Build a business that runs without you

Welcome to Rework, a podcast by thirty seven Signals about the better way to work and run your business. I'm Kimberly Rhodes from the thirty seven Signals team joined by the cofounders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanssen. Well, we always talk about business on this podcast. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it's easy to think that they're running a company when they've actually just created a job for themselves. I know when I was an entrepreneur, I created a company, but it really was just a job. Like, business would not continue to sustain itself without me. Jason and David haven't done this, so I thought we would talk a little bit more about that, how they've created a company that really runs without them. You guys can step away, and the business continues on. So let's go back when the company first started. Were you thinking about Thirty Seven Signals as this company that could run without you, or were you just creating jobs for yourselves? Well, I mean, I I have created a job for myself too. When way back in the day when I was just freelancing, and Dave was freelancing and we were separate. And even before that, when I was in college and actually high school, I made some software and sold that. But back then, I didn't think of it as a company or a job. I thought of it as me just making a product and selling it. Job didn't ring a bell, and I had a name because you kinda make up a name, then you make up a logo and you feel whatever. But it was just me making something that I wanted to make and putting it out there. So I have done that. And then if I didn't do that, in that case, I was making software, so money was coming in for a while. But if I didn't, like, keep it updated or respond to customers or something, eventually that would fall apart. So I have been there. It is interesting to be on the other side of that, which is to have employees, which is kind of what you ultimately need if you wanna be able to step away for a minute. You need someone else to carry the torch and and do the work if you're not there. And, of course, David and I don't do all the work for the company anyway. We couldn't. We're not capable of all of the work. But when you have other people around and other people who are in leadership positions and other people who are able to to do stuff and there's momentum, you can step away for a while, which you can't do as a freelancer. Things just don't happen if you don't have someone else to do the work. So I think there is a distinction there. But ultimately, at the end of the day, even if you're an entrepreneur who's created a …