Today, I run 37signals, a software and design firm that I co-founded in 1999. Sales have grown at double-digit rates every year for the past decade; so have profits. (Like many private companies, we don't disclose revenue.) How did I learn how to do this? I have a degree in finance, but I don't remember taking any classes that even remotely taught me how to make money. I've read plenty of business books. Same thing—lots of talk about money, but not much about how to actually make the stuff.

A few months ago we redesigned 37signals.com — our main site. I want to share with you a few iterations and permutations I created along the way. I’ll also give a little insight into the discussions we had about each design: what we saved for the next version and what we axed because it wasn’t working.

When you think of great writing lessons, you usually don’t think of late-night TV hosts. But Conan O’Brien’s “People of Earth” letter was a pitch-perfect response to a crisis situation.

Notes from creators of products that don't exist anymore reflecting on the problems they had.

“I think that ‘Designed by Apple in California’ is the most brilliant thing to ever appear on a package,” I wrote on the application-site that was mentioned in yesterday’s post on sites that landed jobs at 37signals. SvN reader Michael P. Mills asked:

Ignoring the blank slate stage is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. The blank slate is your app's first impression and you never get a second...well, you know.

Sure, some customers will complain, and others might take their business elsewhere. But there’s a good chance you don’t want those kinds of customers, anyway.

Allen & Company, which is currently run by Herb Allen, nephew of the founder, generally shies away from publicity and does not maintain a website or issue press releases.

When you’re in the software business you’ll inevitably be asked if your company offers special pricing for non-profits. I wanted to share my thoughts on the topic for a while now, so here’s a blog post.

charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Harrison’s personal journey is compelling and it was interesting to hear how CW’s unorthodox approach, especially when it comes to branding and transparency, has helped it stand out from other charities.

Some screenshots we’ve discussed recently in Campfire:

Start making something. If you want to learn web design, make a website. Want to be an entreprenuer and start a business selling web based products? Make an app. Maybe you don’t have the skills yet, but why worry about that? You probably don’t even know what skills you need.

In REWORK, we talk about how you need to be willing to let your customers outgrow you. There are more people who are not using your product than people who are; You need to make sure you make it easy for these people to get on board. That’s where your continued growth potential lies.

One rough spot had to do with sign-ups. When you sign up for our products, you can either create a new account from scratch or you can identify yourself as an existing customer. Existing customers can use the same username, see their 37signals apps in one place (Launchpad), re-use their avatar and so on. Basically it’s a big time saver and a big convenience. The problem was very few customers took advantage of the feature. Our support staff often heard from customers with multiple accounts who had no idea that they could link their accounts into a single 37signals ID. So we had a design problem on our hands. Why weren’t people logging in on the sign up screen?

James Laver was a museum curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from the ‘30s through the ‘50s. He was also a fashion theorist and historian who conceived Laver’s Law — an attempt to make sense of the fashion trend lifecycle.

Here is Laver’s Law:

If you are trying to decide between a few people to fill a position, always hire the better writer.

A few weeks ago we decided to take a stab at redesigning the Basecamp home page. We liked the current design, but we wanted to see if we could do better. Specifically we were interested in more visuals, less text, and a generally simpler and less dense presentation.

Jobs is lucid and reasoned. Ballmer is… Hell, I don’t even know how to describe it. He’s all over the place. No clear definitions, just randomly running his mouth. Compared to Jobs, I think it’s charitable to call him pathetic.

Jobs needs worthy opponents and Ballmer isn’t it. Look at this chart of Microsoft’s market value from the Gates to Ballmer hand-over:

At the UIE Web App Masters Tour in Minneapolis MN, 37signals founder, Jason Fried described how 37signals solves design problems and collaborates by showing four days worth of chat transcripts about an ongoing redesign project at the company.

Go from brainstorm to sketches to HTML to coding
Here's the process we use to Get Real: