I recently watched an interview with Jason Fried.
Jason’s someone I respect very much. We’ve exchanged one or two emails over the years — always as a customer of his products, Basecamp and HEY — and I find him very warm.
I love how he does business.
In the interview, Jason explains that the only competition when it comes to business is with your costs. Can you make more than you spend? If you can, you get to stay in business.
What you’re really in business against is how much it costs you to stay in business. It’s not all the other alternatives that are on the market. […] The only competition I really have on an annual basis is to make sure that we make more as a company than it costs us to run the company. That’s my real competition.
It seems stupidly simple, obvious, and perhaps borderline patronising but as I split off some side projects into businesses of their own, his words really stuck with me.
Lots of companies lose focus to chase what ‘The Others’ are doing; the only thing that truly matters is you.
Keep your costs low, keep your company as small as you possibly can and make great stuff.
Some other stuff of Jason’s (and his co-founder, David) that I like: