Reading all about the recent “Changes at Basecamp” announcement, and the follow-up news on the mass exodus escalation on various media, I felt like sharing my take on this, as someone in both a leadership role at a SaaS company of the same scale, and as a Basecamp customer myself.
I am not here to judge, point fingers or take sides on who is right and who is wrong, based on data leaked and official announcements from the founders. I am sure that both Jason and DHH had good intentions for their business, tried to “fix” a problem but things did not turn out as they expected.
They are for sure having a very hard time at the moment, and I can only feel sympathy for what they are going through. Being in a leadership position is really really hard and a very big responsibility both for the business you serve and the people trusting you with their time and effort to make your vision come true. And being on the spot, you are usually expected to take the right decisions all the time, be flawless… only to get “crucified” when things go south. Well, almost, unless you take the effort and build the right culture (more on that later).
Having said that, and acknowledging that nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes, or take bad decisions, I cannot help observe some bad-patterns that caught my attention.
Both Jason and DHH as very “vocal” on Twitter and their personal blogs. Following them and “listening” to them closely for about a year now, I have been perceiving a sense of arrogance. The feeling that “we know better”, “this is how things are done”, a sense of supremacy… and I was actually bought on this, because Basecamp was an amazing company to prove them right… until it was not. And I feel so bad about it because they were role models to me and I felt devastated with the news. I actually felt betrayed.
The tip of the iceberg demonstrating this “supremacy” behavior is evident on Jason’s announcement:
“…Who's responsible for these changes? David and I are. Who made the changes? David and I did. These are our calls, and the outcomes and impacts land at our doorstep...”
And I wonder why? Why did YOU have to be responsible for these changes? Where is YOUR People-Ops team on this? Where is YOUR leadership team to support you?
With a statement like this, they alienated themselves and took sides: Jason & DHH vs the rest of company. They publicly introduced 6 major changes (did it really have to be 6 in one go?), without the leadership team being aligned, backing their efforts so that they can escalate the changes top to bottom, and a take it or leave it ultimatum (again why??). The fact that department heads and senior people left the company is the evidence of that alienation, and now they pay the price for their arrogance. The rise and fall…
I believe that a successful leader is one that is humble, vulnerable and inclusive. The one that listens, leans-in and leads by example. Did I say humble? Well, humble again and again.
I really hope that this is an awaking call for Basecamp founders, an opportunity to grow and be better leaders without taking their success for granted. I really do and I hope they recover and succeed. Their are awesome people, except for they are people like everyone else.
Now onto the second part and how I do perceive these events as a Basecamp customer:
A year ago I became a Hey customer, willing to pay $99/year for an email service. The reasons I decided to become their customer are the following:
I am not here to judge, point fingers or take sides on who is right and who is wrong, based on data leaked and official announcements from the founders. I am sure that both Jason and DHH had good intentions for their business, tried to “fix” a problem but things did not turn out as they expected.
They are for sure having a very hard time at the moment, and I can only feel sympathy for what they are going through. Being in a leadership position is really really hard and a very big responsibility both for the business you serve and the people trusting you with their time and effort to make your vision come true. And being on the spot, you are usually expected to take the right decisions all the time, be flawless… only to get “crucified” when things go south. Well, almost, unless you take the effort and build the right culture (more on that later).
Having said that, and acknowledging that nobody is perfect and we all make mistakes, or take bad decisions, I cannot help observe some bad-patterns that caught my attention.
Both Jason and DHH as very “vocal” on Twitter and their personal blogs. Following them and “listening” to them closely for about a year now, I have been perceiving a sense of arrogance. The feeling that “we know better”, “this is how things are done”, a sense of supremacy… and I was actually bought on this, because Basecamp was an amazing company to prove them right… until it was not. And I feel so bad about it because they were role models to me and I felt devastated with the news. I actually felt betrayed.
The tip of the iceberg demonstrating this “supremacy” behavior is evident on Jason’s announcement:
“…Who's responsible for these changes? David and I are. Who made the changes? David and I did. These are our calls, and the outcomes and impacts land at our doorstep...”
And I wonder why? Why did YOU have to be responsible for these changes? Where is YOUR People-Ops team on this? Where is YOUR leadership team to support you?
With a statement like this, they alienated themselves and took sides: Jason & DHH vs the rest of company. They publicly introduced 6 major changes (did it really have to be 6 in one go?), without the leadership team being aligned, backing their efforts so that they can escalate the changes top to bottom, and a take it or leave it ultimatum (again why??). The fact that department heads and senior people left the company is the evidence of that alienation, and now they pay the price for their arrogance. The rise and fall…
I believe that a successful leader is one that is humble, vulnerable and inclusive. The one that listens, leans-in and leads by example. Did I say humble? Well, humble again and again.
I really hope that this is an awaking call for Basecamp founders, an opportunity to grow and be better leaders without taking their success for granted. I really do and I hope they recover and succeed. Their are awesome people, except for they are people like everyone else.
Now onto the second part and how I do perceive these events as a Basecamp customer:
A year ago I became a Hey customer, willing to pay $99/year for an email service. The reasons I decided to become their customer are the following:
- An awesome product, love at first site
- Excellent marketing and onboarding
- Be close to their product development and an opportunity to learn on how they build stuff along the way, how they release and market new features
They also sold me an uptime guarantee and trust that they are already in the business for 21 years, that I am in good hands. How do I feel with 30% of their personnel leaving the company? What if that 30% becomes 50% in the following weeks?
I feel… scared, because:
- Is the rest of the team in the mental state to cope with business maintenance? Are they are in fire-fighting mode or not?
- Is there a DevOps/SysOps team around to keep the service running?
- Am I ever going to see an app update again or anytime soon?
- Is Basecamp going to be around in the next few months? (I hope they do)
Apart from the cultural recovery they will need to recover their headcount loss. I am pretty sure there are already tons of people waiting in line to join Basecamp, however the time delta between finding the right candidate, interviewing, hiring, onboarding and becoming a fully productive team member takes…. ALOT of time. What is going to happen in the in-between? What will be the impact for me as a customer that rely on Hey every day?
On top of that, the radio silence from both founders and Hey’s Twitter account makes me feel insecure, nervous and abandoned as a user. Not looking good…
I really really want both Basecamp & Hey to continue to exist and I hope that this becomes a cleansing opportunity for them. And when the dust settles down and balance is restored, will help them drive their business forward for another 21 years. I really do.