Better. Stronger. Smaller
Reading the follow-ups to SXSW from around the web I hear an idea bandied about that hit home for me. The new tech boom that is going on all around us is not like the 90's [dot] coms. Instead of companies that offer everything, small teams of developers are interested in meeting real needs with brilliantly small innovation.
From Apple's iPod to Basecamp to Flickr, we see these examples all around us. The take-away for most people has been inspiration that you too can build something beautiful that people with similar needs will appreciate.
The other point, that is not as often discussed, is that this this approach offers a sustainable business model.
This business model can perpetuate itself because it does not depend on crushing competition. Instead, each niche product thrives on the innovation of other, seemingly unrelated, work.
We all talk about the innovative UI of flickr but the power of flickr is greater than the oomph is gives users. Users of these cutting edge products who are web designers are thinking about how to use the amazing techniques deployed there in their own apps.
As ethical creative people, we aren't going to rip off flickr to build a photo app, flickr already solved our immediate photo needs. Instead we will learn from the effective use of a single UI for presentation and editing in our own work. We will be inspired by brilliance to solve the problems that touch us directly.
This impulse is at the heart of what the web is for. The ego implication is that these innovators are able to build niche products and them promote themselves to the industry as innovators and icons. Jason Fried speaks at conferences not only because he is a thinker but because he did it: he built Basecamp, a product that we love to use and love to think of ways to improve.
Jim Coudal, whose CSS typography serves as the obvious basis of my font work on this site, is one of the most extreme example of the business implication of this form of work. Coudal Partners still does client work but increasingly their small entrepreneurial ventures are their biggest clients.
Coudal needed custom CD cases for a project and realized that all of the available options sucked. CP rightly thought that if they needed this product and had a hard time finding it then other people would have the same problem. Jewelboxing, the brand they created out of this need, is now one of their largest operations.
One of the partners wanted better live concert recordings so they started The Show to create a "new standard in live concert recording and custom marketed and designed limited-editions." Using Jewelboxing cases, CP will record, mix, and market limited edition live recordings of concerts in Boston, Chicago, and Manchester UK.
Basecamp was born as an internal project. 37 Signals needed a project management app and all the available options were at once too expensive and too cumbersome. They built a better mousetrap and it is now their flagship offering. Those of us who remember them from their days as 404 error page experts are pleased with this development because we want the apps we use every day to be built on the cutting edge.
The downside of this development, as Jason readily admits, is that when you build a product halfway instead of building a half-ass product you won't get everything right. There are imperfections in Basecamp and Jewelboxing could use better paper. However, and this is the gorgeous part of this type of development, when I asked Jim Coudal about the paper he told me that they just got a new paper option that is gorgeous and I should call him to see about making volume purchases for my media production projects.
Small products made well by small teams are flexible and credible. I can e-mail these guys and they reply. The support and the developer are literally the same guy.
These kinds of business don't need to compete with each-other. There is an untamed wilderness of niche needs on the Internet and no end of creativity out their that will meet them. This is the romantic vision of the tech boom: collaborative competition, turning every need into a beautiful, authentic product and making a little money at the same time. And while you're at, inspire the other guy.
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Who is this guy?
Thanks Sam. Right on the money. One tiny correction though. For The Show, we're recording concerts everywhere, not just in Boston, Chi and Manchester. Tonight, for example, we're in Cologne Germany with Dead Can Dance and we've got some big news to announce on this front soon.