• Startup Archive
  • Posts
  • Jason Fried: “Marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm”

Jason Fried: “Marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm”

September 03, 2025

“Marketing is a transfer of enthusiasm. I think that’s the only thing that it is actually,” Jason posits.

He gives the example of his Basecamp co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson’s work on the Arch-derived Linux distribution Omarchy:

“You can see the upswell of enthusiasm and people are pumped about it because David is pumped about it. And when David’s pumped about it, you’re like, ‘What’s going on over here? This must be interesting.’ So people are open to trying it out.”

Jason continues:

“And that’s all you can ever ask for — for someone to go, ‘Ok yeah I’ll try it.’ That’s a victory right there… Just to get someone to try something that you’re putting your energy and time into is huge, and I don’t think there’s any other way to do it. There are other ways to build enthusiasm with advertising or telling a great story, but I think at the root of it, it is the enthusiasm that shows through.”