Rework Summary - Part 2 — Nov 29, 2023

Comprehensive summary on Rework Book by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried.

Table of Contents

1. Chapter 6 - Competitors
2. Chapter 7 - Evolution
3. Chapter 8 - Promotion
4. Chapter 9 - Hiring
5. Chapter 10 - Damage Control
6. Chapter 11 - Culture
7. Conclusion

Chapter 6 - Competitors

• Don't copy:
  • You have to understand why something works or why something is the way it is. When you just copy and paste, you miss that. You just repurpose the last layer instead of understanding all the layers underneath.
  • The copycat doesn’t really know why something looks the way it looks or feels the way it feels or reads the way it reads.
  • Be influenced, but don’t steal.
• Decommoditize your product:
  • If you’re successful, people will try to copy what you do. It’s just a fact of life. But there’s a great way to protect yourself from copycats:
  • Make you part of your product or service. Inject what’s unique about the way you think into what you sell.
  • Decommoditize your product. Make it something no one else can offer.
  • Zappos, It’s this devotion to customer service that makes Zappos unique among shoe sellers.
  • 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.
• Pick a fight:
  • Being the anti-______ is a great way to differentiate yourself and attract followers.
  • For example, Dunkin’ Donuts likes to position itself as the anti- Starbucks.
  • Taking a stand always stands out. People get stoked by conflict. They take sides. Passions are ignited. And that’s a good way to get people to take notice.
• Underdo your competition:
  • Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors, you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need five (or fifteen, or twenty-five). If they’re spending $20,000, you need to spend $30,000. If they have fifty employees, you need a hundred.
  • Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to the competition. Instead of one-upping, try one- downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing.
  • The Flip wins fans because it only does a few simple things and it does them well. It’s easy and fun to use.
  • It goes places a bigger camera would never go and gets used by people who would never use a fancier camera.
  • Don’t shy away from the fact that your product or service does less. Highlight it. Be proud of it. Sell it as aggressively as competitors sell their extensive feature lists.
• Who cares what they’re doing?:
  • In the end, it’s not worth paying much attention to the competition anyway. Why not? Because worrying about the competition quickly turns into an obsession.
  • Every little move becomes something to be analyzed.
  • And that’s a terrible mind-set. It leads to overwhelming stress and anxiety. That state of mind is bad soil for growing anything.
  • It’s a pointless exercise anyway. The competitive landscape changes all the time. Your competitor tomorrow may be completely different from your competitor today.
  • When you spend time worrying about someone else, you can’t spend that time improving yourself.
  • Focus on competitors too much and you wind up diluting your own vision.
  • Your chances of coming up with something fresh go way down when you keep feeding your brain other people’s ideas.
  • You become reactionary instead of visionary. You wind up offering your competitor’s products with a different coat of paint.
  • If you’re planning to build “the iPod killer” or “the next Pokemon,” you’re already dead.
  • If you’re just going to be like everyone else, why are you even doing this? If you merely replicate competitors, there’s no point to your existence. Even if you wind up losing, it’s better to go down fighting for what you believe in instead of just imitating others.

Chapter 7 - Evolution

• Say no by default:
  • If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse. —HENRY FORD
  • Start getting into the habit of saying no—even to many of your best ideas. Use the power of no to get your priorities straight.
  • You rarely regret saying no. But you often wind up regretting saying yes.
  • You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don’t believe in.
  • Deal with the brief discomfort of confrontation up front and avoid the long-term regret.
  • ING wants to keep things simple. That’s why the bank offers just a few savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and mutual funds—and that’s it.
  • Your goal is to make sure your product stays right for you. You’re the one who has to believe in it most. That way, you can say, “I think you’ll love it because I love it.”
• Let your customers outgrow you:
  • When you let customers outgrow you, you’ll most likely wind up with a product that’s basic—and that’s fine. Small, simple, basic needs are constant.
  • And there are always more people who are not using your product than people who are.
  • Companies need to be true to a type of customer more than a specfic individual customer with changing needs.
• Don’t confuse enthusiasm with priority:
  • Coming up with a great idea gives you a rush. You start imagining the possibilities and the benets. And of course, you want all that right away. So you drop everything else you’re working on and begin pursuing your latest, greatest idea.
  • Bad move. The enthusiasm you have for a new idea is not an accurate indicator of its true worth. What seems like a sure-re hit right now often gets downgraded to just a “nice to have” by morning. And “nice to have” isn’t worth putting everything else on hold.
  • We have ideas for new features all the time. On top of that, we get dozens of interesting ideas from customers every day too. Sure, it’d be fun to immediately chase all these ideas to see where they lead. But if we did that, we’d just wind up running on a treadmill and never get anywhere.
  • Get excited about them. Just don’t act in the heat of the moment. Write them down and park them for a few days. Then, evaluate their actual priority with a calm mind.
• Be at-home good:
  • You can’t paint over a bad experience with good advertising or marketing.
• Don’t write it down:
  • How should you keep track of what customers want? Don’t. Listen, but then forget what people said. Seriously.
  • There’s no need for a spreadsheet, database, or ling system. The requests that really matter are the ones you’ll hear over and over.
  • They’ll keep reminding you. They’ll show you which things you truly need to worry about.
  • If there’s a request that you keep forgetting, that’s a sign that it isn’t very important.
  • The really important stu doesn’t go away.

Chapter 8 - Promotion

• Welcome obscurity:
  • No one knows who you are right now. And that’s just fine. Being obscure is a great position to be in. Be happy you’re in the shadows.
  • Use this time to make mistakes without the whole world hearing about them. Keep tweaking. Work out the kinks. Test random ideas. Try new things. No one knows you, so it’s no big deal if you mess up. Obscurity helps protect your ego and preserve your confidence.
  • Would you want the whole world to watch you the first time you do anything?
  • If you’ve never given a speech before, do you want your first speech to be in front of ten thousand people or ten people?
  • You don’t want everyone to watch you starting your business. It makes no sense to tell everyone to look at you if you’re not ready to be looked at yet.
  • When you’re a success, the pressure to maintain predictability and consistency builds.
  • You get more conservative. It’s harder to take risks. That’s when things start to fossilize and change becomes difficult.
  • These early days of obscurity are something you’ll miss later on, when you’re really under the microscope.
• Build an audience:
  • But the most fortunate companies have audiences. An audience can be your secret weapon
  • Today’s smartest companies know better. Instead of going out to reach people, you want people to come to you.
  • When you build an audience, you don’t have to buy people’s attention—they give it to you. This is a huge advantage.
  • So build an audience. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos— whatever. Share information that’s valuable and you’ll slowly but surely build a loyal audience. Then when you need to get the word out, the right people will already be listening.
• Out-teach your competition:
  • You can advertise. You can hire salespeople. You can sponsor events. But your competitors are doing the same things. How does that help you stand out?
  • Teaching probably isn’t something your competitors are even thinking about. Most businesses focus on selling or servicing, but teaching never even occurs to them.
• Emulate chefs:
  • They’re great chefs, but there are a lot of great chefs out there. So why do you know these few better than others? Because they share everything they know. They put their recipes in cookbooks and show their techniques on cooking shows.
  • 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.
  • So emulate famous chefs. They cook, so they write cookbooks.
• Go behind the scenes:
  • Give people a backstage pass and show them how your business works.
  • Imagine that someone wanted to make a reality show about your business. What would they share? Now stop waiting for someone else and do it yourself.
  • t doesn’t need to be a dangerous job, either. People love finding out the little secrets of all kinds of businesses, even one that makes those tiny marshmallows in breakfast cereals.
• Nobody likes plastic flowers:
  • Don’t be afraid to show your flaws.
  • Imperfections are real and people respond to real. It’s why we like real flowers that wilt, not perfect plastic ones that never change.
  • Don’t worry about how you’re supposed to sound and how you’re supposed to act. Show the world what you’re really like, warts and all.
  • Keep things clean and unencumbered but don’t sterilize.
  • Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry.
  • Leave the poetry in what you make. When something becomes too polished, it loses its soul. It seems robotic.
  • So talk like you really talk. Reveal things that others are unwilling to discuss.
  • Be upfront about your shortcomings. Show the latest version of what you’re working on, even if you’re not done yet. It’s OK if it’s not perfect.
• Press releases are spam:
  • If you want to get someone’s attention, it’s silly to do exactly the same thing as everyone else. You need to stand out. So why issue press releases like everyone else does?
  • Instead, call someone. Write a personal note. If you read a story about a similar company or product, contact the journalist who wrote it. Pitch her with some passion, some interest, some life. Do something meaningful. Be remarkable. Stand out. Be unforgettable. That’s how you’ll get the best coverage.
• Forget about the Wall Street Journal:
  • You’re not big enough to matter.
  • You’re better o focusing on getting your story into a trade publication or picked up by a niche blogger.
  • These guys are actually hungry for fresh meat. They thrive on being tastemakers, finding the new thing, and getting the ball rolling.
  • Stories that start on the fringe can go mainstream quickly.
• Drug dealers get it right:
  • Emulate drug dealers. Make your product so good, so addictive, so “can’t miss” that giving customers a small, free taste makes them come back with cash in hand.
  • You want an easily digestible introduction to what you sell. This gives people a way to try it without investing any money or a lot of time.
  • Bakeries, restaurants, and ice cream shops have done this successfully for years. Car dealers let you test-drive cars before buying them. Software rms are also getting on board, with free trials or limited-use versions. How many other industries could benefit from the drug-dealer model?
• Marketing is not a department:
  • It’s the sum total of everything you do.
• The myth of the overnight sensation:
  • You will not be a big hit right away. You will not get rich quick. You are not so special that everyone else will instantly pay attention. No one cares about you. At least not yet. Get used to it.
  • Dig deeper and you’ll usually find people who have busted their asses for years to get into a position where things could take off.
  • Trade the dream of overnight success for slow, measured growth. It’s hard, but you have to be patient.

Chapter 9 - Hiring

• Do it yourself first:
  • Never hire anyone to do a job until you’ve tried to do it yourself first. That way, you’ll understand the nature of the work.
• Hire when it hurts:
  • Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.
  • Always ask yourself: What if we don’t hire anyone? Is that extra work that’s burdening us really necessary?
  • Similarly, if you lose someone, don’t replace him immediately. See how long you can get by without that person and that position.
• Pass on great people:
  • Problems start when you have more people than you need.
  • Great has nothing to do with it. If you don’t need someone, you don’t need someone.
• Strangers at a cocktail party:
  • Hire a ton of people rapidly and a “strangers at a cocktail party” problem is exactly what you end up with.
  • There are always new faces around, so everyone is unfailingly polite. Everyone tries to avoid any conflict or drama. No one says, “This idea sucks.” People appease instead of challenge. And that appeasement is what gets companies into trouble.
  • So hire slowly. It’s the only way to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers.
• Resumés are ridiculous:
  • First step: Check the cover letter. In a cover letter, you get actual communication instead of a list of skills, verbs, and years of irrelevance. There’s no way an applicant can churn out hundreds of personalized letters.
  • Trust your gut reaction. If the rst paragraph sucks, the second has to work that much harder. If there’s no hook in the first three, it’s unlikely there’s a match there.
  • On the other hand, if your gut is telling you there’s a chance at a real match, then move on to the interview stage.
• Years of irrelevance:
  • The real difference comes from the individual’s dedication, personality, and intelligence.
• Forget about formal education:
  • Come on. There are plenty of intelligent people who don’t excel in the classroom.
  • Too much time in academia can actually do you harm.
  • Bottom line: The pool of great candidates is far bigger than just people who completed college with a stellar GPA.
• Everybody works:
  • With a small team, you need people who are going to do work, not delegate work.
  • Everyone’s got to be producing. No one can be above the work.
  • Delegators love to pull people into meetings, too.
• Hire managers of one:
  • Managers of one are people who come up with their own goals and execute them. They don’t need heavy direction. They don’t need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do—set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc.—but they do it by themselves and for themselves.
  • How can you spot these people? Look at their backgrounds. They have set the tone for how they’ve worked at other jobs. They’ve run something on their own or launched some kind of project.
  • You want someone who’s capable of building something from scratch and seeing it through. Finding these people frees the rest of your team to work more and manage less.
• Hire great writers:
  • If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer.
  • That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking.
  • Great writers know how to communicate.
  • Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Look at how much people e-mail and text-message now rather than talk on the phone.
  • Writing is today’s currency for good ideas.
• The best are everywhere:
  • Also, meet in person once in a while.
  • Geography just doesn’t matter anymore. Hire the best talent, regardless of where it is.
• Test-drive employees:
  • You need to evaluate the work they can do now, not the work they say they did in the past.
  • The best way to do that is to actually see them work.
  • Hire them for a miniproject, even if it’s for just twenty or forty hours. You’ll see how they make decisions. You’ll see if you get along. You’ll see what kind of questions they ask. You’ll get to judge them by their actions instead of just their words.

Chapter 10 - Damage Control

• Own your bad news:
  • When something goes wrong, someone is going to tell the story. You’ll be better o if it’s you.
  • Don’t think you can just sweep it under the rug. You can’t hide anymore.
  • The message should come from the top. The highest-ranking person available should take control in a forceful way.
  • Spread the message far and wide. Use whatever megaphone you have. Don’t try to sweep it under the rug.
  • “No comment” is not an option.
  • Apologize the way a real person would and explain what happened in detail.
  • Honestly be concerned about the fate of your customers—then prove it.
• Speed changes everything:
  • Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service.
  • Have you ever sent an e-mail and it took days or weeks for the company to get back to you? How did it make you feel? These days, that’s what people have come to expect. They’re used to being put on hold. They’re used to platitudes about “caring” that aren’t backed up.
  • Once you answer quickly, they shift 180 degrees. They light up. They become extra polite. Often they thank you profusely.
• How to say you’re sorry
• Put everyone on the front lines:
  • The people who make the product work in the “kitchen” while support handles the customers. Unfortunately, that means the product’s chefs never get to directly hear what customers are saying.
  • The more people you have between your customers’ words and the people doing the work, the more likely it is that the message will get lost or distorted along the way.
  • So don’t protect the people doing the work from customer feedback. No one should be shielded from direct criticism.
• Take a deep breath
  • When you rock the boat, there will be waves.

Chapter 11 - Culture

• You don’t create a culture:
  • Instant cultures are artificial cultures. They’re big bangs made of mission statements, declarations, and rules. They are obvious, ugly, and plastic. Artificial culture is paint. Real culture is patina.
  • You don’t create a culture. It happens. This is why new companies don’t have a culture. Culture is the byproduct of consistent behavior.
• Decisions are temporary:
  • “But what if ...?” “What happens when ...?” “Don’t we need to plan for ...?”
  • Don’t make up problems you don’t have yet. It’s not a problem until it’s a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.
  • Besides, the decisions you make today don’t need to last forever. It’s easy to shoot down good ideas, interesting policies, or worthwhile experiments by assuming that whatever you decide now needs to work for years on end.
  • Optimize for now and worry about the future later.
• Skip the rock stars:
  • A lot of companies post help-wanted ads seeking “rock stars” or “ninjas.” Lame. Unless your workplace is filled with groupies and throwing stars, these words have nothing to do with your business.
  • Instead of thinking about how you can land a roomful of rock stars, think about the room instead. We’re all capable of bad, average, and great work. The environment has a lot more to do with great work than most people realize.
  • Great environments show respect for the people who do the work and how they do it.
• They’re not thirteen:
  • When you treat people like children, you get children’s work.
  • Yet that’s exactly how a lot of companies and managers treat their employees.
  • Employees need to ask permission before they can do anything. They need to get approval for every tiny expenditure. It’s surprising they don’t have to get a hall pass to go take a shit.
  • When everything constantly needs approval, you create a culture of nonthinkers. You create a boss-versus-worker relationship that screams, “I don’t trust you.”
• Send people home at 5
• Don’t scar on the first cut:
  • The second something goes wrong, the natural tendency is to create a policy. “Someone’s wearing shorts!? We need a dress code!” No, you don’t. You just need to tell John not to wear shorts again.
• Sound like you
  • What is it with businesspeople trying to sound big? The stiff language, the formal announcements, the artificial friendliness, the legalese, etc. You read this stuff and it sounds like a robot wrote it. These companies talk at you, not to you.
  • Write to be read, don’t write just to write.
  • Whenever you write something, read it out loud.
  • Does it sound the way it would if you were actually talking to someone? If not, how can you make it more conversational?
  • Who said writing needs to be formal? Who said you have to strip away your personality when putting words on paper? Forget rules. Communicate!
  • And when you’re writing, don’t think about all the people who may read your words. Think of one person. Then write for that one person.
• Four-letter words:
  • They’re need, must, can’t, easy, just, only, and fast. These words get in the way of healthy communication. They are red flags that introduce animosity, torpedo good discussions, and cause projects to be late.
• ASAP is poison:
  • Stop saying ASAP. We get it. It’s implied. Everyone wants things done as soon as they can be done.

Conclusion

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. You can’t put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can’t just say you’ll do it later. Later, you won’t be pumped up about it anymore.

When you’re high on inspiration, you can get two weeks of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine in that way.

Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won’t wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work.

Also read: Rework Summary - Part 1, appendly, Seed.