Okay, usually I just disagree when folks say there's a certain degree of arrogance in 37Signals bloggings somemtimes, but I've got to comment that it's certainly evident here.
I certainly see the point David is trying to make in this writing about the competitiveness of the startup scene, and it certainly makes sense to know what's going on out there before you jump in head first you're going to get burned.
But good lord, if you pride yourselves on building quality products, have a quality blog behind it that doesn't punch readers in the face like that.
He only had success with one item that he was selling to, or using for, his existing clientele, and developed the rest of the products, and started his blog, and persona, to capitalize on that.
So the real question isn't what's the best idea out there right now, or if ideas are worth anything until they're made, but what simple thing can you make that will give you some traction right now... All his other products and blog posts are just a distraction from the real, key birth of his original product, and why it succeeded (he had a clientele, and made the product to track them), and it is THOSE things that should be noticed and looked at, NOT what the person does after they've already become famous, popular, and rich. Well you probably might want to copy those things since that maintains popularity and stirs up debate, but as far as doing your own startup, that's what you want to think about... how do you get that initial customer base... even if the idea isn't something big... and what did the person do in the initial 3mo, 6mo, 1 year. Better yet, not what he did but why. But definitely not what they suggest doing 6 years later when the landscape has changed.
David is an expert at what he did 3-5 years ago, with what the landscape was back then. That is a long time ago. Since then, 37Signals has been a media company, which ANYBODY can play once they're successful, pointing at themselves being successful as the reason others should listen to them... even though they're out of the loop now (I am America, and so can you!). It's the same thing as a 100 year old company stating they are successful and therefore you should take their advice and work for them, though everything has been almost on autopilot compared to the uncertainty of the first year.
If you're applying for a designer job at a small slightly famous company, against tons of competition, and you can't take 1 minute to double check that you spell the company name exactly like they do, you don't deserve to be hired.
Designers are supposed to be totally detail oriented and notice things like spacing, typography, color, font, etc. 37Signals <> 37signals and a designer should totally notice that.
They probably had a few hundred other applicants do it right and they were absolutely correct to throw out every single application that had any kind of small errors, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, etc. They still probably had too many to interview after that.
I certainly see the point David is trying to make in this writing about the competitiveness of the startup scene, and it certainly makes sense to know what's going on out there before you jump in head first you're going to get burned.
But good lord, if you pride yourselves on building quality products, have a quality blog behind it that doesn't punch readers in the face like that.