I do hope we continue the drive in the enterprise towards more user friendly tools. With all the power these products bring today they also bring so much bloat and baggage and the rage of a 1000 fiery suns. I’m in Jira daily, and have been since it was created, so I felt all this. However, I also used to support organizations where we let the users bring forth products that they thought had better experiences and would work better and they usually brought forth crap. It would support their niche and ignore everyone else. Either that or it would have so many security holes that a 1/2 trained squirrel could steal all your data before lunch. Hopefully we can find a good balance moving forward. As for the trendy products, it’s always been there, but maybe soon we’ll see a Kardashian Kaban? :)
I guess the question there is, was Jira always like this? Like, slow and maybe underwhelmingly built, sure, but bloated? That part feels like the inevitable circle of life, where, by the time you're able to batten down all the security hatches and solve those sorts of problems, you'll also have loaded yourself down with all the messy baggage that makes the thing unusable. Linear is all the rage these days, as a well built product. But they're also putting out a lot of new features; can they simultaneously be "feature complete" *and* streamlined? I dunno.
Though maybe I'm overcomplicating all of this, and what we really need is to train the Kardashians surprisingly impressive business eye not on lip gloss, but on b2b software.
A lot of Atlassian bloat came from buying products and just bolting them on. Also, trying to change the core of what the product was to meet new use cases. The fact that they still call everything an “issue” makes me want to bang my head against a wall. 😂
Sadly I think what happened to Jira will happen to all products, including Linear as they age and especially if they go large enterprise or get purchased by a larger company. The large software overlords will want to squeeze out more profit vs building better software. That’s why I think from the day you purchase software you need to set it up and operate it from day one like you’re going to replace it and have a migration strategy as part of your build out plans.
If we get the Kardashians on it, they’ll just put a new UI on Jira and it will sell like crazy, but it’ll be the same old product in the end. 🤷🏻♂️ 🤣
"Every penny I earned I put back into the business. It was no overnight success. It took almost a decade before I turned a profit. As I often say, I built the company brick by brick."
Re: Feastables. My then 9 year old son loved walking into his local grocery store to ask "Where's Deez Nutz?" The clerk knew what was up, and also was in on the joke. Genius marketing.
There's probably a parallel in the data world if I dig far enough...
Thanks @benn, great post. Makes me think that one of the clearest future-safe bets one can make right now is to invest in building a strong digital following. Would you agree?
Kiiiiinda?? On one hand, big personal brands or whatever does seem to be the way a lot of the world works now. On the other hand, shameless brand building (eg, posting clickbait on Linkedin) doesn't seem to help much, especially when everyone else is doing it. So I wouldn't say being known on the internet is a surefire path to success. If people have other things on the resume, it probably helps, a lot. If they don't, being known on the internet seems like a good way to become even more known on the internet (which, for some people, may be a worthwhile ends on its own).
This seems like a recipe for creating a lot of useless stuff and discouraging innovation and great products... I guess the good news is I don't see many of the trenderprise becoming enduring companies -- and when it comes to software a lot of people get tired of changing tools every few years.
On the useless stuff part, maybe, but that seems sort of inevitable (and I'd say that we already do it, it's just funded byYC and an accepted part of the startup process, rather than celebrities). On those sorts of companies enduring, eeeh, to the point of the "who would you invest in" question, I'd guess they're success rate is higher than average? We just don't see the other failures because there are so many and they're not considered notable. And on people changing tools every few years, yeah, agreed (sign the ten year deal https://benn.substack.com/p/its-too-many-options), but I think that's just a part of the world we live in now.
A few celebs are starting software companies. I wish Edward Norton ads serving me up a better board meeting experience would stop https://www.zeck.app/.
the thing ins, that could all happen, and I think everyone might be happy by that deal? I don't care that much about board decks are made; might as well use the thing that lets me hang out with Ed
Just got on the waitlist for Hawk Tuah BI Dashboards
Finally! Can you share the sign up form?
I predicted this a while ago.
"This girl seems a person that I will trust to convince stakeholder for making data-driven decision" :D
i mean, she spent most of her time on a podcast while her business collapsed, so she's halfway to being a b2b saas startup founder already
I do hope we continue the drive in the enterprise towards more user friendly tools. With all the power these products bring today they also bring so much bloat and baggage and the rage of a 1000 fiery suns. I’m in Jira daily, and have been since it was created, so I felt all this. However, I also used to support organizations where we let the users bring forth products that they thought had better experiences and would work better and they usually brought forth crap. It would support their niche and ignore everyone else. Either that or it would have so many security holes that a 1/2 trained squirrel could steal all your data before lunch. Hopefully we can find a good balance moving forward. As for the trendy products, it’s always been there, but maybe soon we’ll see a Kardashian Kaban? :)
I guess the question there is, was Jira always like this? Like, slow and maybe underwhelmingly built, sure, but bloated? That part feels like the inevitable circle of life, where, by the time you're able to batten down all the security hatches and solve those sorts of problems, you'll also have loaded yourself down with all the messy baggage that makes the thing unusable. Linear is all the rage these days, as a well built product. But they're also putting out a lot of new features; can they simultaneously be "feature complete" *and* streamlined? I dunno.
Though maybe I'm overcomplicating all of this, and what we really need is to train the Kardashians surprisingly impressive business eye not on lip gloss, but on b2b software.
A lot of Atlassian bloat came from buying products and just bolting them on. Also, trying to change the core of what the product was to meet new use cases. The fact that they still call everything an “issue” makes me want to bang my head against a wall. 😂
Sadly I think what happened to Jira will happen to all products, including Linear as they age and especially if they go large enterprise or get purchased by a larger company. The large software overlords will want to squeeze out more profit vs building better software. That’s why I think from the day you purchase software you need to set it up and operate it from day one like you’re going to replace it and have a migration strategy as part of your build out plans.
If we get the Kardashians on it, they’ll just put a new UI on Jira and it will sell like crazy, but it’ll be the same old product in the end. 🤷🏻♂️ 🤣
That Portnoy post cracks me up. Especially his claim that he is losing $ on the watches. Not that I would buy anything from a professional troll.
His problem was just that he made them *too* nice.
That is always a problem. Who would want to buy something called a brick watch. Sounds like it doesn't work. Just like a bricked computer
From the website, I'm guessing it was supposed to be all symbolic and blue collar? I dunno.
https://brickwatchcompany.com/
"Every penny I earned I put back into the business. It was no overnight success. It took almost a decade before I turned a profit. As I often say, I built the company brick by brick."
Re: Feastables. My then 9 year old son loved walking into his local grocery store to ask "Where's Deez Nutz?" The clerk knew what was up, and also was in on the joke. Genius marketing.
There's probably a parallel in the data world if I dig far enough...
I spent about ten minutes staring at this trying to figure out how this would make sense, and I got nowhere.
So good had to share!
Thanks @benn, great post. Makes me think that one of the clearest future-safe bets one can make right now is to invest in building a strong digital following. Would you agree?
Kiiiiinda?? On one hand, big personal brands or whatever does seem to be the way a lot of the world works now. On the other hand, shameless brand building (eg, posting clickbait on Linkedin) doesn't seem to help much, especially when everyone else is doing it. So I wouldn't say being known on the internet is a surefire path to success. If people have other things on the resume, it probably helps, a lot. If they don't, being known on the internet seems like a good way to become even more known on the internet (which, for some people, may be a worthwhile ends on its own).
This seems like a recipe for creating a lot of useless stuff and discouraging innovation and great products... I guess the good news is I don't see many of the trenderprise becoming enduring companies -- and when it comes to software a lot of people get tired of changing tools every few years.
On the useless stuff part, maybe, but that seems sort of inevitable (and I'd say that we already do it, it's just funded byYC and an accepted part of the startup process, rather than celebrities). On those sorts of companies enduring, eeeh, to the point of the "who would you invest in" question, I'd guess they're success rate is higher than average? We just don't see the other failures because there are so many and they're not considered notable. And on people changing tools every few years, yeah, agreed (sign the ten year deal https://benn.substack.com/p/its-too-many-options), but I think that's just a part of the world we live in now.
A few celebs are starting software companies. I wish Edward Norton ads serving me up a better board meeting experience would stop https://www.zeck.app/.
This trenderprise shall continue
I mean, I will say, if board meetings were 1) hanging out with Ed Norton and 2) dramatically scripted and acted, yeah, I'd buy that over Google Docs.
Ed’s presence for 15 minutes as a loss leader at your next board meeting to sell you the first annual sub of Zeck.
the thing ins, that could all happen, and I think everyone might be happy by that deal? I don't care that much about board decks are made; might as well use the thing that lets me hang out with Ed