An interesting read about how Basecamp acquired hey.com for their email product. They don’t reveal the sum they paid, but guesses are invited, so I’m throwing my reckoning of $500,000. Whatever it cost in the end though, I bet it was a tense and niggly 18 months.
It resonates particularly with me today, after spending yet more time musing over names and their potential URL options for one of my own little daydream projects. I’m a tad closer to some available ideas, but those ones that feel great but have already gone, keep stinging their envious stings. Especially when they’re just being squatted.
I’ll find something, I’m sure. And if not soon then, heck, maybe I’ll have to work on the actual idea!
Footnote. Posting about a post from Jason, with awareness of the Basecamp news from earlier this year. Without wading into those exact issues now, I will note my ongoing confusion about how we should deal with the past and present achievements of individuals that have fallen from grace, or that have been posthumously revealed as, well, sometimes, arseholes. More often than not it’s clear that we have to cut ties with our old understandings and emotions, but occasionally I find myself struggling to teach my kids about a great idea or achievement from history, while also explaining that the human that had it or did it, is kind of horrible by our standards today. To just not tell them some ideas feels wrong. But to risk excusing behaviour because of unrelated achievements is equally sticky. I dunno. Looking forward to talking with others about this now I’m back in the UK. Drop me a line if you’re up to discuss.
Documenteering 