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`1:16:50`

out how to describe Basecamp versus I just said it in 12 seconds and like that was better than anything I've ever written basically. But you know this happens all the time it's so easy to fall into this trap but it's telling that you do too after all these years. The challenge is…

`1:17:38`

who you're writing this for. There's this sort of feeling that you're writing it for your company but you're writing it for customers and these people know basically nothing about you. And so you really have to keep saying would I say this to someone I met on the street If I'm…

`1:18:26`

is part of the problem that websites have a there's many different ways to do them but they have this format where there's like blocks of text and a picture and another block of text and a block of color and there's like it's it's all it's all shattered. You know…

`1:19:11`

certainly going to finish because it's not that long and hopefully I'm pulling them through and it's you're able to read a letter you're it's hard to read a website how should it be different? I like long-form like more of a long-form old-school like direct mail style…

`1:19:57`

New York Times article that was just like Sometimes they do really beautiful visual articles, but if it wasn't an article format, it was like a web design page format of an article, you'd be like weird. I can't read this. I don't I can't absorb this. I don't know what…

`1:20:44`

this comes down to people talking to people and there's all this fluff about business, the ties in the corporate world, all the corporate speak, but fundamentally it's just you're communicating to another human being and do not forget that. That's it. That's it. And I think business like the idea of…

`1:21:29`

stuff, you wouldn't try so hard and over try to have this message that you want to get out and and and and lather it in bad formats and buzzwords and jargon. You would just say the damn thing. Like you're having a conversation with somebody. We could not have written this conversation out. I…

`1:22:15`

So, Getting Real was in the early days. I think we published that in 2006 maybe. I don't remember exactly when that was, but it was pretty early on. Um and it was it was like our back in the day this was basically our method for building software and it was written to an audience…

`1:23:01`

chest cuz you don't share your business secrets. But instead, they write cookbooks and they put their recipes out there for the whole world to see. They're not afraid of somebody buying that cookbook and then opening a restaurant next to theirs and putting them out of business with the same food. They're not…

`1:23:49`

I mean I was You know, as I was reading it, it could have come out a few years ago and you know, there's a few things that would have changed, but not that Yeah. And what's behind that you think that you really had the sort of sense of vision for the company that…

`1:24:35`

like we kept doing it, but also getting back to some of the earliest things we talked about, it just feels natural for us. We do not try to be this way. We are this way. And that is why I think we're good at it. When you try to be a way that you are…

`1:25:21`

take it next. And this is what hurts. And so, I think a lot of people who try to copy a style, it's okay to copy by the way like to learn, but then you've got to find your own way. And so, I think these books are the result of us have found we…

`1:26:08`

we started this was like a scared, uh proprietary, secret world of like everything's important, let's patent everything, it's ours, no one can know what we're doing and everything's stealth. It's like I don't buy any of that for a minute. I like let's just share it all, let…

`1:26:53`

achieved and do some of the things that you've done. Like it's that's very aligned with the vision that I want for my life. And when I think of that, my fingers clench, I get tight. I'm like you need to do this. You know what I mean? And this this inversion that…

`1:27:40`

And by by relaxing your grip, you get I think that people have too tight a grip on business and think what they need to do is all these other things. And if you just lighten up a little bit and part of that is not paying So, I don't read industry news. I don't…

`1:28:26`

like had to find its own way and um I feel like if if you grew up that way, like we founded our business in Chicago outside of Silicon Valley. Had we been in Silicon Valley, we would have been a very different business and I think we would have been out of business. Right. Because we…

`1:29:13`

place. It nothing's very clear and clean and as it appears. People are making everything up as they go. Nobody knows really what they're doing and but there's this this air of like if you just follow this path it's going to be killer. You're going to be And like I'd…

`1:29:59`

different. Everyone's got their own way. There's one thing that stands out. There's just one sentence from how I write all these episodes is you can do whatever you want but whatever it is that you do choose you got to be really really really good at what you do and the only way…

`1:30:45`

and and and you're going to find yourself there's a there's going to be more ease. I think you want to get to the place where things do feel easy and we can push ourselves into places that feel hard because we think that it's going to be better if it's harder…

`0:00:00`

The reason I think it's great for entrepreneurs to start bootstrapping is because they just have more practice making money, and they get better, and better, and better at the fundamental skill you need to have ultimately to run a successful business, which is to make money. Hopefully, I don't come off as encouraging everyone…