Getting Real

The book 37signals wrote about how they built Basecamp, and the direct ancestor of Shape Up. It argues for a smaller product, a smaller team and a shorter path to launch, then works through what that means for scope, design, code and writing. Sections cover fixing time and budget while flexing scope, starting with the interface rather than the database, and refusing features until the case for them is overwhelming. The later chapters deal with pricing, launch and support, all from the position of a small team funding itself. Some of the web tooling it mentions has moved on, while the arguments about scope and team size have held up for twenty years.