Reworking your business strategy

By defying every rule in the book, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson became the successful owners of an innovative technology business. The duo founded 37signals, a privately held web application company, and created a wildly popular project management tool called Basecamp.

In their new book, Rework, Fried and Hansson share their secrets with the rest of the business world. Whether you’re a manager or an executive, you’ll learn something that will help you and your company move forward. At the very least, it will push you to come to terms with things you always knew were true in the back of your mind, but were too afraid to admit.

Here are the top five lessons we learned from Rework that we thought we’d share:

1)    The first big idea, as well as, chronologically, the first step: Forget all you’ve been told. In order to truly approach these new ways of thinking with an open mind, everything you’ve heard about what a  ‘successful venture’ entails needs to go. “Bigger is better” – out. “Winners never quit” – out. Keep going, toss them all in the trash. Now you’re ready to learn.

2)    Relish obscurity. This is key for small to mid-size technology companies fretting about when they’ll ever get their time in the limelight. Obscurity is an opportunity to test-drive your products, a span of time to make mistakes and figure things out. It’s much harder to take creative risks when everyone’s watching your every move, so take advantage of this time.

3)    Teach your customers. To illustrate this point, the authors used the analogy of world-famous cooks – who remained famous even after their recipes had been published and bought by the masses. Teaching your customers about your business strategy and product development will help you connect with each other, and it won’t leave you vulnerable. Even if someone tries to copy your ideas, there will always be something missing – you. Remember that you and your staff are the key components of your technology products, and what personalities and individuals add to mix cannot be imitated by anyone else.

4)    Solve your own problem. Writers always say that they write the book they would want to read. When you’re developing your product, think about the types of problems you’ve run into with the products or services you use – may it be a smart phone, software application, or web service. What drives you crazy about this product? Did you wish it were simpler to use? That it had more features? That it were easier to configure? Create something that fills the gap you’ve been fuming about.

5)    Decisions are progress. As the saying goes, They don’t want it good, they want it Thursday. Although we’re not suggesting that you shouldn’t put forth your best work, don’t hold off finalizing decisions while waiting for the ‘right time.’ Most of the time, there is no right time, and things just need to move along. If you find that you and your team are holding off on putting your marketing or product strategies into practice, a firm decision and deadline are in order.

While reading through these Top Five lessons, think about any other ‘rules’ you’ve heard about the business world. Of course, these anti-rules offered by the authors are not by any means their own rules – they’re just ways to get us to start thinking beyond our strict regimen. If we’ve learned anything from this book, it’s that we need to have the courage to revaluate any and all kinds of rules. By reworking our understanding of a successful business, we may be able to take our projects in a more creative, more profitable direction.