That was Walt Mossberg’s opening question to 37 Signals founder Jason Fried at today’s BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Conference. “I’ve never seen a software company figure out how to deal with feature creep,” said Mossberg. “Even Quicken has become a complete mess because a small percentage of enthusiasts keep demanding more and the software companies listen to them.”
Fried’s take on the issue:
- Just as writers need editors and museums need curators, software developers need good editors. Most software companies missing good editors.
- Just say no. You have to be a hard ass and know when to say no. “We see ourselves as the enemy of mediocrity. If you try to make everyone happy you end up with bloated crap. You have to say no, just like Steve Jobs does. Jobs is as proud of the things he hasn’t done.
- Be more opinionated. We need more opionionated companies. I’d rather have people love us or hate us but not have either. People either like our stuff or they hate it. That’s OK. Those who like it, love us.
- Forget the wisdom of the crowd: I don’t think the wisdom of the crowd would make any decisions. When everyone is involved in everything, the products end up sucking. You need a leader.
Mossberg: Why open source software a failure
While open source has value to big IT organizations, it’s been a failure when it comes to developing software for non-techies, said Mossberg. The one exception being Firefox, although the Web browser still has just 15 percent of the market share.
Why?
Mossberg and Fried agreed the failure likes in the fact that open source geeks are all about the software and not about understanding people.
“Open source geeks – and for the most part they are all geeks — can’t relate to regular people. They wouldn’t know a non-techie consumer from a bag of Cheetos.”
The other reason for failure, according to Fried, is that open source’s reason for being is to democratize software, NOT to develop better consumer experiences. Open source developers build stuff and at the end call in designers to paint the walls. 37 Signals takes the opposite approach: create a great user experience and at the end call in the developers to connect it all.