Written by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, ReWork is a thoughtful yet simple guide on how to take a different approach to start a business you want.
Let’s dive into this productivity staple with our content review of ReWork: Change the Way you Work Forever.
The book follows a simple path that can be explained by a short sentence:
“Solve your problem with less, then pick a fight.”.
Solving a Problem
Obviously, you build a product to solve a problem your users encounter.
The book says that in most cases, there’s no real need to launch big market studies and research. The new reality is that now anyone can be in business by being concise.
Identify a problem your product can solve, work on it, and see if your product can make it. It is all about resources, equipment and expertise. Nowadays, out-of-reach tools are now accessible for cheaper, teams tend to be more agile.
Often, you need less than you think to create the company you really want. Jason Fried shows how you’re able to make the best decision, in the right time window.
Would you quit your job to focus more on developing your product, because you don’t have enough time? Why not just wake up one or two hours before? It is up to you whether you want to spend time developing your business or not. The book stresses a lot about how to rely on fewer resources.
Even if you don’t have an MBA, you can start a successful company. Yes, graduating is really useful, but free information providers such as Google or other trusted resources can be way more valuable than years at university for motivated people.
After defining the problem and making a product that solves it, comes the question “how will it stand out in the current market?”
Picking a Fight
The book says that if you want to show how your product and services are different, you have to pick a fight; who’s leading the market you entered? What do they do right and wrong? Find their weakness and use them against them to get a competitive stand at the very beginning of your product launch! This way you not only get a lot of traction since Day 1, but you make people choose a side they want to stick to, and customers unconsciously love it!
For example, millennials remember the never-ending war between Sega and Nintendo in the early 90s went on a continuous war against each other through committed advertisements, repeatedly one-downing each other. Since Nintendo was originally the market leader, Sega did this ad to show what its competitor didn’t do.
A cheesy, yet effective example of how to one-down your opponent is by comparing what you can do more than them. Taking a position against competition engages your customer base in having a point of view.
Starting a company is far more accessible today than ever before, because of many factors led by constantly evolving. I personally think this book is a piece of compelling advice for entrepreneurs to know that building out of passion generates considerable value for the product. I’ll leave you with my favourite quote from the book “What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan”.
