Company Profile: Basecamp
Origin Story
Basecamp, or originally named 37signals, and was founded 1999 in Chicago, IL by Ernest Kim, Carlos Segura and Jason Fried as a web design firm.
In 2001, David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) wrote Jason Fried an email when he asked a PHP question on his blog. Jason decided to hire me rather than learn how to program1. David went on to create Ruby on Rails (open sourced in 2004) at 37signals while building Basecamp, the product.
37signals was always very public about the organization and how they worked. They published their manifesto and had an active blog SignalvNoise, started in 2006 (at least that's as far back as the archives go). SignalvNoise is described as ‘our weblog with ongoing dialogue and musings on the web world, design, entertainment, politics and whatever else we feel like talking about on that given day.’
In 2006 37signals also took on their only investor, Jeff Bezos. The Bezos deal was a bit unconventional because of the simplicity of 37signals set up and their vision to never be purchased.
2006 was a big year for them because in addition to taking on an investor, they also published their first of 5 books, Getting Real. 37signals was positioning themselves not only as a company but as a source for thought leadership. It was a company that a lot of people looked up to and strived to emulate.
On February 4, 2014 they officially changed their name to Basecamp, which was their most popular product, a project management tool.
Funding
nada
Today
Basecamp, according to leadership, has always been a successful and profitable organization. Their website touts 3.5 million accounts signed up to date.
Most recently, they are trying to get into the email game. In 2020 they released Hey, a paid email service with a ‘point of view.’
Details
Number of Employees 57 (per company page)
Employees Open to Opportunities: 12% (per LinkedIn Recruiter) *note that they just posted that folks who disagreed with policy changes could accept a severance package and I personally know 8 people who have opted into that (they are not listed as looking on LI)
Location - HQ in Chicago - WFH global
Compensation - No location based pay
Web Says
Glassdoor- no reviews
HRC- n/a
InHerSight - no reviews
Three Interesting Things
App store battle - To say Apple and Hey do not get along is to put it lightly. Hey, in fact, has an entire page dedicated to Apple and the drama they have been through together. Hey is now on the App store, but one can’t help but wonder about the origin story here because DHH has had public beef with Apple for years. This includes his claim in 2019 that the Apple card is sexist which led to an investigation.
2021 policy changes - On April 26, 2021, Jason put out a now infamous blog post about internal changes at Basecamp. These include the banning of political/societal discussions on Basecamp accounts, dismembering committees (including their recently founded DEI committee) and ending 360 reviews. This caused A LOT of turmoil and public discourse, likely because it seemed like a complete 180 from the original values of the company. Shortly after an investigative report on the company was published airing some, not so pretty laundry from the company's past, including talk of a list of customer names employees think are funny. DHH responded with more blogs including one that outlined details of severance packages offered to employees if they don’t like the current changes.
Ruby on Rails - There’s no denying that the creation of Rails is/was huge in the technology industry and having that come out of a small shop is pretty cool. A quick search for ‘rails’ jobs on Linkedin (US) brings over 10,000 jobs. Thoughts about the creator aside, Rails will have a lasting impact for the foreseeable future.
Leadership
Jason Fried - Co-founder & CEO
David Heinemeier Hansson - Co-founder & CTO
Board of Directors
Maybe Jeff Bezos (?) - I couldn’t quite tell