[anon808]

Why are you spinning off the business if it's profitable? Why isn't Claire joining 37S instead? What's happening to ClarityBox? What other operating scenarios did you guys consider? Who is going to run the business . . . will Claire be doing product development, programming, customer support herself? What exactly will she be doing? Is she hiring people? Who are these people?

Of course you don't owe anyone any of that info. However, if you crack the door open just a little bit, don't be offended/surprised etc. if my curiosity is piqued and I want to open it.

[jasonfried]

Know Your Company was a big experiment from the start. A totally new kind of product for us, an entirely new kind of business model for us, etc. And now we're taking that to the next level with an entirely new strategy for us: Spinning it off into it's own autonomous company and letting it find its own direction.

As I mentioned in the original post, we wanted to hire Claire to run Know Your Company inside 37signals, but there was a fundamental conflict of interest: She had interviewed everyone at 37signals as part of a consulting project, and knew a lot of details about how everyone felt about the company. Everyone spoke to her in confidence as an outside consultant, not as a colleague. Bringing her into 37signals as an employee later would be a violation of that trust, so we weren't able to hire her.

You'd have to ask Claire how she plans on staffing the company, but initially it's just her with a little bit of our help during the transition. As far as I understand, soon she will be bringing someone on part time to help with product development until she's ready to make a full-time hire. Slow, steady, and prudent.

Hope that was helpful.

[xivzgrev]

I really like the organic approach you've taken here. Just let things evolve, see where they go, and make the best decision you can at that point in time.

Also, Claire was friend of friend of mine in college, and I'm very excited for her!

[anon808]

yup, it makes sense why Claire wouldn't be part of 37s, and if the fit with her and the product is one-of-a-kind, makes sense that it would be organized separately if thats the only way to have her be a part of it. Of course now that you add more color, I'm more curious. I always got the impression you were more personally associated with Know Your Company than the other 37s products (having your signature on the marketing page), if so, are you personally bummed to give up the product and not direct it's continued development? Are you going to be working on something new?

[jasonfried]

I'm not bummed at all -- I'm excited! I can't give Know Your Company my full attention forever.

The product is in great hands now with Claire fully-focused on making it better as her full time job.

I'm standing by as an advisor and eager to help when called upon.

We also still own a sizable piece of the company so it's in our best interest to see it succeed.

And we're customers - we use Know Your Company every week.

[mathattack]

This was a remarkably human-centric explanation. Thank you.

[cjlew23]

Hey there, this is Claire. Hopefully Jason was able to answer most of your questions. But if not, just wanted to chime in...

As the CEO of Know Your Company, I'll be running the business day-to-day. In the beginning, that will include everything from sales to customer support. I'll be bringing on a part-time programmer to do a bit of product development + maintenance until I'm ready to make a full-time hire. Overall, I'm not looking to build a huge team out-of-the-gate. I want to focus on talking with customers, listening to why KYC works for them, and learning how it could be better.

I'll be placing ClarityBox, the consulting practice, on hold to focus on running KYC and delivering the product. In the future though, I could potentially envision both a service and product offered together.

Let me know if you have any other questions – I'm happy to answer them.

[larrys]

"Why are you spinning off the business if it's profitable?"

I think it makes a lot of sense and is a smart move.

Gives an incentive to the person running it to "do their own thing" and by creating a separate entity they can also sell it more easily (if they want to). Or give an equity stake to Claire. And empower her to take chances she might not take if she is just "joining 37 signals" and is all distracted with general company goals.

More importantly it even creates a template to start other similar businesses and do the same. And not to get dragged into the day to day of each and every business or product line or decision.

[anon808]

Why not just keep the product in 37Signals if it's a profitable product?

"not to get dragged into the day to day of each and every business or product"; 37S has a successful history of getting into the day to day of every business and product, that's what they do exceptionally well. Why change that?