PDF Summary:Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
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1-Page PDF Summary of Rework
Conventional wisdom says that starting a business requires outside investors, strategic plans, accountants, a board of directors, and many other "musts." But in Rework, entrepreneurs Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson explain how old-school thinking doesn't apply in today's new business paradigm.
If you're launching a company today, you can access online tools and technology that let you operate on a shoestring. You don't need a big staff of managers and workers. You don't need to take on huge financial risks. You don't need to work 100 hours a week. You don't need to advertise to find customers. You don't even need an office—your employees can work from home from anywhere in the world. Instead, reject old-school thinking, embrace simplicity, and run your company like a smart, frugal, well-oiled machine.
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- Is there a much simpler solution to this problem or project you're working on? Are you making this project too complicated?
- How would you be spending your time right now if you weren't doing this project? What is this project keeping you from?
Build Uninterrupted Work Time Into Every Day
Set up your workday so that you—and your employees, if you have any—have plenty of uninterrupted time during normal business hours for deep, focused work. For example, you might institute a company rule that no one may talk between 10 am and 2 pm each day. “Talking” includes any form of communication—no email, no instant messages. Just turn the volume down to zero and dive deeply into work.
Don’t Waste Time in Meetings
As a corollary, avoid meetings if at all possible. They're notorious time-wasters. If you must have a meeting, follow these protocols:
- Set an alarm to go off after an allotted period of time. When the alarm rings, the meeting ends.
- Limit the number of people in the meeting—fewer is always better.
- Set an agenda that includes a clear, specific problem to be solved.
- If possible, meet at the place where the problem is occurring, like at the assembly line or customer service desk.
- Find a solution before the meeting is over and assign someone to put that solution into action.
Ignore the Competition
Don't create products that mimic your competition's products. If you let your competition define the rules of the game, you'll lose. Instead, inject some of your individual passions or obsessions into your product. Suddenly, you're fresh and original and the competition won't be able to copy you.
You might even want to position your company as the antithesis of your competition. For example, the car company Audi positions itself as the young, fresh alternative to old-school luxury cars like Mercedes and Rolls Royce. Customers love taking sides in a product war, and if they dislike your competitor, they’ll automatically side with you.
Be Prudent About Upgrades
Don't feel like you have to constantly upgrade your product so that you'll be able to keep your first customers forever. If your customers outgrow your product(s), that's fine. Go find new customers who need your product exactly as it is. Aim to appeal to a certain type of customer rather than any one individual whose needs may change over time.
When a customer requests a change to your product, your default response should be a polite "no." Liberal use of the word "no" keeps you focused on your priorities rather than distracted by continual product tweaks. If customers are asking for a change that is truly worth making, you'll hear that request repeatedly and from a lot of customers. Only then is it worth considering.
Promote Your Product on the Cheap
Previously, you had to buy expensive ads to reach potential customers. Now, you can reach them via the Internet for free (or nearly free). Tweet about your product. Write a blog about it. Shoot promotional videos and post them on Instagram or YouTube. You could get a lot of attention, and if people are interested in what you're tweeting, blogging, and posting, they’ll probably be interested in your products, too.
While your competitors are out selling their products, you can make your brand stand out by teaching your customers what they want to know about your industry. Giving out useful, free information builds brand loyalty. For example, a wine shop owner teaches people about wine on the YouTube channel "Wine Library TV."
Shun the Press Release
To attract the attention of the mainstream media and get them talking about your company, don't go the traditional route and send out hundreds of press releases. Journalists typically ignore press releases because they don't know who is sending them and the releases rarely contain anything newsworthy. Instead, try a more targeted, personal approach. If a journalist has written a story about your industry or competitors, contact them by phone or write them a personal note that explains why your company might make a good news story.
Choose Small Media Over Large
For the best results, concentrate your efforts on smaller media outlets. Sure, you'd love to get your product featured on the cover of Time magazine, but that's unlikely to happen when you’re first starting out. Instead, target the niche media—blogs, newsletters, or magazines that focus only on your industry. The smaller media outlets are actively looking for stories, and their audiences are specifically interested in your industry (and thus more likely to be interested in your company than the general public). You might get a surprise bonus: Stories that are covered by trade publications are sometimes picked up by much bigger media outlets.
Add to Your Team (or Don't)
When you think it's time to hire someone, ask yourself if there is any way to avoid it. What would happen if you didn't add another employee? Does that job you're hiring for really need to be done, or can you get by without it? Is there a machine or a piece of software that can do the job instead of a person?
If you believe you must hire someone, don’t put your trust in resumes, fancy degrees, or even 30 years of experience. Instead, hire your best candidates to do a 20-hour “tryout” project for you, and then you’ll get to see the quality of their work.
Don’t Hire Until You’ve Done the Job
As the business owner, you need to know how to do every job in your company. Before you advertise an open position, spend some time doing the job yourself—even if it’s a task you aren’t trained to do. This is the only way to know if the position should be full-time or part-time, what questions to ask potential employees, and whether the person you hire is actually doing a good job.
Manage Your Reputation
Sometimes mistakes happen. Maybe your product has a bad flaw. Maybe it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. Thanks to the Internet, anything and everything your business does (or doesn't do) can go viral. If your business screws up, don't deceive yourself that you'll be able to cover it up. Own up to your mistakes. Tell your customers immediately. If it's warranted, tell the news media and the general public. The top person in your company should deliver the news along with a sincere and detailed apology.
Handle Your Customers With Care
Even when everything is going smoothly, you still have to watch out for your company’s reputation. Friendly and efficient customer service is always critical. Customers hate being put on hold. They hate hearing canned messages about how much the company cares about them even though no one will take their call. But they’re over-the-moon happy when their calls or emails are answered with speedy, personalized service.
You don't even need to have a perfect solution to their problem or question. Just saying you'll look into it and get back to them will make them feel valued.
Help Your Employees Thrive
A great company culture develops over time through consistent positive actions, not by installing foosball tables or espresso machines. If managers treat their employees kindly, kindness will become part of the company culture. If employees leave work daily at 5 p.m., then a healthy work/life balance becomes the norm.
Create a Workplace Where Everyone Can Flourish
Focus your energies on creating an environment in which every employee can do his or her best work. Even a mediocre employee can do outstanding work in a nurturing environment. Give your employees the tools, space, privacy, respect, and trust they need to achieve greatness. Don't create needless bureaucratic policies—like having to get a manager’s approval to leave work for a dentist appointment—that make them feel like they work for Big Brother.
Communicate Simply and Clearly
Use positive, direct, clear language when dealing with your employees. Don't use industry jargon or corporate-speak in the interest of sounding "professional." And beware of absolutist language like "I need this by the end of the day," "we can't spend more time on this," or "you should be able to do this easily." These kinds of directives create unnecessary tension and stress.
When you "need" something done immediately, try phrasing it as a question: "Do you think you could finish this by the end of the day?"
Along the same lines, limit your use of "ASAP." Most things don't really need to happen as soon as possible. Every request is not equally urgent, so save ASAP for when it really matters.
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PDF Summary Chapters 1-2: Ignore Old-School Business Myths
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We've all heard that nine out of 10 new businesses fail. Some people say that such failure serves a purpose—it teaches us to learn from our mistakes. In reality, mistakes don't teach us anything useful. They show what our next step shouldn't be—repeating the mistake again—but not what it should be.
A Harvard Business School study bears out this idea. It showed that people who succeeded with their first business were much more likely to succeed with a future business. On the other hand, when people who failed at their first business started a second one, they had no greater chance of success than people who had never run a business at all.
Do This, Not That
Mimic the theory of evolution: Build on adaptations that work, not ones that don't. If something works for your business, keep doing it. Learn from success, not failure.
Principle 3: Don't Rely on Strategic Guessing
CFOs and CEOs believe they need to create long-term plans for their business, but such plans are based on past performance, which by definition has little to do with future performance. Just because your business operated one way in the past doesn't mean it will operate in the same way in...
PDF Summary Chapter 3: Start Your Business
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Do This, Not That
Instead of making excuses, devote one hour a day or a few hours a week to creating your dream business. You'll quickly learn if you're genuinely enthusiastic about the business or if you're just day-dreaming.
Principle 4: Stand Behind Your Creation
Once you've created a product, stand by it wholeheartedly. Have bold opinions about why it's the best in its class, and express those opinions without reservation. You may come up against some haters—not just your competitors but even some of your own customers—but that's okay. Not everybody has to love your product—just enough people to keep you in business.
Model for success: Whole Foods is often mocked for being an elitist, expensive grocery store, but they stand by their commitment to selling only healthy, natural foods—and they don't apologize for it.
Principle 5: Walk Your Talk
Your company's mission statement—and all its communications—should accurately reflect who you are and what you do. If you say that you care about your customers, "walk the talk" by offering incredible customer service. If you say that your company cares about the environment, get outside...
PDF Summary Chapter 4: Move Ahead With Less
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Principle 4: Ignore the Details at the Start
In the early stages of product creation, ignore tiny details, like what color it will be or where the logo will be placed, until after the prototype is functional. You can't recognize what details matter until the project is farther along.
Model for success: A famous drawing teacher at Walt Disney Studios taught his animators not to pencil in the details of Disney characters—clothing, facial expressions, hair—during the early stages of character development. Time spent on details too early was always wasted effort.
Principle 5: Make Decisions—Don’t Sit on Them
In business, it's dangerous to say, “Let's decide later.” You want to keep moving forward, and that only occurs when decisions get made, even if those decisions aren’t perfect. You may think you need to wait to decide until you have more information about the choice at hand, but you're just as likely to make a good decision today as you are tomorrow.
Do This, Not That
Don't let the fear of making a bad decision slow you down. It's far more productive to make the wrong decision now than to put off deciding until later. You can build on a...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Chapter 5: Maintain Your Momentum
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- Is there a much simpler solution to this problem or project you're working on? Are you making this project too complicated?
- How would you be spending your time right now if you weren't doing this project? What is this project keeping you from?
Principle 3: Know When to Drop a Project
It's a lot smarter to abandon a project—even one that you've already put significant energy into—than to keep funneling resources into a dead end. Just because you've invested many hours of time and effort into something doesn't mean you should keep investing more. Not every project is going to be a success.
Do This, Not That
If any project is taking you longer than two weeks to complete, get a colleague to take a look at your work. They might be able to find a solution that isn't visible to you, or they might tell you the best solution is to drop the project. Either way, you'll get a valuable reality check.
Principle 4: Build Uninterrupted Time Into Every Day
Build uninterrupted work time—a long period in which there is no talking—into your company’s regular work day. You get the most work done when you’re not interrupted by questions, conversations, or...
PDF Summary Chapter 6: Ignore the Competition
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Principle 4: Make Your Product Simpler Than the Competition's
Do you feel like you're always on the defense, trying to improve your product to overthrow the competition? Take the opposite approach—instead of adding features to your product, try subtracting features. Simplifying your product may be the right move to make you stand out. There's plenty of market share for small, simple, and basic products—and you can brag about the fact that your invention does "less."
Model for success: Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, bicycle brands started making bikes that had more gears—first 10 speeds, then 21 speeds—plus high-tech suspension systems and super lightweight frames. But soon after 2000, that shifted. Suddenly the hottest bikes on the market were "beach cruisers"—heavy, single-speed bikes that looked straight out of the 1950s. People were happy to pedal along on the simplest machine with two wheels.
PDF Summary Chapter 7: Be Prudent About Upgrades
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Principle 3: Don't Get Distracted by Upgrade Ideas
When you come up with a potential upgrade for your product, don't drop everything to pursue it. Just because you're excited about this upgrade right now doesn't mean it should take priority.
Do This, Not That
Give your upgrade idea a cooling-off period. See if it still seems brilliant a month later.
Principle 4: Make Products That Work Better Than They Look
Some products are "in-store-good." They’re packaged beautifully and are usually accompanied by slick advertising that delivers the promise of something great.
However, customers want more than pretty packaging, so your products should be "at-home-good." These products are more impressive once you take them out of their package and start using them. They deliver more than they promised—and they rarely need upgrades.
PDF Summary Chapter 8: Promote Your Product on the Cheap
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Principle 3: Share Your Business “Secrets” With the World
As a corollary, you can also give free lessons on how your business operates. Too often, business owners tend to think all their information should be proprietary—they don't want their competition to know their processes. But revealing your company secrets may bring you more loyal customers.
Model for success: Consider the world's best chefs. They go on television and YouTube and show every home cook how to make their most famous dishes. They write cookbooks and give away all their secrets. This just makes their restaurants even more popular.
Principle 4: Show How Your Product Is Made
People enjoy learning the inner workings of businesses—that's why factory tours are so popular. Showing how your product is made builds brand loyalty because customers feel like they have "insider" status.
Model for success: Jelly Belly, manufacturer of tiny jelly beans in unique flavors like Buttered Popcorn and Chili Mango, offers factory tours at its manufacturing plant in Fairfield, California. After touring the plant and learning how the sweets are made, visitors head to the gift shop to stock up on their...
PDF Summary Chapter 9: Add to Your Team (or Don't)
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Principle 3: Don't Hire Just Because Someone Is Awesome
You might meet someone who you think is brilliant, energetic, hardworking, and just plain great to be around—the ideal employee in every respect. But that doesn't mean you should hire them. Ask yourself:
- Does your company have a genuine need for this person?
- Exactly what duties will she be taking on?
- Will you have to come up with projects for her, or is there a genuine void that she can start filling right away?
Do This, Not That
Define whether or not you have a need for an additional employee, then go find someone great to fill that need. Don't hire someone great and then try to figure out what they should do for you.
Principle 4: Hire One Employee at a Time
If you hire a bunch of new employees simultaneously, your workplace will be the equivalent of a politely boring cocktail party. Because your multiple new employees don’t have the trust that comes with long-standing relationships, everyone will try too hard to be “nice.” When the group is discussing problems with your product, no one will take a contradictory or controversial stand. **You don't want to create a culture of...
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PDF Summary Chapter 10: Manage Your Company's Reputation
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Principle 3: Provide Speedy Customer Service
When it comes to your company's reputation, great customer service is critical. Customers hate being put on hold. They hate hearing canned messages about how much the company cares about them even though no one will take their call. But customers are over-the-moon happy when their calls or emails are answered with speedy, personalized service.
You don't even need to have a perfect solution to their problem or question. Just saying you'll look into it and get back to them will make them feel valued. (But make sure you do follow through, or you’ll lose their trust.)
Principle 4: Give Every Employee Customer Contact
Have every team member, from your company’s engineers to your marketing staff, connect with your customers for at least a few hours each month. When engineers and designers hear customer feedback directly—instead of getting it second- or third-hand from salespeople or marketing managers—they'll be more motivated to make a great product.
Principle 5: Leave Some Complaints to Resolve Themselves
Some complaints resolve themselves, especially ones that involve changes to your product. Customers...
PDF Summary Chapter 11: Help Your Employees Thrive
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Principle 5: Don't Create Needless Policies
Just because an employee does something wrong once doesn't mean you need to create a policy addressing the error. Policy-making often feels like punishment. Instead of punishing your whole crew for one person's mishap, talk to that person directly. Only create a policy if the problem happens repeatedly.
Principle 6: Communicate Simply and Clearly
Direct, straightforward language is the only kind you should use with your employees (and also with the outside world). Don't use industry jargon or corporate-speak in the interest of sounding "professional." Drop the fake formality.
Do This, Not That
Whether you're giving an employee feedback, writing a blog post, speaking at a conference, talking to customers, or writing an email, speak in your authentic voice.
Principle 7: Avoid Absolutist Language
Too often in business we use phrases like "I need this by the end of the day," "we can't spend more time on this," or "you should be able to do this easily." These kinds of directives create unnecessary tension and stress. Likewise, extreme words like "can't," "never," and "need" send a bossy,...