57. Rework -Jason Fried & David Heinemaeier Hansson (📖)

Reading Notes:

long-term business planning is a fantasy. There are just too many factors that are out of your hands: market conditions, competitors, customers, the economy etc.

You have the most information when you’re doing something, not before you’ve done it. Yet when do you write a plan? Usually it’s before you’ve even begun.

Why is expansion always the goal? What’s the attraction of big besides ego ? What’s wrong with finding the right size and staying there ?

When you build a product or service, you make the call on hundreds of tiny decisions each day. If you’re solving someone else’s problem, you’re constantly stabbing in the dark.

You need less than you think

A business without a path to profit isn’t a business, it’s a hobby.

Act like an actual business and you’ll have a much better shot at succeding.

There’s only a slim chance that some big suitor will come along and make it worthwhile. Plus, when you build a company with the intention of being acquired, you emphasize the wrong things.

Less mass

the more massive an objection, the more energy required to change its direction.

Lots of things get better as they get shorter.

“If I took this away, would what I’m selling still exist? “

figure out your epicenter.

You don’t make a great museum by putting all the art in the world into a single room. That’s a warehouse. What makes a museum great is the stuff that’s not on the walls.

The core of your business should be built around things that won’t change.

The best way to get there is through iterations. Stop imagining what’s going to work. Find out for real.

Adding something is easy, adding value is hard.

Competitors can never copy the you in your product.

When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can’t spend that time improving yourself.

Being obscure is a great position to be in. Be happy. you’re in the shadows.

Use this time to make mistakes without the whole world hearing about them. Obsecurity helps protect your ego and preserve your confidence.

Teach and you’ll form a bond you just don’t get from traditional marketing tactics.

Emulate chefs. They cook, so they write cookbooks. What do you do? What are your “recipes”? What’s your “cookbook”? What can you tell the world about how you operate, that’s informative, educational and promotional? This book is our cookbook. What’s yours?

Drug dealers are astute businesspeople. They know their product is so good they’re willing to give a little away for free upfront. They know you’ll be back for more – with money.

Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.