Continuing your analogy, there are plenty of people out there who would start their trucking business by buying more than one truck and then trying to find people to drive them and things to move.

The great thing about the 37signals blog is that it is reminds us to keep things simple. Don't over complicate things just because we can. I think there are times when all of us can benefit from having this spelled out to us.

Articles like this need to be written because common sense isn't common. It seems obvious to us not to buy too much for a business, but many businesses have gone under by going too far too fast. They buy too much equipment, far more than they need and run out of cash.

I've seen software projects crippled because the managers wanted to optimize for a later that never would happen. Coders often make code work, then make the code better. Others don't always seem to get that concept.

"When I started my trucking company, it was a one-man venture. So, I only bought one truck, since that's the most I could drive myself at the same time. Buying a whole fleet of trucks would not have made sense."

Apparently that wasn't so obvious to the guys who started WebVan.

What the advice misses is that even at an early stage, you need decisions in place that allow scaling. For example, if you buy 1 truck for your one-person shipping company, you can move 1 container at a time. Adding a second truck lets you move 2 containers. 37signals is smart--they built their software so that it could grow to 2 servers--but they left that out of their advice. There must be a path from simple to complex.

> they built their software so that it could grow to 2 servers

This is somewhat debatable -- all software can be grown to multiple nodes, it's more a question of how much work is involved.

They built their software to meet needs. Then, later on, they worried about the other stuff. That's a good way to determine whether the other stuff is worth worrying about.

See also the WebVan analogy for an example of the converse.

The 15th Richest Man in Australia would beat you up for that one.... "He started his Linfox company in 1956 with 1 truck. [6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Fox

I saw his interview with Andrew Denton a few months ago.. interesting guy - very much a working class straight shooter who's done well for himself..

*That wikipedia article has about 3 mentions of "suspicious fires".. It's really piqued my interest - but I probably should get back to coding..

As did billionaire Wayne Huizenga, who started behemoth Waste Management with one garbage truck

And you've just described a whole industry called "self help."

No way. The "self help" industry is not full of correct but obvious advice. Lots of it is wrong and harmful advice. Including most books about dieting or parenting.

Hehe, I upmodded you! Take that!

I expected no less :) I'd upmod you if I could vote.

What was the deal with that thread? First, there was that string of downmods, then suddenly the whole thing goes dead and you also lose your voting privilege. I had thought the whole thing was in jest, including the rampant downmodding, but apparently people were taking it seriously. But why? Did it seem like we were actually fighting?

No one bothered to tell me why I can't vote now -- i just had to notice that when i refresh the page the number goes back down 1 -- but my guess is that it's the same reason as rms: upmodding.

I kinda upmodded your entire comment history. But i read it first and liked them all, so I don't see the problem...

I thought that thread was all in good fun between us, but wasn't sure why people were downmodding it. Don't know why it went dead either. But it might have been dead for a while and we didn't notice -- maybe it only tells you your thread is dead when it's old.

Better threads than that have been turned dead. Meh.

PS did you get the email asking for your AIM account? then we could speculate about why pg kills threads and bans users from voting where pg won't read it and possibly get annoyed and possibly mark it dead too.

I thought someone was upmodding my comment history. Well, once enough people read that, my comment history will be downmodded a couple times, so I guess it works out in the end.

I think the points were taken away, anyway.

Well there's a Gettier problem for you:D

And, I haven't replied to your email because I only check personal email briefly on the weekends. Less distraction that way.

no problem.

personal emails are more distracting than yc? :)

Definitely. There are a couple philosophical discussions I am participating in which require long, drawn out replies, while my yc posts are generally very short.

do you know any public places worth discussing philosophy at?

No, unfortunately I don't.