Book of the Week: Rework

20 Oct 2013

The most interesting thing about Rework, is who it is written by. Rework is written by 37signals, the creators of Ruby on Rails. If you’ve done any web development, you’ve heard of Ruby on Rails. 37signals intentionally kept their team to 16 people at the time the book was published. They built a business, not a startup. This book is about what they learned about building a business. The book has many small sections that make for a quick, but worthy read. Ideas Ideas are cheap and plentiful. Everyone has ideas, but how many people execute on those ideas. Ideas are amorphous until you will it into being. Henry Ford was a man with ideas and action. The Ford Charcoal company used wood scraps from his production line. One man’s garbage is another man’s Kingsford charcoal company. If you want to start a business, you need to start building. Customers The book mention that you don’t need to write down customer feedback, because you won’t forget the important stuff. If you forget it, then it wasn’t important. I never memorized the periodic table in chemistry, but I looked up the numbers so often that I didn’t need to look them up anymore. You need to change how you interact with the customer, so you can effectively solve the customer’s problems. Relationships with customers are important. Give them a taste of some good stuff and they will keep coming back for more. Teach them how to roll it up properly for maximum satisfaction. More words in a blog post does not necessarily make it better.