A podcast about a better way to work and run your business. We bring you stories and unconventional wisdom from Basecamp’s co-founders and other business owners.

EPISODE 0097

Basecamp recently suffered three outages in a week. Programming lead Jeremy Daer and director of operations Troy Toman come on the show to discuss their approach to customer communication around these kinds of incidents. They talk about public accountability, mental health, and why the human side of incident response is just as critical as the technical details. (Read Jeremy’s post and Troy’s post on Signal v. Noise.)

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EPISODE 0096

Basecamp has closed its physical office after a 10-year run in Chicago’s West Loop area. In this episode, we say good-bye to the neighborhood and two of its businesses. J.P. Graziano and un-cooked are small, family-owned restaurants on either side of the longevity spectrum: Jim Graziano is the fourth-generation owner of an Italian food importer-turned-sandwich shop, and Jeremy Jones opened his vegan grab-and-go place with his mother and wife in July. Jim and Jeremy talk about weathering the pandemic as independent restaurant owners.

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EPISODE 0095

A group of startup founders, investors, and thinkers are reimagining corporate ownership to take into account all of the people who help build the business—not just executives and investors, but customers, users, and suppliers. Their vision for Exit to Community is outlined in this zine, and two of its authors come on Rework to talk about their vision for a more equitable and inclusive end game for tech startups.

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EPISODE 0094

We’re back from our August hiatus! To kick things off, we have a conversation with Tara Reed, the CEO of Apps Without Code. She started an online art advising business without knowing how to code, and that early success led to an entire company and educational program that teaches others how to do the same. Tara talks about her career, the tools she uses, and why she hates the term “non-technical founder.”

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BONUS EPISODE

Basecamp probably wouldn’t exist today if not for an email that David Heinemeier Hansson sent Jason Fried in 2001. That correspondence was the beginning of a partnership that produced Basecamp, several books, and most recently HEY, the company’s new email service. This episode is our love letter to email. Hear from David and Jason, as well as other artists, writers, and founders about the emails that changed their lives.

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EPISODE 0093

Basecamp released its new email service, HEY, on June 15. It was supposed to be a calm, controlled product launch, but what followed was a period that CEO Jason Fried described as “chaotic, enthralling, (and) horrible.” Basecamp got into a public fight with Apple over the HEY iOS app and the customer support team made emergency hires to help with an unprecedented caseload—all during a turbulent time for the world at large. This is the story of those two weeks, in the voices of the people who fixed bugs, answered customer emails, fended off security threats, and pulled off one of the most audacious undertakings in company history.

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EPISODE 0092

Basecamp co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson held a recent livestream session where they answered questions about HEY, the company’s new email service. You can listen to Part 1 or watch the entire livestream on YouTube.

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EPISODE 0091

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson held a livestream session where they answered audience questions about Hey, Basecamp’s new email service. In Part One, they discuss feature requests, customer support, and plans for hiring. The full Q&A can be viewed on YouTube.

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EPISODE 0090

Basecamp’s marketing designer, Adam Stoddard, talks about how Hey’s visual brand came to be. He discusses influences from Pixar to Charles and Ray Eames to The Raveonettes, and reflects on what it’s like to work as a department of one on such an all-encompassing project.

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EPISODE 0089

To show off the features of HEY, Basecamp’s new email service, we needed a fully featured and realistic demo account. That meant writing dozens of fictional emails—a task that fell to Merissa of Basecamp’s customer support team. She comes on Rework to talk about her epistolary opus.

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