. In the same interview, Hansson said Rails and 37signals sent attention to each other. Interview

July 2006: Bezos buys a minority stake

By July 20, 2006, 37signals had enough of a business to attract an investment from Bezos Expeditions. Its announcement said more than 30 venture firms had approached it, but emphasized the value of Jeff Bezos’s experience. The price and ownership percentage were not disclosed. Investment announcement

Hansson later clarified the transaction: Bezos bought shares from the owners, and the proceeds went to them personally. The business did not receive that money as operating capital. The distinction explains how the founders could describe financing operations through customers while also having an outside shareholder. Ownership explanation

04 / The product family

What 37signals built after Basecamp

2005–2013 · Separate tools for lists, information, writing, chat, contacts, and employee feedback.

Basecamp’s success led to a collection of focused applications. Each addressed a recognizable job, usually for a small business or a small group. Some were paid subscriptions; others were free tools that introduced people to the company. Understanding their separate uses explains both the expansion and the later difficulty of maintaining them together.

2005: lists, pages, and shared writing

Ta-da List launched on January 19, 2005 as a free way to create and share to-do lists. It was a much smaller commitment than adopting Basecamp for a whole project. On its first anniversary, the company reported that users had created 1.2 million list items. Anniversary record

Backpack followed on May 3, 2005. Its central unit was a page that gathered related notes, lists, files, and images. A page could hold the material for a trip, a project, or an internal reference topic. Where Basecamp organized collaboration around a project, Backpack emphasized keeping information together. The company’s later account of redesigning the sales site shows how it struggled to communicate that distinction and eventually put the pages themselves at the center of the pitch. Product explanation

The launch reached 10,000 accounts by the following day, according to the company. One reader described finding Backpack through Lifehacker, then discovering Basecamp and inviting colleagues into a free account. That is a specific example of one product helping introduce another, rather than proof that all those free signups became paying customers. Launch discussion

Writeboard, released on October 3, 2005, made shared text editing a separate free application. Users could write, revise, retain earlier versions, and compare changes. It deliberately concentrated on text rather than elaborate page layout. It launched both as a standalone service and as an integration with Backpack; it later also appeared inside Basecamp Classic. A team drafting copy could therefore use it without adopting an entire project-management system. Original announcement · Later integration

2006: Campfire brings the conversation into a room

Campfire launched on February 16, 2006. It provided persistent group chat in a browser, with searchable transcripts, file sharing, and image previews. Instead of sending a message to an individual through an instant-messaging account, a team could enter a shared room and keep a record of the conversation. The company had used it internally for 45 days before launch and offered new accounts a 30-day trial. Launch announcement

The launch also involved readers before they could buy it. On February 3, 37signals invited them into rooms holding 30 people at a time to test the service under load. Overflow participants were sent to additional rooms. That gave the company a practical test and gave readers an early experience of the product. Later, its published Fireside Chats used Campfire to host discussions with designers, demonstrating a use for the tool in the same format the company was selling. Test invitation · Published discussion

2007: Highrise organizes relationships

Highrise launched on March 20, 2007 as contact-management software. It stored a person’s details alongside notes, emails, tasks, and the history of conversations with that person. A colleague could see that somebody else had already called a client, what had been discussed, and what follow-up was due. The pitch placed it between a basic address book and more elaborate customer relationship management software.

This was a different organizing principle from Basecamp: the person or customer relationship came first, rather than the project. Yet the launch comments already showed confusion about overlap, separate subscriptions, and integration. Some customers wanted an interconnected suite; 37signals continued to sell distinct applications. Those expectations would matter again when it later reduced the portfolio. Launch and replies

2009–2012: Haystack becomes Sortfolio, then is sold

Haystack launched on October 21, 2009 as a directory for finding web designers. Clients could browse examples of work and narrow the list by location and budget. Designers received a free listing with one image, or paid $99 a month for a larger listing, more images, and higher placement. Its commercial promise depended on 37signals bringing prospective clients to the directory through advertising and its existing audience. Launch

A trademark complaint forced another decision almost immediately. On January 4, 2010, Fried announced the new name Sortfolio. The company had explored buying the trademark but could not agree on a price. It had paused promotion for roughly 45 days during negotiations and gave paying customers a free month. Existing Haystack links redirected to Sortfolio. Name change

By July 2012, 37signals wanted the directory in other hands. It had received more than a dozen offers after listing it for sale, and a planned July 1 retirement was avoided when it found a buyer. The announced asking price had been $480,000; the final sale price was not disclosed in the sale post. Sortfolio therefore left the company before the broad 2014 move to concentrate on Basecamp. Sale announcement

2012–2013: a new Basecamp and smaller experiments

The main product was also being rebuilt. Basecamp 2 launched on March 6, 2012, with live online demonstrations and longer trials: 45 days for new customers and 90 for existing ones. The original product continued as Basecamp Classic. This established a pattern of introducing a new version without immediately forcing every old customer to move. Version launch

Basecamp Breeze formally launched on January 10, 2013. It gave a small group one email address, so members could reach everyone without maintaining a recipient list or remembering to use reply-all. The examples included families, clubs, and small organizations. It was a mailing-list service, distinct from Basecamp’s shared project workspace. Product launch

Breeze failed to attract enough use to continue. In a later interview, Hansson recalled closing it after roughly nine months and compensating customers. He said the team’s experience handling email later helped with HEY. Unlike the older products maintained for existing accounts, Breeze was fully closed. Closure account

Basecamp Personal was another experiment in adapting an existing product to a different audience. The January 22, 2013 offer charged $25 once per personal project, with up to five collaborators and 1 GB of storage. It initially required users to already have access to a Basecamp account. The company returned to the name in November 2019 for a free plan aimed at individuals and informal groups. Its later terms and relationship to the main product are covered in the next chapter. Original offer

2013: Know Your Company asks employees directly

Know Your Company addressed a problem Fried encountered as the business grew: he no longer knew what everyone was doing or thinking. The product emailed questions to employees and collected their answers, giving the owner regular feedback without requiring every employee to learn another application. Claire Lew’s later account describes its evolution from an internal employee-information prototype called Honcho into a feedback tool. Product origins

The first five customers began using it on June 17, 2013. A four-person team built it, with Fried handling sales and demonstrations as well as design. Every customer received a personal demonstration and help setting up employees and initial questions. The launch charged $100 per employee once. Fried wanted to try a more hands-on sales and onboarding process than Basecamp’s self-service model, and built separate billing and administration around that choice. First customers

Within months it was a business large enough to be separated from 37signals. Its launch, however, was part of the expansion that preceded the retreat to Basecamp. The spin-off followed a decision about who should run and develop it, described next.

November 2013: We Work Remotely accompanies a book

We Work Remotely launched on November 5, 2013 as a job board restricted to roles that could be done remotely. It replaced 37signals’ broader job board, which had operated since 2006. Employers paid to advertise vacancies; job seekers could browse the listings. The new board appeared a week after Fried and Hansson’s book Remote: Office Not Required, giving readers a place to act on the book’s subject.

Job posting was free for the first 24 hours, then cost $200 for 30 days. The launch discussion shows the tension inside the wider portfolio: one customer questioned attention spent on side projects while Highrise needed work. That is useful context for the coming decision to narrow the company’s focus. Launch discussion

05 / Focus & spin-offs

The retreat to Basecamp

2013–2019 · The same portfolio produced several different outcomes.

By the end of 2013, 37signals had a project-management business, several adjacent productivity tools, an employee-feedback product, a job board, and a growing publishing operation. It had already sold Sortfolio and closed Breeze. The next decision concerned how much software development the company wanted to keep doing at once.

Why the company narrowed its scope

In their later account, Fried and Hansson said maintaining the products across the web, iOS, and Android made the old arrangement increasingly difficult. They could hire a substantially larger team or reduce the range of products receiving active development. Fried, Hansson, Ryan Singer, and analyst Noah Lorang discussed the choice in a Chicago hotel room. They chose Basecamp as the main development priority. Decision retrospective

On February 5, 2014, the company publicly changed its name from 37signals to Basecamp. It was the same business adopting its main product’s name. The announcement prompted practical questions from customers who had built their work around Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire. Would they have to migrate? Would a purchaser close their service? Hansson replied that the company intended to preserve access for satisfied existing customers. Announcement and replies

Know Your Company: a new owner-manager

The first major separation had already been announced on December 18, 2013. Know Your Company, the employee-question-and-feedback tool launched that June, would become its own company in January 2014. Fried reported $390,000 in revenue over six months, nearly 100 paying companies, and customers with between 16 and 105 employees. Those results made it a viable business for someone to run independently. Spin-off announcement

Claire Lew was that person. She had started ClarityBox, a consulting practice concerned with what employees thought and what their leaders failed to hear. 37signals became her first paying client while it was still prototyping Know Your Company. She interviewed employees and advised the founders, then continued developing her own practice. When Fried returned with the spin-off proposal, she already knew both the problem and the company. Lew’s account

The agreement initially gave Lew 50% of the new business without requiring her to pay for that equity. After $1 million in new cumulative sales, her holding would rise to 75%, with Basecamp retaining 25%. She became CEO and controlled day-to-day work; Fried and Hansson took advisory roles. The product, its existing customers, and its code moved into a separately operated company. Published terms

Lew later renamed it Know Your Team and broadened it into a product for managers. The December 2018 relaunch added guidance and management tools and replaced the one-time employee fee with a monthly subscription. That later change belonged to the independent company’s development, rather than a new product launch by Basecamp. Later direction

Highrise: no sale, then separate management

Highrise, the contact-and-conversation tracker launched in March 2007, followed a different path. In August 2014, Fried said it generated multimillion-dollar annual profits. Basecamp had explored a sale, narrowed the field to around a dozen potential buyers, and rejected some who wanted to close the service. The remaining serious buyers wanted the development team with it. Basecamp wanted to retain those people, and a sale did not happen.

On August 19, 2014, Fried instead announced a subsidiary run by Nathan Kontny, a software entrepreneur known for the writing application Draft. Kontny would recruit a team and develop Highrise using its customer revenue. This gave Highrise dedicated management while it remained under the parent company’s ownership. Failed sale

On April 5, 2018, Basecamp announced that Highrise was coming back in-house. Its account described a wholly owned subsidiary and a seven-person team built under Kontny. Then, on August 20, Highrise closed to new customers. Existing accounts continued to operate; the service notice cited more than 10,000 businesses using it. The sequence was therefore launch, attempted sale, subsidiary, return, and finally maintenance for existing customers. Return announcement · Service notice

We Work Remotely: an outright sale

The remote-only job board launched in November 2013 remained a separate business opportunity. Tiny bought it in 2017. Tiny’s later financial disclosure records a price of C$1.4 million. Unlike the Know Your Company arrangement or Highrise’s subsidiary period, this was a sale to an outside owner. Buyer’s disclosure

What happened to Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List, and Campfire?

The smaller applications were not all closed on the renaming date. In his February 2014 replies, Hansson said Backpack had already stopped accepting new customers, while existing accounts remained available. Ta-da List had closed to new use in May 2012; a January 2015 update reported that just under 5,000 people had still used it during the preceding year. Existing commitments · Ta-da status

Writeboard stopped accepting new standalone documents but remained available through Basecamp Classic and Backpack. The original hosted Campfire later closed to new customers after team chat became part of Basecamp 3. Both retirement notices preserve access for existing users. Their functions had either become part of the main product or continued in maintained older services. Writeboard status · Campfire status

The company formalized this approach in its Until the End of the Internet policy: maintain infrastructure, security, and support for qualifying existing accounts, without promising perpetual feature development. There is later evidence that these were still operating businesses. During the 2023 cloud exit, Hansson reported moving six legacy services to the company’s hardware; together, they still served tens of thousands of people and generated millions of dollars in revenue. Maintenance policy · Migration account

Basecamp itself continued to change

Basecamp 3 launched on November 3, 2015. It combined message boards, group chat, direct messages, client access, and controls over notifications in one product. That expansion helps explain why a separate hosted chat service became a lower priority. Earlier Basecamp versions stayed available to customers who preferred them. Version launch

In November 2019, the company introduced a new Basecamp Personal plan: three projects, 20 users, and 1 GB of storage for free. It targeted freelancers, students, families, volunteer groups, and personal projects. An earlier offer under the same name had charged $25 per project. The return of a free personal plan changed the entry point into the main product without creating a separate application to maintain. 2019 offer

For these years, the name Basecamp described both the company and its development focus. That became less accurate once the company returned to building a second major commercial application: HEY.

06 / HEY & Apple

HEY: product launch and App Store disputes

2020–2025

HEY marked a return to a business with more than one major product under active development. The company spent two years building an email service with its own accounts, web interface, and desktop and mobile apps. It entered a market where consumers were accustomed to getting email for free.

The offer

HEY launched in June 2020 as a new email service, initially priced at $99 a year after a 14-day trial. Its Screener asked whether an unfamiliar sender should be allowed in. Accepted messages could go to the Imbox for important correspondence, the Feed for newsletters, or the Paper Trail for receipts and similar records. These named areas explained how the service expected people to handle email differently. Launch coverage · Product presentation

The current site preserves testimonials about early demonstrations from Product Hunt founder Ryan Hoover and Kevin Rose. They document private demos to recognizable people before general adoption; they do not establish how many customers those endorsements generated. Testimonials

The invitation rollout

Staff’s launch retrospective describes a mailing list built over several months and an initial June 15 release of 100 invitations. The team intended to increase access gradually while checking systems and support demand. Fried and Hansson initially planned to answer the support emails themselves. The original April launch had been delayed during the pandemic. Staff account

June 2020: the launch and dispute ran together

Fried reported 125,000 signups in HEY’s first 11 days. The figure did not identify paying customers. Interview

The campaign’s concrete parts

The company built an Apple vs. HEY page that assembled DHH’s tweets, the dispute chronology, its response, and selected coverage from the BBC, CNBC, The New York Times, The Verge, EFF, and others. It also linked to the Coalition for App Fairness. The archive keeps the external dispute within HEY’s sales site. Campaign archive

The June 22 response used a different tone: it thanked Apple, described the product changes, and ended by offering Phil Schiller a free HEY address. The team also created a separate comparison site collecting apps that required an existing account. Response and links

Assessment: the materials gave reporters a product story, a documented App Store dispute, recognizable opponents, and an existing antitrust context. The archive does not support claiming that Basecamp engineered Apple’s rejection or that controversy explains all the signups.

Privacy as a product demonstration

HEY calls email tracking pixels “spy trackers,” identifies detected trackers inside messages, and names services it blocks on a dedicated page. That turns an invisible technical behavior into something users can notice. The page also promises not to add trackers to outgoing mail. These are product and positioning choices; this research does not independently test its blocking rate. Privacy page

Late 2020: HEY for Work

HEY for Work extended the service to company email using the organization’s own domain. It turned a personal subscription into an option for a business choosing where its staff’s email would live.

In the December rollout interview, Fried said the team had originally started with workplace email, then released the personal version first. Work invitations initially focused on companies with fewer than ten people. He reported more than 30,000 paying personal customers—a different measure from launch-period signups. Public Work signup was still planned for early January 2021. Rollout interview

2021: HEY became a publishing platform

On February 22, Fried published the first experimental HEY World post by emailing world@hey.com. He described wanting longer writing without setting up a conventional blog. Signal v. Noise then stopped publishing new work and directed readers to individual HEY World blogs. First post · Closure notice

This changed the publishing arrangement: a shared company publication gave way to founder and employee sites hosted by the new product. The policy dispute two months later unfolded partly on those sites.

2024: Calendar produced another Apple dispute

HEY Calendar added scheduling to the email service in January 2024. Apple initially rejected its iOS app. The team added a usable preview calendar containing events from Apple’s own history. DHH announced approval on January 9 and said about 85% of paying HEY customers used Macs and iPhones. The example made the preview usable while drawing attention to the reason it had been added. Approval account

HEY also bought a Daring Fireball RSS sponsorship dated January 15, 2024. It promoted the combined email-and-calendar offer. The page explicitly labels it as sponsorship; it belongs in the paid-media record. Sponsored placement

2025: a change in the U.S. signup flow

On May 20, DHH announced that U.S. iPhone users could create a regular address and follow an external web-payment flow. He credited Epic’s litigation and said the temporary-account workaround could be removed. This was a later distribution change, not part of the original 2020 compromise. Announcement

07 / 2021 dispute

The workplace-policy dispute

April–May 2021: announcements, employee accounts, reporting, and departures.

In April 2021, Basecamp’s internal management became the subject of a public dispute. The founders had spent years publishing advice about how a workplace should operate. Employees now challenged their account of problems inside that workplace, and the disagreement led to substantial departures.

April 26: six policy changes

Fried announced restrictions on political and societal discussion in the company’s Basecamp account; removal of specified lifestyle benefits in exchange for cash; elimination of committees; less reopening of past decisions; an end to 360-degree reviews; and a narrower definition of the company’s responsibilities. He presented the package as a new version of the company. Original announcement

DHH’s accompanying explanation allowed politics on personal accounts and retained company advocacy on matters such as antitrust, privacy, and employee surveillance. The written policy was therefore narrower than a ban on founders expressing political views anywhere. Scope and exceptions

April 27: reporting and a named employee’s response

Casey Newton reported that the immediate dispute concerned a longstanding list of customer names that staff had treated as funny, including names of Asian or African origin, and employee efforts on diversity and inclusion. Employees told him their discussions concerned conduct inside Basecamp. His account challenged the founders’ presentation of the problem as general political debate. Breaking Camp

Data analyst Jane Yang published an open letter describing earlier disputes over product-use restrictions, hate speech, and harassment. She argued that the new policies suppressed concerns from employees whose experience differed from the owners’. Her May 3 update said she had decided to leave because of the policies. Employee letter

April 28: DHH publishes internal exchanges and severance terms

DHH acknowledged that the customer-name list was inappropriate and a failure of leadership. He objected to employees’ use of a framework linking biased behavior to escalating violence. He published internal excerpts after Newton’s reporting, while defending the new rules. Founder response

The post disclosed an exit offer made the previous day: up to six months’ salary for people with more than three years’ tenure and three months for those with less. This turned disagreement with the new rules into an immediate employment decision: stay under those rules or leave with the offered payment. Severance terms

April 30: the all-hands meeting and exits

Newton’s follow-up, based on six employee interviews and a partial transcript, reported that at least 20 of 57 employees intended to accept buyouts after the meeting. It also reported the suspension and subsequent resignation of Ryan Singer, who had helped design the original Basecamp and later wrote Shape Up. Employees disputed the founders’ handling of the discussion as well as the policy. Meeting report

May 4: apology without reversal

Fried accepted responsibility for the consequences and apologized. He explicitly said the policies would remain, with clarification and refinement. The post separately addressed departing staff, remaining staff, and customers; it emphasized continued operations and support. Full update

What changed in the public record

Assessment: the founders had often used their workplace as evidence for management advice. During this dispute, employees published competing accounts and supplied information to a reporter. Reading only the founder announcements omits the disagreement over what had happened inside the company.

The sources establish substantial staff departures and public criticism. They do not establish the lasting revenue effect or justify describing the event as either commercially harmless or commercially disastrous.

08 / 37signals returns

A company name for several products

2022–2023 · The restored name, the cloud exit, and developer tools.

HEY made the single-product company name awkward. Basecamp was now both the maker of an email service and a project-management application sold alongside it. In May 2022, the business restored the name 37signals, giving the products a common parent identity again. Contemporaneous record

In their 2023 naming discussion, Fried and Hansson explained that the change reflected the return to multiple products. The 2014 name had followed a decision to focus; the 2022 name followed a decision to broaden again. This also made hiring and company communication less dependent on the name of one application. Naming explanation

Basecamp keeps evolving

Basecamp 4 arrived in 2022 as an update to the Basecamp 3 line, introduced by Fried with a 21-minute demonstration. By September 2026, the company’s site presents Basecamp 5, including calendar changes, subtasks, navigation changes, and tools for programmatic access. These are successive versions of the project-management product, alongside HEY and later Fizzy. Version 4 · Version 5

The infrastructure decision becomes public

37signals announced a move away from rented cloud infrastructure and began publishing the economics behind it. Its January 2023 report itemized $3.2 million in cloud spending during 2022. That gave the debate a specific company, workload, and bill, rather than leaving it at an abstract preference for owning servers. Cost breakdown

On June 23, Hansson reported completing the migration of its applications. He described roughly $500,000 spent on servers and projected annual savings of at least $1.5 million without expanding the operations team. These were the company’s costs and forecast at that point. The move also included the old applications that it had promised to maintain. Migration report

Tools alongside the argument

Kamal, introduced in 2023, is software for deploying web applications onto servers. It supplied a usable tool alongside the company’s case for running on owned or directly rented hardware. Its announcement included a demonstration and an MIT license. Hotwire, introduced in December 2020, addressed a different layer: building responsive web interfaces while sending HTML from the server and reducing the need for extensive browser-side JavaScript. Both extended the practice begun with Rails of publishing tools developed around the company’s own work. Deployment tool · Interface approach

The next commercial experiment would ask customers to take on hosting too. ONCE proposed selling applications for a single payment so customers could run them on their own servers.

09 / ONCE & Fizzy

ONCE and Fizzy

One-time purchases, free software, hosted subscriptions, and subsequent changes.

ONCE: the initial proposition

In November 2023, Fried argued for a category of software bought once and run on the buyer’s server. This accompanied the company’s continued subscription businesses. The first ONCE product was a new Campfire, released publicly on February 1, 2024. It brought back the group-chat name for an application buyers installed and operated themselves. This was a new product and purchase model, separate from the original hosted Campfire still maintained for older customers. Positioning essay · Release announcement

Writebook followed on July 3, 2024, offered free from the start. Writebook let a person organize text and images into a book and publish it on the web. The product turned the company’s experience publishing its own web books into installable software. It included the Rails source and a command-based installer. Launch announcement

Fizzy: a separate tool for tracking work

Fizzy organizes work as cards on a kanban board: a team moves a card between columns as its status changes. It offers a smaller workspace for tracking items than Basecamp’s broader combination of project discussions, files, and schedules.

Previews began months before release

By June 2025, Fried was showing work-in-progress videos on X and LinkedIn, roughly weekly or every two weeks. He described the purpose as showing changes, not collecting votes on a roadmap. Some videos exceeded LinkedIn’s then-15-minute limit; he said he left mistakes unedited. Process interview

December 3, 2025: two founder announcements

Fried addressed users and competitors. His launch post named Trello, Jira, Asana, and GitHub Issues, criticized their complexity, and offered a simpler kanban tool. It positioned Basecamp for larger projects and Fizzy for smaller workflows. Fried explicitly welcomed the possibility that Fizzy would replace some lighter Basecamp use. User-facing announcement

Hansson addressed developers. His post emphasized the available code, self-hosting, contributions, and preserved development history. He explained that the O’Saasy license reserved the right to sell a competing hosted service to 37signals, and acknowledged that this fell outside the technical meaning of Open Source. Developer announcement

The launch offer allowed 1,000 cards free, then charged $20 a month for unlimited cards and users. Self-hosting was free. Launch terms

The product page and supporting material

Fizzy’s site pairs a 17-minute CEO tour with a 90-second property-management example. The first shows the whole product; the second demonstrates a use outside software development. Screenshots show small details such as card stamps, automatic closure, and stacked notifications. Product page

One Page Love featured the site on launch day, noting its conversational presentation and the Cartridge and Scorekard typefaces. Design feature

Brian Bailey’s December 17 account described a team that started with one designer and one programmer working with Fried, growing to two designers and four programmers before launch. They adapted the company’s Shape Up development method for work on a new application, dropping its usual “betting table”—the meeting where leaders choose which projects to fund with the next cycle of team time. Development account

2026: ONCE changes its business model

On March 16, DHH said the original ONCE business model had not worked. Campfire had recovered its investment, but customers had not shown enough appetite for one-time purchases of self-hosted web apps. He announced an application server under the same name, designed to run multiple apps on one machine with updates and backups. Results and relaunch

Fizzy’s later free offer

Fizzy’s current page offers hosted use free, funded by Basecamp and HEY, with a 1 GB file-storage limit. That differs from the December launch price. The exact date of the pricing change was not established here. Current terms

The current code license still restricts competing hosted offerings. “Code available” and “free to run yourself” accurately describe those rights without treating the license as unrestricted open source. License text

Two audiences for the same launch

The launch served two audiences with different evidence: users saw demos, use cases, and price; developers could inspect the implementation and contribute. The later announcements also supply a record of changed commercial assumptions. The preserved posts make those changes visible.

10 / Omarchy

Omarchy’s communications

A DHH-led Linux project, incubated at 37signals, with a growing public identity of its own.

Omarchy is an operating-system distribution: a prepared Linux desktop that users install on their computers. Its relationship to 37signals follows the developer-tool side of the company’s history, while its demos and visual identity reach people beyond users of Basecamp or HEY.

From Omakub to Omarchy

DHH introduced Omakub on June 6, 2024: a prepared Ubuntu developer environment installed with one command. Its premise was that users could accept a curated set of tools and settings instead of configuring everything themselves. Original announcement

Omarchy launched on June 26, 2025, combining the Arch Linux operating system, the Hyprland desktop compositor, and DHH’s preferred applications and settings. Hyprland supplies the desktop’s window arrangement and much of its visual behavior. The announcement offered people his own daily setup, acknowledged that it would require learning, and linked to the existing Linux customization culture around r/unixporn and PewDiePie’s Linux build. Launch essay

At launch, he called Omarchy a sister project to Omakub. Omakub’s current notice says its repositories are archived and directs readers toward Omarchy. Later status

The relationship to 37signals

On August 9, 2025, DHH announced a three-year plan to move the company’s operations and Ruby programming teams to Omarchy as hardware was replaced. He named Framework laptops and Framework and Beelink desktops. The company published a REWORK episode and linked the internal announcement. Adoption plan · Episode and memo

The plan connects the project to the company’s own working environment. It describes a gradual migration over three years; it does not establish that every employee has already switched.

What they executed

2026: a foundation and patron announcements

The current site identifies the Omacom Foundation as a nonprofit supporting development, maintenance, and distribution. It credits 37signals as the incubator and lists staff and sponsorships for underlying projects. Structure

On September 9, 2026, the project announced DigitalOcean’s pledge of $1 million a year for three years. DHH described approaching its CEO on X, then completing discussions and a proposal within days. The pledge funds the foundation supporting Omarchy. Pledge and process

Why the presentation is worth studying

Assessment: Omarchy gives enthusiasm a visual subject. A viewer can watch a desktop reorganize or a theme change, then install that environment. Documentation and community contributions extend the demonstration beyond DHH’s own channels. Named hardware, creator videos, and a recognizable visual style give different communities specific things to discuss.

No reviewed source measures how many Omarchy users later become Basecamp or HEY customers.

11 / Publishing & media

Books, workshops, and media

Formats, prices, distribution, and publicity.

The company’s public writing developed into a second body of work alongside its applications. Workshops taught the methods used to build the software; books reached readers outside the product audience; magazines and podcasts gave staff a continuing publishing role.

Workshops before books

By November 2005, 37signals said it had sold out six Building of Basecamp workshops. It renamed the next event Getting Real to cover work on Backpack and Writeboard as well. The January 27, 2006 Chicago event offered 50 seats at $695 each, including meals, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. An update reported a sellout in 12 hours. Workshop announcement

Getting Real, 2006

Getting Real turned the company’s software-development approach into a book for people building web applications. It advocated small teams, limited scope, designing actual screens early, and improving a working product through successive releases. Readers could apply the method without becoming Basecamp customers. Book introduction

The first edition launched on March 1 as a 171-page PDF for $19. By October 25, the company reported 23,000 PDF sales. It then added a free HTML edition and a 190-page paperback sold through Lulu for $29. Initial release · Format expansion

Rework, 2010

Crown published Rework on March 9. Fried and Hansson widened their subject from making web applications to starting and running a business. They questioned the need for outside investors, extensive planning, rapid hiring, and long working hours, addressing small-business owners and would-be founders beyond the software industry. The publisher’s page carries endorsements from Chris Anderson, Tom Peters, Mark Cuban, Scott Rosenberg, and William C. Taylor. Publisher record

Promotion included short comedy videos. A February 16 post featured a conference-call sketch as the second trailer, linked the first, and directed preorders to Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, and 800-CEO-READ. Trailer post

Remote, 2013

Remote: Office Not Required appeared on October 29, 2013. It extended the founders’ writing about distributed work into a separate book. Publisher record

We Work Remotely launched a week after Remote, replacing the company’s general job board. Posting was free for the first 24 hours, then $200 for 30 days. The launch linked the book directly. In the comments, DHH said software remained the company’s main income; a customer questioned whether side projects were distracting from Highrise. Announcement and replies

The Distance, 2014–17

The company launched The Distance in May 2014 to cover privately held businesses operating for at least 25 years. Its first subject was Chicago’s Horween Leather Company, founded in 1905. Fried said subjects did not pay to appear and the publication was not intended to make money at that point. Launch post

Wailin Wong announced the final podcast episode on August 1, 2017. Wong and producer Shaun Hildner moved to REWORK, which would cover bootstrapping, small businesses, and slow growth without the 25-year requirement. Transition announcement

It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work, 2018

It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work argued for protecting employees’ time through reasonable hours, fewer interruptions and meetings, and less pressure for constant growth. Fried and Hansson used practices from their own company to support that argument. The October book launch included reviews and podcast appearances. In November, Hansson disclosed that the authors had hired their own PR agency, designed and illustrated the book internally, and done the material editing themselves. Book announcement · Publishing account

He said Harper Business paid a mid-six-figure advance but printed only 14,000 copies initially. Amazon’s 3,300-copy allocation sold out by October 6; restocking took about a month. He contrasted first-week sales of 3,300 through Amazon with 240 through Barnes & Noble. This is the author’s account; this research did not establish the publisher’s response. Figures and dispute

Shape Up, 2019

Ryan Singer published Shape Up, a guide to the company’s product-development method. It explains how teams define a problem and scope a project before committing a small team to build it. In a July 23 podcast, he described an earlier one-day workshop charging $1,000 a seat. Teaching it helped him identify what readers needed explained in the book. Interview, 04:43

Selected outside coverage

• Macworld, February 2004: early product coverage tied Basecamp to blogging and client communication. Article
• Wall Street Journal, May 2005: a company post records Thomas Weber’s article on collaborative online lists and Jeremy Wagstaff’s article on online reminders. Weber’s piece appeared in the Marketplace section. The original articles were not independently reviewed here. Coverage record
• Chicagoist, February 2006: a joint founder interview covered product positioning, free tools, Rails, and hiring. Fried said national attention had been easier to obtain than local coverage. Interview
• WIRED, February 2008: a profile included customers and critics, including questions about the limits of the company’s simplicity claims. Profile
• Inc.: Fried wrote the Get Real column. The author archive offers a record of recurring business commentary. Author archive

From a shared blog to individual sites

Signal v. Noise’s closure notice directs readers to the writers’ HEY World blogs and preserves the old archive. The company thus retired a publication while using its audience to introduce its publishing product. Closure notice

12 / Interviews & talks

Interviews and public appearances

A chronological reading and listening list.

13 / Comms practices

Communications across the record

Specific practices, examples, and limits.

They repeatedly make company decisions public

Renamings, product reductions, the cloud exit, the 2021 policy changes, and ONCE’s changed model all became founder announcements. The record includes explanations of choices that customers might otherwise experience only as a changed product or price. Renamings · Policy changes · ONCE revision

They publish reusable work

Rails, Hotwire, Kamal, Shape Up, Writebook, and Omarchy give people something they can use without buying Basecamp. Each reaches a different task: writing applications, deploying them, organizing product work, publishing, or setting up a computer. The releases also provide subjects for demonstrations and teaching. Hotwire · Kamal · Writebook

They establish institutions around the work

The Rails Foundation launched in November 2022 with $1 million from eight founding corporate members: Cookpad, Doximity, Fleetio, GitHub, Intercom, Procore, Shopify, and 37signals. DHH chaired the board. Its remit expressly included documentation, education, marketing, and events; the Rails Core Team retained responsibility for the framework. Founding announcement

Omacom now provides a separate structure for Omarchy staff, patrons, underlying-project sponsorships, and visual contributors. Foundation

They adapt the format to the audience

The format usually gives the audience something it can inspect. Early web designers could compare a 37better redesign with the original site. Prospective Basecamp customers could see its dashboard and join a workshop. Programmers could download Rails. Fizzy viewers could follow changes through successive product videos. Omarchy makes a configured desktop visible before asking someone to install it. The common feature is a concrete demonstration alongside the opinion.

They also buy distribution

The record includes affiliate credits, a hired book PR agency, a paid Daring Fireball sponsorship, and marketing experiments discussed in their podcast. “Founder-led” does not imply that the work was all unpaid. Referrals · Book publicity · Sponsorship · Marketing account

They name the alternatives they oppose

Fizzy’s launch names competing tools. HEY’s dispute names Apple and reproduces its decisions. The cloud series names the supplier and publishes costs. Readers can identify the specific product, policy, or expense being criticized. Competitors · App Store dispute · Costs

Their archive records disagreement too

Old comments contain product requests, objections to side projects, and founder replies. The 2021 record adds named employee criticism and independent reporting. Those sources matter because the company’s own account is also part of what this research examines. Reader discussion · Employee account

Traffic and conversion: two published measurements

In March 2012, analyst Noah Lorang examined a month of Hacker News referrals. About 105,000 unique visitors arrived from the site. Among 24,826 identified first-time visitors, 97 signed up; more than 85% chose free accounts. He estimated roughly $300 in monthly revenue from the measured traffic. Attribution and the observation window limit the result. Traffic analysis

In 2015, Lorang described restoring a signup form removed from the homepage in 2014. The test increased signups by 16%; the company estimated the missed opportunity in millions of dollars. The estimate was not an audited revenue result. Conversion analysis

Attention and acquisition are different measures

The Hacker News analysis and homepage test offer limited, specific commercial evidence. They cannot price the value of a book, an open-source community, a podcast appearance, or a public dispute. The history supports describing what the company did and what people reported; broader causal claims need more data. Referral measurement · Signup test

14 / Sources

Sources and research limits

128 source entries

Research checked September 18, 2026. Original announcements, transcripts, and archived comments receive priority. Later founder recollections are identified as such. Source dates refer to publication unless noted.

Company-reported signups, traffic, revenue, and sales figures are not audited here. Free accounts, users, organizations, and paying customers are different measures. No exact Bezos investment amount or ownership percentage was established.

Access limits: Mixergy was reviewed through indexed excerpts; the Startup School entry through its video description; the 2005 Wall Street Journal items through the company’s coverage record. The interview list does not imply every recording was watched or heard in full.

Source library