Rework: Essential way of Thinking for Startup
About this book
Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. You'll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas.
My thoughts
You can learn the working style of a startup company, which is essential if you want to earn money.
The book, published in 2010, describes the internet trend that happened in Japan in 2015. I realized that the trends always start in the United States.
However, it is changing these days. I think the trend will begin from the cloud in the coming years, so I need to re-think and chase the opportunity.
My highlights
Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It’s considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work. Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. First off, working like that just isn’t sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes—and it will—it’ll hit that much harder.
Whenever you can, swap “Let’s think about it” for “Let’s decide on it.”
When things aren’t working, the natural inclination is to throw more at the problem. More people, time, and money. All that ends up doing is making the problem bigger. The right way to go is the opposite direction: Cut back.
If you’re constantly staying late and working weekends, it’s not because there’s too much work to be done. It’s because you’re not getting enough done at work. And the reason is interruptions.
A lot of times it’s better to be a quitter than a hero.
Keep in mind that the obvious solution might very well be quitting. People automatically associate quitting with failure, but sometimes that’s exactly what you should do.
The enthusiasm you have for a new idea is not an accurate indicator of its true worth.
Don’t be afraid to show your flaws. Imperfections are real and people respond to real.
Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.
“We apologize …” If you spilled coffee on someone while riding the subway, would you say, “I apologize”? No, you’d say, “I’m so, so sorry!” Well, if your service is critical to your customers, an interruption to that service is like spilling hot coffee all over them.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered support e-mails himself (often within minutes). He deleted racist comments from discussion boards and monitored New York City apartment listings for scam postings.* If he can devote this kind of attention to customer service, you can too.
There are four-letter words you should never use in business. They’re not fuck or shit. They’re need, must, can’t, easy, just, only, and fast.
» Rework (Jason Fried)Here’s what’s wrong with some of them: Need. Very few things actually need to get done. Instead of saying “need,” you’re better off saying “maybe” or “What do you think about this?” or “How does this sound?” or “Do you think we could get away with that?” Can’t. When you say “can’t,” you probably can. Sometimes there are even opposing can’ts: “We can’t launch it like that, because it’s not quite right” versus “We can’t spend any more time on this because we have to launch.” Both of those statements can’t be true. Or wait a minute, can they? Easy. Easy is a word that’s used to describe other people’s jobs. “That should be easy for you to do, right?” But notice how rarely people describe their own tasks as easy. For you, it’s “Let me look into it”—but for others, it’s “Get it done.”