Jason Fried

“Give your employees a shot at showing the company a new way, and provide the room for them to chalk up a few small victories. Once they've proved that their idea can work on a limited basis, they can begin to scale it up.”

“In almost every case, cutting things back is a way of favoring what is left.”

“Bottom line: If you can't spare some time to give your employees the chance to wow you, you'll never get the best from them.”

“When we launched the first version of Basecamp in 2004, we decided to build software for small companies just like us.”

“When you can't see someone all day long, the only thing you have to evaluate is the work. A lot of the petty evaluation stats just melt away.”

“I live in Chicago but own some property up in Wisconsin.”

“When it's all about the work, it's clear who in the company is pulling their weight and who isn't.”

“If working remotely is such a great idea, why isn't everyone doing it? I think it's because we've been bred on the idea that work happens from 9 to 5, in offices and cubicles. It's no wonder that most who are employed inside that model haven't considered other options, or resist the idea that it could be any different. But it can.”

“Even companies that do big business online struggle to be noticed by Google users. The Web, after all, is home to some 120 million Internet domains and tens of billions of indexed pages. But every company, big or small, can draw more Google traffic by using search-engine optimization - SEO, for short.”

“I think the story is important in every business. Why do you exist, why are you here, why is your product different, why should I pay attention, why should I care?”

“When you're short on sleep, you're short on patience. You're ruder to people, less tolerant, less understanding. It's harder to relate and to pay attention for sustained periods of time.”

“Your company is a product. Who are its customers? Your employees, who use it to do their jobs.”

“One of the secret benefits of using remote workers is that the work itself becomes the yardstick to judge someone's performance.”

“Problems can usually be solved with simple, mundane solutions. That means there’s no glamorous work. You don’t get to show off your amazing skills. You just build something that gets the job done and then move on. This approach may not earn you oohs and aahs, but it lets you get on with it.”

“The reality is that companies are full of things that are left unspoken. And even when they are out in the open, the CEO is almost always the last to know.”

“I like to think of myself as a leader whose door is always open. But I recently learned that an open door isn't enough.”

“Meetings should be like salt - a spice sprinkled carefully to enhance a dish, not poured recklessly over every forkful. Too much salt destroys a dish. Too many meetings destroy morale and motivation.”

“Most work is not coming up with The Next Big Thing. Rather, it's improving the thing you already thought of six months - or six years - ago. It's the work of work.”

“It feels good to be productive.”

“As businesses grow, all sorts of things that once were done on the fly - including creating new products - have a way of becoming bureaucratized.”