37signals Product Blog

37signals products help ProductiveMuslim.com grow from 500 to 20,000 fans in two years

Mohammed Faris, founder of ProductiveMuslim.com, shares his experience using 37signals products:

About a year ago, ProductiveMuslim.com was a one-man show, a simple blog where I shared some ideas connecting traditional Islamic philosophy to modern productivity techniques. I had a small readership base, and roughly 500 to 1000 fans on Facebook and the site was going no where. In one year, ProductiveMuslim.com grew exponentially, managing a global team of volunteers covering Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Canada and UK and over 20,000 fans worldwide. Whilst there are many factors that contributed to this rise in numbers, throughout my journey the flexibility and productivity of 37signals.com products was one of the ingredients to this success story:

It all started at 'Camp...
When I started recruiting team members to help me with the site, we used Skype and e-mails for all sorts of discussions. My relationship with my team was mostly one-to-many, and it wasn’t ideal. I didn’t feel that I was making the most of the team’s synergy. I needed a system to bring the team together and get them to discuss ideas with each other.

In my search, I came across Campfire. It seemed ideal for providing us with a group-chat platform and what was great was it would save all our discussions in one central hub.

The same night I registered for Campfire, I sent a quick e-mail to my team inviting them to a special introductory meeting on Campfire. We ‘huddled’ (virtually) around Campfire that night and had one of the best team discussions ever! Campfire really facilitated that many-to-many communication we were lacking before.

A failed first attempt
After 2 months though, virtual camping wasn’t working for us anymore. Not a fault of Campfire’s, but it was the way we were using it. We tried to stretch Campfire beyond its means and used it as a project management tool. Of course, that didn’t work, there were far too many discussions in different rooms and people were losing track of who said what where. With the growth of our work, we needed a project management tool ideal for tracking our to-dos, sharing files, setting milestones…etc.

Then we all touched Base...
Thankfully, 37signal’s Basecamp was there with just the right tools to manage all our projects with optimal efficiency. The features of Basecamp rivaled anything else we had experienced.

The ease of use was a major selling point for us; any new team member who joins us can figure out Basecamp without any complex tutorials.

Currently, we manage multiple projects simultaneously with Basecamp including design projects and our recent relaunch of a brand new website. I love how we can invite people to certain projects then archive the projects for later reference. Everything seems to have been thought through with Basecamp, and meticulously designed so as to make any project management smooth running!

Time to go Backpacking!
Over the summer period, we had another website to maintain called ProductiveRamadan.com. By this time, I established an editorial team and wanted a platform to help the team easily collaborate on editing the content of our site and ensure accuracy of all articles published. Backpack became the ultimate back-end system for all our editorial work. With it’s checklist features, notifications, and Journal, Backpack greatly improved the quality of articles we published and helped us maintain consistency of style and format.

Over to Highrise...
By this time, I loved anything 37signals and decided to explore 37signals’ fourth flagship product: Highrise. I wasn’t sure how we were going to utilise it but decided to experiment with it anyway.

Admittedly, it was an uphill struggle at first with the team – trying to get them to adopt Highrise for all external communication with partners, sponsors, advertisers, fans, and writers. It seemed like an added element of work to them but I was certain that if we adopt this and used it to its advantage, it’d help us establish long standing relationships with all our contacts.

Thankfully, I was right. Once we got the hang of it (myself included), Highrise became an indispensable tool for our growing website especially with different team members speaking to different contacts.

Back to the camp?
So after our journey getting comfortable with Basecamp, Backpack and Highrise, I couldn’t believe that we failed using Campfire earlier, especially since 37signals itself (and thousands of others) use it everyday. Was it the way we used it?

I looked up articles on how 37signals.com staff work and read REWORK, then it hit me! We were using Campfire wrong the whole time! We were creating Campfire rooms for different projects, and my team members were discussing any project in any room making cross-project discussions inevitable, and people lost track.

What we should have done (and I’m currently trying to implement) is set up Campfire rooms for each team member, essentially setup ‘virtual offices’ for every team member. So if I need to speak to my IT guy, I just ‘pop’ into his office and ask him my question or start a discussion about a topic there. Also, other team members can pop by as well and add to the discussion/topic if needed. Organizing Campfire by person instead of topics/projects makes it far more intuitive and easier to follow.

In summary, I would recommend 37signals tools to any organisation who want to make their work more organised, efficient, and innovative. All their tools really help you become more productive in your work, and having used all four tools I can summarise their products in the following four sentences:

Campfire is for people.
Basecamp is for projects.
Backpack is for pages.
And Highrise is for the outside world.

Pouch is a third-party iPhone/iPad app for Backpack

Pouch is a third-party app that brings your Backpack Pages to your iPhone/iPad. "Use it to read your Backpack Pages in a simple, familiar format, and to create and edit your Backpack Notes and To-Do Lists."

More details/screenshots or check it out at the App Store.

Packrat, an offline Backpack client, gets a major upgrade

InfiniteNIL has released Packrat 2, a major upgrade to its offline Backpack client.

Packrat lets you use your Backpack account when you're offline. Before you hit the road for the first time with Packrat, just use the Synchronize command to sync with Backpack and all the data from your account is duplicated on your Mac. View and edit your data offline or online. When you're online, Packrat will automatically inform Backpack of your changes and your account is kept up to date.

This post details what's new in the latest edition of Packrat.

• Packrat is now a document-based application so it can support multiple Backpack accounts. Just create a document for each account.
• Editing of page items is now inline, just like on Backpack.
• Use drag and drop to reorder page contents.
• Attachments and images are now downloaded when you sync so you can access them when you’re offline.
• Packrat’s page rendering has been completely redone to allow things like inline editing and other enhancements that will come in future versions.

MacUser also discusses the update here: Packrat 2 brings deeper Backpack integration, more.

DTS International: "The 37signals Suite takes the useless shit and clutter out of productivity solutions"

Trevor O'Sullivan, General Manager at DTS International, recently wrote us:

We have officially switched over to the 37signals Suite as of the last 3 weeks and we're loving it — thanks for building such an awesome product and taking the useless shit and clutter out of productivity solutions.

We followed up with Trevor to find out more about how his team is using the Suite. His response is below.

The search begins
We are a multifaceted company with several focuses all within the training and development market. Initially, we werte only looking for a CRM and I started looking at products around the place like Highrise and other online CRM tools - we were then using a product hosted on our own server. This search started in late 2009 during our Christmas holiday season in Australia but never went anywhere as I decided it was all too hard!

On initial review, I thought Highrise was too "entry level" and simply lacked features we needed like reporting and other common CRM features. This year we hired an absolute gun of a sales person and she has made a huge difference to our business. Since most of her time is spent telephone prospecting she came to me with her concerns/challenges with the CRM and how difficult it was making her job to fill in lots of fields or data we never used, the slow search capabilities (as we had around 20000 contacts) and the all around cumbersome nature of our existing CRM.

Hence I started looking again at CRM options and came back to Highrise. Still thinking it lacked key features without using third party applications and API function development from our end we decided to "try it out" it for a week. Once that week was over, our team was begging me to make the switch all the way. So we did!

Just after upgrading to a paid account 37signals came out with their new Suite offering and we had to have it — as we had started to play with the free version of Basecamp and Backpack and had fallen in love with them too!

Highrise
We have a database of around 10,000 customers and prospects (since making the switch we did a massive data clean and removed useless and duplicates from our CRM). For us, it is about tracking the interactions with customers and prospects, hence we use the notes and email dropbox heavily. We have started using the Tasks and Deals sections more and more to keep track of the deals we have in the pipeline and things we need to get done with different contacts.

Basecamp
We have just completed a business plan for our business (yes, I know plans are guesses!). But, for me, the business planning process is about the analysis and getting a feel for what we have to work with and then I can make better decisions in the moment. The plan/analysis produced around 8 pages of todos for us to work on to improve our business.

Every time I looked at the list is was so intimidated I stuck it back on the desk and looked for something else to keep me busy! One day I was watching the Basecamp videos and thought, "Let's set up a project." At that time, we only had the free version so had to use one project called "business plan todos" and divide up the list with our team, then create a rule in the business that at 4:30pm we stop what we are doing and spend 30 minutes to cross one thing of the list. It has been great we are so far in front of where I thought we would be. It is amazing and our team loves it because the can see how they are contributing to the business!

Access your Backpack account on your iPhone with Backpocket

Backpocket is a third-party Backpack client for the iPhone.

Easily access your Backpack account to create and edit pages, notes and lists on the go with a simple, consistent and intuitive interface.

• Access and use your Backpack account anywhere
• Manage multiple Backpack accounts
• Work offline and sync your changes later
• Focus on the features you use the most while on the go

More details.

Keep family schedules straight with a shared Backpack calendar

Backpack's Calendar is a great way for families to stay on the same page. As Marc Hedlund writes, "My wife and I use a shared Backpack calendar and it's been a huge help. We use it for social planning, appointments, reminders, and important dates." Create as many calendars as you want and color code each one (a different color for each family member perhaps?) for easy identification. Then your family's soccer practice, vacations, birthdays, and graduations can all find a home in a single calendar.

Launch: The 37signals Suite

Today we officially release the 37signals Suite. The Suite is a bundle of our four big apps: Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire for one low price (starting at $99/month). It also means you can share users across all accounts and get one single bill per month. More details on the benefits, plans, and how to sign up are available at the Signal vs. Noise post announcing the launch.

How The Intersect Fund uses 37signals products to help aspiring business owners

Joe Shure, Associate Director of The Intersect Fund, describes how his team uses 37signals products to help aspiring business owners:

We help aspiring business owners — mostly immigrants and low-income individuals — get started. We teach them how to manage cash flow, find customers and set their businesses up right. We also offer small loans to help them buy things like hot dog carts, new truck tires and sewing machines.

Since starting the company in 2008, we've served more than 150 clients through our business training, lending and consulting services. We now have offices in two New Jersey cities — New Brunswick and Orange — but we began as a rag-tag bunch of college students, borrowing space and building contacts as we grew. We got where we are now through lots of work, a little luck, and 37signals.

Getting the word out was our first step. In the beginning, we met with community leaders, church pastors and potential funders on what seemed like a daily basis. Lacking an office, a staff, or even a file cabinet, we leaned on Highrise to help us manage our new relationships.

Now, we use Campfire to keep in touch at the office, Highrise to keep up with clients and Backpack to track tasks and commitments.

(Pictured at left: Soneni, a second-hand clothing store owner and Intersect Fund client.)

Consider a hypothetical client named Tamara — a seamstress — as an example:

Oct. 2010: Tamara enrolls in our business training course. Along the way, we keep tabs on certain goals: is she grasping the material? Is she writing her business plan? Is she gaining confidence in her abilities? The instructor makes weekly Highrise notes that help our team understand how Tamara is doing.

Dec. 2010: Having graduated, Tamara seeks a small loan to purchase a sewing machine. Her financials are in order, but our loan committee wonders about how responsible she is. They check her Highrise file and read her instructor's notes: turns out she came to every class on time and did great work. They approve her loan.

Feb. 2011: Things are going well, and we meet with Tamara to help her set business milestones: she wants to design a new handbag line, find 10 new customers and purchase a domain name.

(Pictured at right: "My co-founder, Rohan Mathew, and I standing in front of a bunch of oranges.")

Six weeks later, our team member Pasquale invites Tamara to the office for another meeting. He doesn't know her too well, but he can get up to speed in seconds by checking her Highrise file. He learns exactly how much progress she's made since joining us, and he makes sure to ask her about the goals she set last time.

Tamara's new handbag line is a hit. She's selling a ton of them online, and she easily repays her Intersect Fund loan. Our role was to understand the obstacles she faced and nudge her toward manageable goals.

If we merely offered microloans and business training, we would be a decent nonprofit. But our ambitions are higher: we want to be the trusted ally of those seeking success in the face of adversity. This means actually knowing our clients — their difficulties, their needs, and where they want to go. 37signals lets us build the tight connections that enable us to make a real impact.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.

Animation and design studio solves workflow issues with Basecamp and Highrise

Sean Copley of Timbuktoons, an animation and design studio, on how his team uses Basecamp and Highrise:

Who We Are
Timbuktoons is an animation and design studio in Augusta, GA that specializes in 2D animation, motion graphics and illustration services from concept to delivery for both the commercial and non-profits industries. We are currently developing our own animated children’s shows for broadcast.

How We Use Basecamp
We’re a small company that thinks big and prides itself on being nimble and efficient. Often we have many projects at different stages in our pipeline at the same time. From the beginning we knew we needed a flexible project management system and CRM that could scale up or down easily depending on the number of employees and workload.

Basecamp has helped us streamline our animation production pipeline whether working with in-house employees our off-site contractors. With Project and To-do templates we can quickly start tracking time based on the different roles of our pipeline (visual development, sketching, storyboards, animatics, ink and paint, scene production, etc.). This has been critical for us to predict realistic goals for turnaround times and budget.

At just a glance I can get a sense of how the project is progressing and where we are on time and budget. When a job is completed we use the time data collected to accurately give estimates on new jobs…it’s great to have real world stats instead of just bidding in the dark!

How We Use Highrise
Highrise has been a great CRM for keeping track of our clients and executives in the world of animation. Childrens’ animation is a fast paced industry but often slow in communication, so knowing who from our company has had contact with someone and what was said helps us stay on top of things without bugging. Plus not having to use folders to archive emails (only to never find them again) is worth the price alone!

We Are 37signals Fanboys!
We've loved the collection of 37signals tools so much that we use them in our personal lives too. I use Backpack for keeping track of my home life and work I do for a non-profit. Wherever we go, we tell people about how we use your products just to see their eyes light up when they see a solution for their own workflow issues.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.

Travel tip: Use the "Email me a copy" option in Backpack for your trip info

Backpack is a great way to keep travel plans organized.

Let's say you've got a bunch of info to keep track of for a trip to Seattle and BC. Flight info, ferry info, hotel info, a restaurant to check out, etc. Instead of keeping all those links and emails floating around, you can add them to a Backpack page.

Want to be able to easily access all that info straight from your email inbox? Use the "Email me a copy" option in the footer of your Backpack page. Backpack will send you the contents of the page via email.

Now you've combined all those links and notes into a single email for quick reference. That's a lot cleaner than having dozens of notes and confirmation emails floating around your inbox.

Related:
Tips on using Backpack for travel planning
Macworld calls Backpack "a good way to keep track of travel plans"