Billy Putrino of Versatility Skateboards on his team's use of Basecamp and Campfire:
How do you use our products and why do you like them?
Versatility Skateboards is a new skateboard company founded in early 2008. Our company is headed up by three partners and our steadily expanding skate team has seven riders. When we’re not out skating, we virtually work from home. Basecamp and Campfire has enabled us to remain 100% connected with each other.
Basecamp is the body of our business’s communications. Every project, from designing a new skateboard to planning a contest sponsorship, is tracked in Basecamp.
Campfire is our brain. All three of us leave it up and running all day, which allows us the ability to brainstorm at the drop of a hat. The best feature of Campfire is that it’s logged and we can revisit the ideas we discussed 10 minutes, 10 days or 10 weeks later. Without Campfire, a lot of ideas would be lost!
Which features do you use most?
We use Basecamp’s files feature the most. It lets us share board designs, skate pictures, website art and even skate videos; the files feature creates a central location for all these files. It’s so much easier than emailing multiple copies of these files back and forth to each other.
The comments on to-do lists is another feature we’re constantly using. This feature gives a voice to the tasks on our company’s agenda. It really helps so much to be able to know the status of any given task at any given time.
What did you use before and why did you switch?
We were using email for all our business communications before Basecamp, which got ugly fast. It’s way too difficult to run a business through e-mail. When we began searching for a communication application to use, simplicity and effectiveness were our top priorities – we didn’t want to waste valuable time learning to use an application. Enter Basecamp – virtually no learning curve, easy to use, very effective and beautifully laid out. It fits Versatility and enables us to keep doing what we do.
Get specific. Tell us a story about a project or situation where a 37signals product helped you out.
We are about to create a project in Basecamp called “Team”. We have designated this as an area where our team skaters will have access to post up pictures and videos. They will be able to communicate with each other to setup skate sessions and share trick tips. We also plan on using it to help set-up contest entries for our skaters. “Team” will simply be used to keep us in the know with each team skater. Several of our team skaters are out-of-state, but with Basecamp the location doesn’t matter. We are excited to get our team in Basecamp and watch us all come together as a family. This is the tool to do that!
Any tips or tricks for other customers?
The best tip I can give is to use OpenID to log on. When you use the OpenID to log on, a toolbar appears on top containing all of your 37signals applications allowing you to seamlessly switch between them. It’s so convenient to be able to use all the 37signals applications as if they were one.
Learn more about Versatility Skateboards, Basecamp, or Campfire.
Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.
