Digital Dave

I’ve been on the lookout for some good books that are startup in nature. Rework fit that bill easily. This book was written by the brains that brewed 37Signals and they give some great advice.

The book is divided into small chunks which makes it easy to put down and pick back up. The good news is that you’ll probably plow right through it since it is pretty entertaining to read.

A couple of pieces that stick out in my mind -

About failing
“Another common misconception: You need to learn from your mistakes. What do you really learn from mistakes? You might learn what not to do again, but how valuable is that? You still don’t know what you should do next.”

Which is followed by, “A Harvard Business School study found already-successful entrepreneurs are far more likely to succeed again (the success rate for their future companies is 34 percent). But entrepreneurs whose companies failed the first time had almost the same follow-on success rate as people starting a company for the first time: just 23 percent.”

About being a workaholic
“Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions.

They even create crises. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more.”

This especially hurts the people who are NOT workaholics. Those people feel inadequate.

Meetings are toxic
Not that we don’t know this. But why are companies not paying attention to this? Granted, I only have experience at one company, but our meeting process is terrible at best.

A couple of points they make that I like… “Set a timer. When it rings, meeting’s over. Period,” “invite as few people as possible,” “End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.” I would also be a fan of removing the chairs and making meetings stand-up right by a whiteboard that has the problem written out and circled.

Your competitors
“Who cares what they’re doing”

Your customers
“Let your customers outgrow you”

Don’t be the people who continue chasing after customers. If your service no longer satisfies their need, let them move on. Focus on those that really need your service instead of diluting your service by casting a wider net.

There is so much good stuff in the book that I could continue writing. But, instead, I highly recommend checking it out.