Rework's own wisdom

It was an “optimized” weekend. A productive weekend -- work-wise and family-wise. I had the opportunity to work on a project for a client while going out with the family for camping in Badian. Work and family were not only well-served, I was able to bond with friends who joined in the excursion. Not only that, I also had the chance to be alone to read. Thus, I owe this column to a colleague and friend, Wilmer Olano, who is also the creative director of Interactive Design, for letting me read his recent find. He says that this book is not yet available in the local shelves but can be ordered thru eBay or Amazon, however, may take a little time due to its recent rise in popularity.

The book “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson breaks all conventions of doing business from the point of experience. The authors may be unfamiliar to many of us but they are icons in the internet world not because they developed something high-tech or were gung-ho over the opportunities online or were driven to make a dent in the internet cloud, but because they just wanted to start a business and make their customers happy. Period. In fact, they even cringe on being called an internet company which they say are known for “hiring compulsively, spending wildly, and failing spectacularly. That’s not us.”

I happen to be one of the earliest users of Basecamp, an online project management tool, which they started out more than six years ago and is now earning millions of dollars in profits and yet consisted only of sixteen people as of the publishing of this book!

Rework is no academic textbook. It contains no bull-speak. It is in plain and simple terms, street wisdom and not from some kind of a Wall Street guy in Prada suits with an MBA or a Ph.D in business. One part that stood out in my reading was the advice to “emulate drug dealers.”         

According to the book, drug dealers know their stuff and are willing to give a little away for free. This model has worked in many industries, from bread-making to ice cream to car dealership. Sampling or test-driving your product is the start of everything and rids the long process in buying which drug dealers hate. Customers need to be addicted right on the floor to come back with the money.

Here are a few points that I find very compelling.  

“Ignore the real world.” The real world is your enemy -- they frown at new ideas and expect them to fail. “Even worse, they want to drag others down into their tomb. If you're hopeful and ambitious, they'll try to convince you your ideas are impossible. In the real world, you can't attract millions of customers without any salespeople or advertising. In the real world, you can't reveal your formula for success to the rest of the world. But we've done all those things and prospered. The real world isn't a place, it's an excuse. It's a justification for not trying. It has nothing to do with you. Don't believe them. That world may be real for them, but it doesn't mean you have to live in it.”

Workaholicism is overrated. “Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It's considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work. Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it's stupid. Working more doesn't mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”

“Scratch your own itch.” A good product basically rests on the idea on how you want the product to be not what your customers want them. “The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use. That lets you design what you know--and you'll figure out immediately whether or not what you're making is any good.”

Rework examples how Mary Kay Wagner scratched her own itch when she founded Mary Kay Cosmetics. “She knew her skin-care products were great because she used them herself. She got them from a local cosmetologist who sold homemade formulas to patients, relatives, and friends. When the cosmetologist passed away, Wagner bought the formulas from the family. She didn't need focus groups or studies to know the products were good. She just had to look at her own skin.”

Start making something. An idea will always remain an idea when you don’t do anything about it. “Ideas are cheap and plentiful. The original pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it's almost negligible. The real question is, how do you get it started? Rework exampled Stanley Kubrick in which Kubrick advices to aspiring filmmakers “to get hold of a camera and start shooting.”

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