Introduction. What is Getting Real? -- About 37signals -- Caveats, disclaimers, and other preemptive strikes -- The starting line. Build less -- What's your problem? -- Fund yourself -- Fix time and budget, flex scope -- Have an enemy -- It shouldn't be a chore -- Stay lean. Less mass -- Lower your cost of change -- The Three Musketeers -- Embrace constraints -- Be yourself -- Priorities. What's the big idea -- Ignore details early on -- It's a problem when it's a problem -- Hire the right customers -- Scale later -- Make opinionated software -- Feature selection. Half, not half-assed -- It just doesn't matter -- Start with no -- Hidden costs -- Can you handle it? -- Human solutions -- Forget feature requests -- Hold the mayo -- Process. Race to running software -- Rinse and repeat -- From idea to implementation -- Avoid preferences -- Done! -- Test in the wild -- Shrink your time -- The organization. Unity -- Alone time -- Meetings are toxic -- Seek and celebrate small victories -- Staffing. Hire less and hire later -- Kick the tires -- Actions, not words -- Get well rounded individuals -- You can't fake enthusiasm -- Wordsmiths -- Interface design. Interface first -- Epicenter design.
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Three state solution -- The blank slate -- Get defensive -- Context over consistency -- Copywriting is interface design -- One interface -- Code. Less software -- Optimize for happiness -- Code speaks -- Manage debt -- Open doors -- Words. There's nothing functional about a functional spec -- Don't do dead documents -- Tell me a quick story -- Use real words -- Personify your product -- Pricing and signup. Free samples -- Easy on, easy off -- Silly rabbit, tricks are for kids -- A softer bullet -- Promotion. Hollywood launch -- A powerful promo site -- Ride the blog wave -- Solicit early -- Promote through education -- Feature food -- Track your logs -- Inline upsell -- Name hook -- Support. Feel the pain -- Zero training -- Answer quick -- Tough love -- In fine forum -- Publicize your screwups -- Post-launch. One month tuneup -- Keep the posts coming -- Better, not beta -- All bugs are not created equal -- Ride out the storm -- Keep up with the Joneses -- Beware the bloat monster -- Go with the flow -- Conclusion. Start your engines -- 37signals resources.
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Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app -- including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers -- will find value and inspiration in this book. 37signals used the Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no outside funding, no debt, and only 7 people (distributed across 7 time zones). Over 500,000 people around the world use these applications to get things done. Now you can find out how they did it and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as you think if you Get Real. - Publisher.