SXSW: opening remarks

Jason Fried (37 Signals) and Jim Coudal (Coudal Partners) delivered the opening remarks on building big things with small teams. Each gave a nice summary of their design, development, and overall business philosophies. Fried’s comments were particularly interesting as I just bought his latest book, Getting Real, late last week and started reading it on the flight to SXSW. His thoughts centered on how one actually gets more done by focusing on less. Less money, less time, less project scope. He also talked about his dislike of functional specifications. Considering them political documents, Fried suggests trying to avoid them as much as possible. I definitely agree with him on this subject as it’s near impossible to figure out everything an application needs before development begins and real users (even the development team) start using it.