REWORK (J. Fried, D.H. Hansson) Book review

REWORK (one of my  reads, together with Never get a real job by S. Gerber) is a concentrated juice of what people at 37signals (the company founded in 1999 by Jason Fried) discovered in over 10 years of activity.

The book challenges the most common myths about working, which is fine. But thats not what I liked more: time management, productivity, getting things done and their infinite synonims have been discussed to death, after all.

What I found more intruiguing are instead some hidden gems here and there about what startups and small companies can do in order to succeed on their markets.

                        

Just a few examples:

 ● Sell your by-products: every activity generates some by-products. Identifying them is not always intuitive (especially when dealing with services, where nothing tangible is produced), but they can become a valuable asset if consciously marketed.

● Welcome obscurity: being little-known has its pros, letting starters experiment, test, tweak and even inevitably commit some mistakes without too many people noticing.

● Out-teach your competition: smaller companies should capitalize on their ability to do things bigger competitors cant do, like building stronger relationships with their customers by teaching them something.

● Years of irrelevance: experience differential is a weak metric to use when evaluating candidates for hiring. People actually learn what really matters about their new job during the first months, but the learning curve flattens out afterwards. What comes after are years of irrelevance.

● Hire great writers: writing quality is an index of how clearly people think and communicate. Hiring great writers is a smart move.

Who should read REWORK? Every business starter or small business owner, to learn why growing isnt always good, how to hire people, what to focus on when dealing with bigger competitors, how to define smart rules about work and a lot more.