Startups For the Rest of Us

Ryan Singer is one of the earliest employees and the former Head of Strategy at 37signals (the makers of Basecamp), where he spent nearly two decades refining a product development approach that helped the company build super-successful products with small teams. Based on these lessons, he wrote "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters," and Ryan now works with companies of all sizes to help them escape the cycle of endless sprints, missed deadlines, and dragging projects. What you’ll learn: 1. Why traditional Agile and Scrum methods often lead teams into endless cycles of work without meaningful shipping milestones. 2. The “appetite-driven” approach to product development where teams set fixed timeboxes (usually six weeks maximum) and vary the scope instead of expanding timelines. 3. The exact process for running effective “shaping” sessions that collaboratively define projects before committing resources. 4. Why most teams struggle with too little detail in their planning, not too much. 5. Why a 30-to-50-person team size is the critical breaking point when growing startups need to adopt more structured processes. 6. Practical techniques for bridging the engineering-design divide by bringing technical and product perspectives together earlier in the process. 7. The powerful “breadboarding” and “fat marker sketching” techniques that help teams align on solutions without getting lost in high-fidelity details. 8. The clear warning signs that your current development process is failing before it’s too late to change course. 9. Proven strategies to implement Shape Up methods, whether you’re working in a startup or enterprise environment. 10. A step-by-step approach to transitioning from Scrum to Shape Up by piloting the methodology with a single team before broader implementation. 11. Why the PM role shifts upstream in Shape Up, focusing more on problem definition than project management. 12. How to adapt Shape Up principles to your company’s unique context, even if it’s nothing like Basecamp. — Brought to you by: • WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny • Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app: http://merge.dev/lenny • Airtable ProductCentral—Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development: https://www.airtable.com/lenny Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shape-up-ryan-singer Where to find Ryan Singer: • X: https://x.com/rjs • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feltpresence/ • Website: https://www.ryansinger.co/ • Course: https://www.ryansinger.co/srl/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Ryan’s background (04:38) The origins of Shape Up (07:40) Implementing Shape Up in different companies (09:56) How Shape Up is different (19:02) The core elements of Shape Up (26:29) Shaping sessions and timeboxing (37:23) Flexible sprint planning (38:56) The output of a shaping session (46:57) Balancing detail and flexibility (53:50) A deep dive into shaping sessions (01:01:32) Fat marker sketches (01:02:48) Getting started using Shape Up (01:13:20) Signs it's time to try the Shape Up method (01:18:25) Feature factories (01:25:59) The role of the PM in Shape Up (01:28:26) What makes Basecamp unique (01:35:55) The second edition of the book (01:38:30) Linking product strategy and shaping (01:41:53) Conclusion and final thoughts Referenced: • Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/ • David Heinemeier Hansson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221/ • Jason Fried on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried/ • Jason Fried challenges your thinking on fundraising, goals, growth, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/jason-fried-challenges-your-thinking • Des Traynor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destraynor/ • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ ...References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shape-up-ryan-singer Recommended books: • Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work That Matters: https://basecamp.com/shapeup • Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress: https://www.amazon.com/Demand-Side-Sales-101-Customers-Progress/dp/1544509987/ • Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice: https://www.amazon.com/Competing-Against-Luck-Innovation-Customer/dp/0062435612/ • Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career: https://www.amazon.com/Job-Moves-Making-Progress-Career/dp/0063283581 Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product

A podcast by 37signals about the better way to work and run your business. Featuring Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, cofounders of 37signals (makers of Basecamp and HEY) and authors of books REWORK and It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work. Hosted by 37signals' employee Kimberly Rhodes.

Try https://waku.one, Me https://seanchen.io, Open Source: https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/waku-agent I An LLM is an incredibly powerful brain that knows everything about humanity and nothing about you or the software you run. This video walks through the four buzzwords that turn that raw brain into a system you can trust: agent harness, loop engineering, LLM Ops, and eval. No jargon, step by step, technical or not. You can build anything. You can learn anything. 💪 Timeline 0:00 Intro: the 4 AI agent buzzwords 0:42 What an AI agent run actually is 1:52 The memory system: procedural, semantic, episodic 3:37 What "harness" really means (the horse) 5:07 Storing and updating memory (databases, skills, summarizer agent) 8:28 Retrieval: RAG, SQL vs semantic search 10:00 Tool calling and why agents loop 10:52 Loop engineering and end-loop guardrails 13:21 A Claude Code hooks example 14:18 Eval and LLM Ops: why you need them 15:55 Tracing every run (Langfuse, LangSmith) 16:43 Evaluation: LLM as a judge 17:20 Diagnosing what broke 18:16 The gate: ship the fix or fix the bug 18:57 Zoom out: the full system 19:53 Wrap up Launch Full-Stack App Template: https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/launch-mvp-stripe-nextjs-supabase My AI Agent Startup AutoManus.io is an AI sales lead manager for made-to-order product sales. We embed directly where conversations happen (WhatsApp, email, web chat) to capture inbound, automate follow‑ups, and kill CRM busywork; live with 4 pilots and 2 contracts in motion, pre‑seed backed by Character VC. Focused on US/UK/Germany, raising to expand engineering and scale deployments. ☕️ Buy me a coffee: https://buy.stripe.com/5kA176bA895ggog4gh - X: https://x.com/ShenSeanChen - Sean's Discord: https://discord.gg/tvECErKcFr - AutoManus Discord: https://discord.gg/5HhcNjCR - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/shen-sean-chen - Github Link: https://github.com/ShenSeanChen - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sean_ai_stories Sub Count when launched: 13,050 Top Github Repos - LaunchMVP NextJS,Supabase,Stripe (1015 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/launch-mvp-stripe-nextjs-supabase - ReactNextJSTips (114 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-react-nextjs-tips - DeepResearchAgentBackend (70 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-DeepResearch-Backend - SupabaseTipsKanban (64 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-supabase-tips-kanban - RAGVectorDB (56 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-rag - KimiK2Claude (37 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-kimi-k2-claude - DeepResearchAgentFrontend (33 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-DeepResearch-Frontend - AgenticRAG (13 stars): https://github.com/ShenSeanChen/yt-agentic-rag You Can Build Anything Playlist (Full-Stack Dev Without CS Degrees) - Core7: 95% React/NextJS Use Cases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZzFlAjz4rA&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=16 - Core6: 95% Supabase Use Cases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnoq2tIif3s&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=15 - Core5: StripeNextJSSupabase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad1BxZufer8&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=8 - Core4: AuthSupabaseGoogle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZAU3ClAWWE&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=6 - Core3: FastapiGCPPro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3sfqpzzo-U&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=5 - Core2: SupabaseHero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0kmgkyPsVQ&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=4 - Core1: LaunchAnApp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ2izvGG4tQ&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=3 - Launch WhereToMeet w/ GoogleMaps, Calendar, Supabase, Cursor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xMjX1QxGUY&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR&index=2 - Launch EncourageMe w/ Cursor, Supabase, Vercel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnvL4xa2DHA&list=PLE9hy4A7ZTmpGq7GHf5tgGFWh2277AeDR

Get started building no-code apps with Bolt now: https://bolt.new/ 🗞️ Join 100K+ founders on my AI-for-business newsletter: https://liamottley.com/join 🛠 Want me to rebuild YOUR business with AI? https://aimakeover.com 💻 MY TECH STACK Kylon (AIOS workspace): https://kylon.io/liam Railway (agent & web hosting): https://railway.com?referralCode=liam Apify (web scraping): https://apify.com?fpr=makeover CodeRabbit (code review): https://coderabbit.link/liam-ottley-qcqw Glaido (voice transcription): https://get.glaido.com/liam-ottley 📲 FOLLOW ME Instagram: https://instagram.com/liamottley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamottley X: https://twitter.com/liamottley_ Some links above are affiliate links. Using them supports the channel at no extra cost. 📚 Get the Figma kit, app prompts, and UI Designer tool & all my AI resources on Skool: https://bit.ly/46Fo98a 📈 Become a Wildly Profitable AI Entrepreneur: https://bit.ly/47iFLGW 🤝 Ready to transform your business with AI? Let's talk: https://bit.ly/4fnpOS0 📋 Get our FREE 14-day playbook for finding high-impact AI opportunities in any business: https://bit.ly/14-day-playbook- In this full course, you’ll master the new skill of Software Composing—building full-stack, revenue-generating web apps using nothing but your ideas and the right prompts. You’ll go from understanding databases and APIs to deploying a real SaaS product with authentication, live data and a real database. No coding experience? No problem. This course was built to help you gain the confidence and competence to turn ideas into income using natural language prompts or 'vibe coding' and the world’s most powerful AI tools like Bolt.new the sponsor of this video. Get started building no-code apps with Bolt now: https://bolt.new/ Timestamps: 0:00 - What We're Covering 2:47 - Chapter 1: Foundations 4:31 - What is Software Composing? 10:46 - What is a Web App? 13:35 - Front End VS Back End 18:48 - Databases: Your Software’s Memory 23:43 - APIs 29:29 - Authentication & Authorization 34:33 - Chapter 2: Building 37:00 - The Software Composing Landscape 41:03 - Build 1: Front End: UI Design & Initial Prompting 56:30 - Build 2: Backend: Databases & API 1:12:21 - Build 3: User Authentication & Authorization 1:30:59 - Deploying your App 1:34:00 - Debugging: Fixing What Breaks 1:37:34 - Chapter 3: Monetizing

In this video, you'll bridge the gap between web and mobile with an intensive crash course on React Native fundamentals and modern features like file-based routing and server components. Then, you’ll build Recurrly, a subscription tracker using Expo. You’ll implement essential real-world features before taking the leap that most tutorials skip: publishing your app to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store so you can actually start monetizing your work. Expo: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-expo Expo EAS : https://jsm.dev/nativesub-eas Clerk: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-clerk PostHog: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-posthog CodeRabbit: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-coderabbit Junie AI: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-junie WebStorm: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-webstorm 💎 Agentic Engineering Course: https://jsm.dev/ai 📋 Join the React Native Course Waitlist: https://jsm.dev/nativesub-native 🎁 Video Kit (Code, Assets, Prompts): https://jsm.dev/nativesub-kit ➤ Links not working? Some regions may need a VPN. https://discord.com/invite/n6EdbFJ https://twitter.com/jsmasterypro https://instagram.com/javascriptmastery https://linkedin.com/company/javascriptmastery Business Inquiries: contact@jsmastery.pro Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Introduction 00:03:19 — Crash Course 00:13:14 — Fundamentals 00:23:44 — Project Setup 00:35:19 — Setup Styling (Nativewind) 00:45:17 — Routing & Navigation 01:03:10 — Tab Navigation 01:27:55 — Custom Fonts 01:36:11 — Home UI 02:24:13 — Clerk Setup 02:28:37 — Authentication 02:53:40 — PostHog 03:05:44 — Subscription Tab 03:10:16 — Create Subscriptions 03:13:57 — PostHog Custom Events 03:26:04 — EAS Build & Deploy 03:39:39 — Closing & What's Next