All the talks from previous Business of Software Conferences from one place. Great SaaS & Software Talks.

If you want to watch previous BoS Talks, you can access all of the publicly available ones from here, listed by year. The more recent talks will link to the video of the talk, a transcript, the speakers slides, any follow up online AMAs and attendee notes. Great talks on building SaaS and software businesses.

Enjoy!

We’ve thought long and hard about how to build a great schedule for an online conference.

After attending and running several online events and conferences, we’ve experienced the positives and negatives of the virtual event world. As we drew up the schedule for BoS Conference USA Online, we wanted to build an event that takes advantage of the benefits of running an event virtually, while still feeling like a Business of Software Conference and not a series of lectures.

A good online event has 3 key elements:

1. Connecting with your fellow attendees in a meaningful and thoughtful way.
2. Listening to experts sharing new ideas and thinking about what they mean to you.
3. Engaging in stimulating conversations about topics you are passionate about.

There must be a good balance of all 3 to make an online event excellent. For BoS Conference Online this September, we’ve chosen to approach the schedule like a menu. There are 3 courses, each of which complements the others to create one excellent whole meal.

Just like a great meal, each day at BoS will have a starter, a main course, and a dessert.

Jason Fried Talks Basecamp Strategy, Hey.com & Beyond

We talked with Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp and Hey, in advance of his session at Business of Software USA Online to get some of the important but unnecessary stuff out of the way in advance. We don’t think hearing him talk about the background story is going to be as interesting as digging into some questions and conversations about the really interesting stuff for the entrepreneurs and software people who are taking part. A fascinating conversation covering topics including strategy at Basecamp, launching their new email service Hey, thinking about products, remote work, online conferences as platforms and lots of other interesting things.

We’re sharing some of the conversation here, split into three sections for ease – we cover a lot (or you can read it all in one go below):

• The Background – Jason Fried, the evolution of Basecamp, the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.com
• Strategy, optionality and managing two products at Basecamp
• How Covid changes work and industries, designing for platforms

Of course, there is plenty more to talk about and we’re looking forward to spending time with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, neither of whom are short of opinions, to delve deeper at Business of Software Conference Online 21-23 September.

You should be in the (Zoom) room where it happens.

Andy Ellis, Akamai

Humans are horrible at risk management! How are we even still around? We’re now the dominant species on the planet. Why? How? Andy shares his thoughts on why humanity has significant advantages in making rapid, generally correct risk choices.

You will learn:

• how risk choices that appear unreasonable from the outside may not be
• to identify the hidden factors in someone’s risk choice that most influence it
• how to help guide people to risk choices that you find more favorable.

Video, Slides, Transcript, & Sketchnote below

Jason Fried: How Covid Changes Work and Industries, and Designing for Platforms.

We talked with Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp and Hey, in advance of his session at Business of Software USA Online to get some of the important but unnecessary stuff out of the way in advance.

Part 3 of 3 – here we share Jason’s thoughts on the evolution of work and industry post Covid, why designing for platforms is important and the differences between office/remote work and physical/online events. Also, some nice things to say about your favorite conference.

To see the whole discussion in one place… Or pick your topic…

• The Background – Jason Fried, the evolution of Basecamp, the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.com
• Strategy, optionality and managing two products at Basecamp
• How Covid changes work and industries, designing for platforms – you are here.

Of course, there is plenty more to talk about and we’re looking forward to spending time with Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson, neither of whom are short of opinions, to delve deeper at Business of Software Conference Online 21-23 September.

You should be in the (Zoom) room where it happens.

Strategy, Optionality and Managing Two Products at Basecamp.

We talked with Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp and Hey, in advance of his session at Business of Software USA Online to get some of the important but unnecessary stuff out of the way in advance.

Part 2 of 3 – here we discuss how Jason and David think about strategy and manage risk at Basecamp, and find out how they plan to manage two products following the launch of their new email service Hey.com. To see the whole discussion in one place, click here.

Or pick your topic…

• Part 1. The Background – Jason Fried, the evolution of Basecamp, the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.com
• Part 2. Strategy, optionality and managing two products at Basecamp –  you are here.
• Part 3. How Covid changes work and industries, designing for platforms

Of course, there is plenty more to talk about and we’re looking forward to spending time with Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson, neither of whom are short of opinions, to delve deeper at Business of Software Conference Online 21-23 September.

You should be in the (Zoom) room where it happens.

The evolution of Basecamp and the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.

We talked with Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp and Hey, in advance of his session at Business of Software USA Online to get some of the important but unnecessary stuff out of the way in advance.

Part 1 of 3 – here we cover the background on Jason Fried, the evolution of Basecamp from single- to multi- to single- to multi-product company, the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.com

To see the whole discussion in one place… Or pick your topic…

• The Background – Jason Fried, the evolution of Basecamp, the origin, launch and craziness of Hey.com – you are here
• Strategy, optionality and managing two products at Basecamp
• How Covid changes work and industries, designing for platforms

Of course, there is plenty more to talk about and we’re looking forward to spending time with Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson, neither of whom are short of opinions, to delve deeper at Business of Software Conference Online 21-23 September.

You should be in the (Zoom) room where it happens.

Three Challenges Online Conference Tools Must Overcome to Scale

There are a huge number of online event platforms and collaboration tools out there today, with more emerging by the day. Many of them excellent in their own ways but there is a very high bar for software to become the accepted standard that everyone uses. We’re sharing our thoughts on three challenges online conference tools must overcome to scale and our own approach to choosing online event tech.

We see three main areas where virtual event tools are struggling to get traction:

How To Spot Inflection Points Before They Happen | Rita McGrath, Columbia Business School

Rita McGrath is a longtime professor at Columbia Business School and one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth. She is also one of the most regularly published authors in the Harvard Business Review.

This talk gives company leaders food for thought with questions such as do you incorporate diverse perspectives in decisions? Do you empower small, agile teams? Are there resources available for little bets? And does your organization reward truth-telling?

Video, Slides, Transcript, & Sketchnote below

Derek Sivers, Author

Derek Sivers has been a musician, circus performer, entrepreneur, TED speaker, and book publisher. Long ago he started CD Baby, and wrote a great little book about it called “Anything You Want”.

In this BoS Talk Derek will offer some perspectives on what we can do to be more mensch and make the world a better place, how can we end up on the right side of history, and why we should keep our eyes on how the game we play is going to end.

Derek breaks the mould in two ways for his 2019 BoS Talk by opening the talk with an auction, and then closing the talk with a Q&A session that sees the audience answer the questions instead of asking them.

Video, Slides, Transcript, & Sketchnote below

Thompson Aderinkomi, Nice Healthcare

Healthcare is not nice, so Thompson Aderinkomi co-founded Nice Healthcare to set out to change that.

Nice is a direct primary care practice that delivers all care in the comfort of the patient’s home. Thompson is also co-founder and CEO of Relate, an intelligent platform that helps people be better versions of themselves. Previously, in 2009, he co-founded Evidity, a healthcare data analytics firm serving the physician market. He also co-founded RetraceHealth in 2013, a direct primary care medical practice that went on to raise over $7 million.

In this talk, Thompson will share how he has come to understand why so many of the things people know to be true about growing a successful business are simply not true. His experiences as a serial entrepreneur have taught him to question the orthodoxy and why deciding on the right course is down to you. He will leave you with an understanding of how you can ask the right questions through some very honest and personal experiences.

Video, Slides, Transcript, and Sketchnote below