A PRODUCT minded services company
Johnny Hugel
I’ve heard many times that a services company can not make great products and that a products company can never be great at providing services. I disagree.
We didn’t set out originally to be a services company. In fact, we started our company making our own product with a plan to make more of our own products. A true “Product” company. Given the constraints of our capabilities at the time, our first product was awesome. It was something that we were extremely proud of and it gave us for the first time that rush of creating something of your own and putting it out there. It also gave us that first dose of reality that getting a product out there is just the beginning.
When you are a product company, your approach to creation and shipping is different. There are lots of little gaps that come up along the way and you just find a way to make things work and fill those gaps. You have to. You become resourceful. You push yourself to learn. You think fully about the product and with your set of available resources how you can make that product the best product possible. A new type of problem solving skill is created and you begin to look at everything in a very different way.
We essentially changed to a services company when we decided to sell our first product to Tumblr and create a relationship to help grow a platform. The fortunate thing is that the culture of that company was similar to ours and we could in essence continue to grow our product, just with more people around us to make it better and we could make it available to a much wider audience.
Services work is different. That is a good thing. Services brings a different set of constraints and challenges. Most importantly, you have to merge your product thoughts with those paying for your services. Budgets and requirements are created differently. Your value is now also based on not just what you make, but how you got to where you could make it and the relationships involved to support the process.
Services push you. I have always felt that if you want to get good at something, you should do it for somebody else. Having someone else’s expectations and hopes reside on you is a different type of motivating power. New types of deadlines and requirements help you define a box to create within. Sometimes that is very healthy. Sometimes it is stressful.
As the years evolved, we’ve continued to ride this line of making products for ourselves as well as providing services where we make products for others. As a result, we’ve been able to craft and build a very unique team. A group of problem solvers who care passionately about building great products. A group that values communication, sacrifice, process, and most importantly, an ability to ship.
What we have ended up with is a services company with a product company mentality. And the amazing thing now is that we are not just creating products any more. We are creating companies.