Rework

Book

Rework by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

My Highlights

The problem comes when you postpone decisions in the hope that a perfect answer will come to you later. It won’t. You’re as likely to make a great call today as you are tomorrow.

It doesn’t matter how much you plan, you’ll still get some stuff wrong anyway. Don’t make things worse by overanalyzing and delaying before you even get going.

Stop imagining what’s going to work. Find out for real.

If you aren’t motivated by what you’re working on, it won’t be very good.

Pour yourself into your product and everything around your product too: how you sell it, how you support it, how you explain it, and how you deliver it. Competitors can never copy the you in your product.

Even if you wind up losing, it’s better to go down fighting for what you believe in instead of just imitating others.

If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse. —HENRY FORD

People avoid saying no because confrontation makes them uncomfortable. But the alternative is even worse. You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don’t believe in.

These early days of obscurity are something you’ll miss later on, when you’re really under the microscope. Now’s the time to take risks without worrying about embarrassing yourself.

As a business owner, you should share everything you know too. This is anathema to most in the business world. Businesses are usually paranoid and secretive. They think they have proprietary this and competitive advantage that. Maybe a rare few do, but most don’t. And those that don’t should stop acting like those that do. Don’t be afraid of sharing.

Trade the dream of overnight success for slow, measured growth. It’s hard, but you have to be patient. You have to grind it out. You have to do it for a long time before the right people notice.

How long someone’s been doing it is overrated. What matters is how well they’ve been doing it.

And even if you don’t have a perfect answer, say something. “Let me do some research and get back to you” can work wonders.

We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever. What doesn’t last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now.