You really think they need the money? They're a small company that made a million dollars off their last book sales alone, and they have another contract right now. They're legendary in the computer world and they said they weren't at all damaged by the recession. Don't you think there's a chance that they just really, really, really like what they're doing?
There are much easier ways of making money if you're in their position. Teaching and preparing for a set of seminars like this is time-consuming and most likely exhausting. If they were in it for money, they could be doing much better.
> Teaching and preparing for a set of seminars like this is time-consuming and most likely exhausting.
Those are the only two pieces that require extra work. They don't need to spend time on content creation, finding a market, or marketing in general. They have an audience, they know that audience has deep pockets, and they'll tell that audience the same damn thing they've been saying for 10 years. The only difference is the format and the price.
This argument is such bullshit. "If they were really in it for the money they'd be doing X" is giving them and anyone in that position too much credit.
Sometimes people, even successful people don't have all the answers to effectively make a "money printing machine."
Marketing is a lot better when it just 'happens' though.
Google wasn't marketed, they didn't start selling books about the right way to make a business, they just made something good and watched as people started using it.
Back in the day Larry and Sergey accepted every interview they were approached for and hammed it up all over campus posing for photos standing on balls and playing with toys in order to keep that "wacky geniuses" thing going and get on all the magazine covers.
Once they found a business model and could hire enough programmers to basically churn out a new feature/project every week, they had built-in marketing and enough brand to self-sustain itself.
Are 37signals already to that point? I don't know, maybe, but faulting a 10(?) person, self-sustaining, Chicago company for keeping their name out there by comparing them to a grow-as-fast-as-possible, well-funded, Valley startup-gone-gangbusters that's been the feather in the web's crown for the past 10 years is a little unfair.
Really? Because they avoid advertising themselves beyond their blog. Is writing a really good, useful blog self-promotion? If so, it's not the greedy sort that the terms "self-promotion" implies.
