rework

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. It's just not so, especially for a small business. If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.

Embrace constraints

"I don't have enough time/money/people/experience." Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative. Ever seen the weapons prisoners make out of soap or a spoon? They make do with what they've got. Now we're not saying you should go out and shank somebody--but get creative and you'll be amazed at what you can make with just a little. Writers use constraints to force creativity all the time. Shakespeare reveled in the limitations of sonnets (fourteen-planes. All that means lower costs and a business that's easier to run. They made it easy on themselves. When we were building Basecamp, we had plenty of limitations. We had a design firm to run with existing client work, a seven-hour time difference between principals (David was doing the programming in Denmark, the rest of us were in the States), a small team, and no outside funding. These constraints forced us to keep the product simple. These days, we have more resources and people, but we still force constraints. We make sure to have only one or two people working on a product at a time. And we always keep features to a minimum. Boxing ourselves in this way prevents us from creating bloated products. So before you sing the "not enough" blues, see how far you can get with what you have.

Speed changes everything

"Your call is very important to us. We appreciate your patience. The average hold time right now is sixteen minutes." Give me a fffing break. Getting back to people quickly is probably the most important thing you can do when it comes to customer service. It's amazing how much that can defuse a bad situation and turn it into a good one. 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. That's why so many support queries start off with an antagonistic tone. Some people may even make threats or call you names. Don't take it personally. They think that's the only way to be heard. They're only trying to be a squeaky wheel in hopes it'll get them a little grease. Once you answer quickly, they shift 180 degrees. They light up. They become extra polite. Often they thank you profusely. It's especially true if you offer a personal response. Customers are so used to canned answers, you can really differentiate yourself by answering thoughtfully and showing that you're listening. And even if you don't have a perfect answer, say something. "Let me do some research and get back to you" can work wonders.

Pick a fight

if you think a competitor sucks, say so. When you do that, you'll find that others who agree with you will rally to your side. 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. Its ads mock Starbucks for using "Fritalian" terms instead of small, medium, and large. Another Dunkin' campaign is centered on a taste test in which it beat Starbucks. There's even a site called DunkinBeatStarbucks.com where visitors can send e-cards with statements like "Friends don't let friends drink Starbucks. Apple jabs at Microsoft with ads that compare Mac and PC owners, and 7UP bills itself as the Uncola. Under Armour positions itself as Nike for a new generation. Having an enemy gives you a great story to tell customers, too. 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.

ignore the real world

ingore the naysayers who say you can't ,also the people who say you can't do things that have never been done before.

dont learn from mistakes

learn from success Contrast that with learning from your successes. Success gives you real ammunition. When something succeeds, you know what worked--and you can do it again. And the next time, you'll probably do it even better.

skip the rock stars

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. That's not to say we're all created equal and you'll unlock star power in anyone with a rock star environment. But there's a ton of untapped potential trapped under lame policies, poor direction, and stifling bureaucracies. Cut the crap and you'll find that people are waiting to do great work. They just need to be given the chance. This isn't about casual Fridays or bring-your-dog-to-work day. (If those are such good things, then why aren't you doing them every day of the week?) Rockstar environments develop out of trust, autonomy, and responsibility. They're a result of giving people the privacy, workspace, and tools they deserve. Great environments show respect for the people who do the work and how they do it.

Meetings are toxic

meetings are bad When you think about it, the true cost of meetings is staggering. Let's say you're going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour, and you invite ten people to attend. That's actually a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You're trading ten hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. If you decide you absolutely must get together, try to make your meeting a productive one by sticking to these simple rules: Set a timer. When it rings, meeting's over. Period. Invite as few people as possible. Always have a clear agenda. Begin with a specific problem. Meet at the site of the problem instead of a conference room. Point to real things and suggest real changes. End with a solution and make someone responsible for implementing it.

press release are spam

nstead, 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.

you cant just make one thing

sell your by products When you make something, you always make something else. You can't make just one thing. Everything has a by-product. Observant and creative business minds spot these by-products and see opportunities. The lumber industry sells what used to be waste--sawdust, chips, and shredded wood--for a pretty profit. You'll find these by-products in synthetic fireplace logs, concrete, ice strengtheners, mulch, particleboard, fuel, and more. But you're probably not manufacturing anything. That can make it tough to spot your by-products. People at a lumber company see their waste. They can't ignore sawdust. But you don't see yours. Maybe you don't even think you produce any by-products. But that's myopic. Our last book, Getting Real, was a by-product. We wrote that book without even knowing it. The experience that came from building a company and building software was the waste from actually doing the work. We swept up that knowledge first into blog posts, then into a workshop series, then into a .pdf, and then into a paperback. That by-product has made 37signals more than $1 million directly and probably more than another $1 million indirectly. The book you're reading right now is a by-product too.

Build an audience

A lot of businesses still spend big bucks to reach people. Every time they want to say something, they dip into their budgets, pull out a huge wad of cash, and place some ads. But this approach is both expensive and unreliable. As they say, you waste half of your ad budget--you just don't know which half. Today's smartest companies know better. Instead of going out to reach people, you want people to come to you. An audience returns often--on its own--to see what you have to say. This is the most receptive group of customers and potential customers you'll ever have. Over the past ten years, we've built an audience of more than a hundred thousand daily readers for our Signal vs. Noise blog. Every day they come back to see what we have to say. We may talk about design or business or software or psychology or usability or our industry at large. Whatever it is, these people are interested enough to come back to hear more. And if they like what we have to say, they'll probably also like what we have to sell. How much would it cost us to reach those hundred thousand people every day the old-fashioned way? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? And how would we have done it? Running ads? Buying radio spots? Sending direct mail? 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.

Focus on what won't change

A lot of companies focus on the next big thing. They latch on to what's hot and new. They follow the latest trends and technology. That's a fool's path. You start focusing on fashion instead of substance. You start paying attention to things that are constantly changing instead of things that last. The core of your business should be built around things that won't change. Things that people are going to want today and ten years from now. Those are the things you should invest in. For 37signals, things like speed, simplicity, ease of use, and clarity are our focus. Those are timeless desires. People aren't going to wake up in ten years and say, "Man, I wish software was harder to use." They won't say, "I wish this application was slower."

good enough is fine

A lot of people get off on solving problems with complicated solutions. Flexing your intellectual muscles can be intoxicating. Then you start looking for another big challenge that gives you that same rush, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not. A better idea: Find a judo solution, one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort. Judo solutions are all about getting the most out of doing the least. Whenever you face an obstacle, look for a way to judo it. Part of this is recognizing that problems are negotiable. Let's say your challenge is to get a bird's-eye view. One way to do it is to climb Mount Everest. That's the ambitious solution. But then again, you could take an elevator to the top of a tall building. That's a judo solution. Problems can usually be solved with simple, mundane solutions. That means there's no glamorous work. You don't get to show off your amazing skills. You just build something that gets the job done and then move on. This approach may not earn you oohs and aahs, but it lets you get on with it. Look at political campaign ads. A big issue pops up, and politicians have an ad about it on the air the next day. The production quality is low. They use photos instead of live footage. They have static, plain-text headlines instead of fancy animated graphics. The only audio is a voice-over done by an unseen narrator. Despite all that, the ad is still good enough. If they waited weeks to perfect it, it would come out too late. It's a situation where timeliness is more important than polish or even quality.

don't be a hero

A lot of times it's better to be a quitter than a hero. For example, let's say you think a task can be done in two hours. But four hours into it, you're still only a quarter of the way done. The natural instinct is to think, "But I can't give up now, I've already spent four hours on this!" So you go into hero mode. You're determined to make it work (and slightly embarrassed that it isn't already working). You grab your cape and shut yourself off from the world. And sometimes that kind of sheer effort overload works. But is it worth it? Probably not. The task was worth it when you thought it would cost two hours, not sixteen. In those sixteen hours, you could have gotten a bunch of other things done. Plus, you cut yourself off from feedback, which can lead you even further down the wrong path. Even heroes need a fresh pair of eyes sometimes--someone else to give them a reality check. We've experienced this problem firsthand. So we decided that if anything takes one of us longer than two weeks, we've got to bring other people in to take a look. They might not do any work on the task, but at least they can review it quickly and give their two cents. Sometimes an obvious solution is staring you right in the face, but you can't even see it. If you already spent too much time on something that wasn't worth it, walk away. You can't get that time back. The worst thing you can do now is waste even more time.

start a business, not a startup

Ah, the startup. It's a special breed of company that gets a lot of attention (especially in the tech world). The start up is a magical place. It's a place where expenses are someone else's problem. It's a place where that pesky thing called revenue is never an issue. It's a place where you can spend other people's money until you figure out a way to make your own. It's a place where the laws of business physics don't apply. The problem with this magical place is it's a fairy tale. The truth is every business, new or old, is governed by the same set of market forces and economic rules. Revenue in, expenses out. Turn a profit or wind up gone. Instead, start an actual business. Actual businesses have to deal with actual things like bills and payroll. Actual businesses worry about profit from day one. Actual businesses don't mask deep problems by saying, "It's OK, we're a startup." Act like an actual business and you'll have a much better shot at succeeding.

Ignore the details early on

Architects don't worry about which tiles go in the shower or which brand of dishwasher to install in the kitchen until after the floor plan is finalized. They know it's better to decide these details later. You need to approach your idea the same way. Details make the difference. But getting infatuated with details too early leads to disagreement, meetings, and delays. You get lost in things that don't really matter. You waste time on decisions that are going to change anyway. So ignore the details--for a while. Nail the basics first and worry about the specifics later. Besides, you often can't recognize the details that matter most until after you start building. That's when you see what needs more attention. You feel what's missing. And that's when you need to pay attention, not sooner.

draw a line in the sand

As you get going, keep in mind why you're doing what you're doing. Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or service. You have to believe in something. You need to have a backbone. You need to know what you're willing to fight for. And then you need to show the world. A strong stand is how you attract superfans. They point to you and defend you. And they spread the word further, wider, and more passionately than any advertising could.' Strong opinions aren't free. You'll turn some people off. They'll accuse you of being arrogant and aloof. That's life. For everyone who loves you, there will be others who hate you. If no one's upset by what you're saying, you're probably not pushing hard enough. (And you're probably boring, too.) Lots of people hate us because our products do less than the competition's. They're insulted when we refuse to include their pet feature. But we're just as proud of what our products don't do as we are of what they do. We design them to be simple because we believe most software is too complex: too many features, too many buttons, too much confusion. So we build software that's the opposite of that. If what we make isn't right for everyone, that's OK. We're willing to lose some customers if it means that others love our products intensely. That's our line in the sand. When you don't know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable. But when you stand for something, decisions are obvious. For example, Whole Foods stands for selling the highest quality natural and organic products available. They don't waste time deciding over and over again what's appropriate. No one asks, "Should we sell this product that has artificial flavors?" There's no debate. The answer is clear. That's why you can't buy a Coke or a Snickers there.

Make tiny decisions

Big decisions are hard to make and hard to change. And once you make one, the tendency is to continue believing you made the right decision, even if you didn't. You stop being objective. Once ego and pride are on the line, you can't change your mind without looking bad. The desire to save face trumps the desire to make the right call. And then there's inertia too: The more steam you put into going in one direction, the harder it is to change course. Instead, make choices that are small enough that they're effectively temporary. When you make tiny decisions, you can't make big mistakes. These small decisions mean you can afford to change. There's no big penalty if you mess up. You just fix it. Making tiny decisions doesn't mean you can't make big plans or think big ideas. It just means you believe the best way to achieve those big things is one tiny decision at a time. Polar explorer Ben Saunders said that during his solo North Pole expedition (thirty-one marathons back-to-back, seventy-two days alone) the "huge decision" was often so horrifically overwhelming to contemplate that his day-to-day decision making rarely extended beyond "getting to that bit of ice a few yards in front of me." Attainable goals like that are the best ones to have. Ones you can actually accomplish and build on. You get to say, "We nailed it. Done!" Then you get going on the next one. That's a lot more satisfying than some pie-in-the-sky fantasy goal you never meet.

take a deep breath

But if you ride out that first rocky week, things usually settle down. People are creatures of habit. That's why they react to change in such a negative way. They're used to using something in a certain way and any change upsets the natural order of things. So they push back. They complain. They demand that you revert to the way things were. Also, remember that negative reactions are almost always louder and more passionate than positive ones. In fact, you may hear only negative voices even when the majority of your customers are happy about a change. Make sure you don't foolishly backpedal on a necessary but controversial decision. So when people complain, let things simmer for a while. Let them know you're listening. Show them you're ware of what they're saying. Let them know you understand their discontent. But explain that you're going to let it go for a while and see what happens. You'll probably find that people will adjust eventually. They may even wind up liking the change more than the old way, once they get used to it.

gpas dont matter

Come on. There are plenty of intelligent people who don't excel in the classroom. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need someone from one of the "best" schools in order to get results. Ninety percent of CEOs currently heading the top five hundred American companies did not receive undergraduate degrees from Ivy League colleges. In fact, more received their undergraduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin than from Harvard (the most heavily represented Ivy school, with nine CEOs).*

no time not an excuse

Come on. There's always enough time if you spend it right. And don't think you have to quit your day job, either. Hang onto it and start work on your project at night. Instead of watching TV or playing World of Warcraft, work on your idea. Instead of going to bed at ten, go to bed at eleven. We're not talking about all-nighters or sixteen-hour days--we're talking about squeezing out a few extra hours a week. That's enough time to get something going.

Don't confuse enthusiasm with priority

Coming up with a great idea gives you a rush. You start imagining the possibilities and the benefits. 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-fire 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. So let your latest grand ideas cool off for a while first. By all means, have as many great ideas as you can. 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.

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. This sort of one-upping, Cold War mentality is a dead end. When you get suckered into an arms race, you wind up in a never-ending battle that costs you massive amounts of money, time, and drive. And it forces you to constantly be on the defensive, too. Defensive companies can't think ahead; they can only think behind. They don't lead; they follow. 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.

everythign is marketing

Do you have a marketing department? If not, good. If you do, don't think these are the only people responsible for marketing. Accounting is a department. Marketing isn't. Marketing is something everyone in your company is doing 24/7/365. Just as you cannot not communicate, you cannot not market: Every time you answer the phone, it's marketing. Every time you send an e-mail, it's marketing. Every time someone uses your product, it's marketing. Every word you write on your Web site is marketing. If you build software, every error message is marketing. If you're in the restaurant business, the after-dinner mint is marketing. If you're in the retail business, the checkout counter is marketing. If you're in a service business, your invoice is marketing. Recognize that all of these little things are more important than choosing which piece of swag to throw into a conference goodie bag. Marketing isn't just a few individual events. It's the sum total of everything you do.

You need less than you think

Do you really need ten people or will two or three do for now? Do you really need $500,000 or is $50,000 (or $5,000) enough for now? Do you really need six months or can you make something in two? Do you really need a big office or can you share office space (or work from home) for a while? You get the point. Maybe eventually you'll need to go the bigger, more expensive route, but not right now. There's nothing wrong with being frugal. When we launched our first product, we did it on the cheap. We didn't get our own office; we shared space with another company. We didn't get a bank of servers; we had only one. advertise; we promoted by sharing our experiences online. We didn't hire someone to answer customer e-mails; the company founder answered them himself. And everything worked out just fine. Great companies start in garages all the time. Yours can too.

don't be fake

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.

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? Can we solve the problem with a slice of software or a change of practice instead? What if we just don't do it? Similarly, if you lose someone, don't replace him immediately. See how long you can get by without that person and that position. You'll often discover you don't need as many people as you think. The right time to hire is when there's more work than you can handle for a sustained period of time. There should be things you can't do anymore. You should notice the quality level slipping. That's when you're hurting. And that's when it's time to hire, not earlier.

emulate drug dealers

Drug dealers are astute businesspeople. They know their product is so good they're willing to give a little away for free upfront. They know you'll be back for more--with money. 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. This will force you to make something about your product bite-size. 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 firms are also getting on board, with free trials or limited-use versions. How many other industries could benefit from the drug-dealer model? Don't be afraid to give a little away for free--as long as you've got something else to sell. Be confident in what you're offering. You should know that people will come back for more. If you're not confident about that, you haven't created a strong enough product.

less mass

Embrace the idea of having less mass. Right now, you're the smallest, the leanest, and the fastest you'll ever be. From here on out, you'll start accumulating mass. And the more massive an object, the more energy required to change its direction. It's as true in the business world as it is in the physical world. Mass is increased by ... Long-term contracts Excess staff Permanent decisions Meetings Thick process Inventory (physical or mental)

Go to sleep

Forgoing sleep is a bad idea. Sure, you get those extra hours right now, but you pay in spades later: You destroy your creativity, morale, and attitude. Once in a while, you can pull an all-nighter if you fully understand the consequences. Just don't make it a habit. If it becomes a constant, the costs start to mount: Stubbornness: When you're really tired, it always seems easier to plow down whatever bad path you happen to be on instead of reconsidering the route. The finish line is a constant mirage and you wind up walking in the desert way too long. lack of creativity diminishing morale irritability

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. Think no one will care? Think again. Even seemingly boring jobs can be fascinating when presented right. What could be more boring than commercial fishing and trucking? Yet the Discovery Channel and History Channel have turned these professions into highly rated shows: Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers. People are curious about how things are made. It's why they like factory tours or behind-the-scenes footage on DVDs. They want to see how the sets are built, how the animation is done, how the director cast the film, etc. They want to know how and why other people make decisions.

gear doesnt matter

Guitar gurus say, "Tone is in your fingers." You can buy the same guitar, effects pedals, and amplifier that Eddie Van Halen uses. But when you play that rig, it's still going to sound like you. Likewise, Eddie could plug into a crappy Strat/Pignose setup at a pawn shop, and you'd still be able to recognize that it's Eddie Van Halen playing. Fancy gear can help, but the truth is your tone comes from you. People use equipment as a crutch. They don't want to put in the hours on the driving range so they spend a ton in the pro shop. They're looking for a shortcut. But you just don't need the best gear in the world to be good. And you definitely don't need it to get started. In business, too many people obsess over tools, software tricks, scaling issues, fancy office space, lavish furniture, and other frivolities instead of what really matters. And what really matters is how to actually get customers and make money.

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 filing system. The requests that really matter are the ones you'll hear over and over. After a while, you won't be able to forget them. Your customers will be your memory. 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 stuff doesn't go away.

Say no by default

If I'd listened to customers,I'd have given them a faster horse. --HENRY FORD It's so easy to say yes. Yes to another feature, yes to an overly optimistic deadline, yes to a mediocre design. Soon, the stack of things you've said yes to grows so tall you can't even see the things you should really be doing. 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.. People avoid saying no because confrontation makes them uncomfortable. But the alternative is even worse. You drag things out, make things complicated, and work on ideas you don't believe in. It's like a relationship: Breaking one up is hard to do, but staying in it just because you're too chicken to drop the ax is even worse. Deal with the brief discomfort of confrontation up front and avoid the long-term regret. Don't believe that "customer is always right" stuff, either. Let's say you're a chef. If enough of your customers say your food is too salty or too hot, you change it. But if a few persnickety patrons tell you to add bananas to your lasagna, you're going to turn them down, and that's OK. Making a few vocal customers happy isn't worth it if it ruins the product for everyone else.

hire the better writer

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off. 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. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate.

Strangers at a cocktail party

If you go to a cocktail party where everyone is a stranger, the conversation is dull and stiff. You make small talk about the weather, sports, TV shows, etc. You shy away from serious conversations and controversial opinions. A small, intimate dinner party among old friends is a different story, though. There are genuinely interesting conversations and heated debates. At the end of the night, you feel you actually got something out of it. 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. You need to be able to tell people when they're full of crap. If that doesn't happen, you start churning out something that doesn't offend anyone but also doesn't make anyone fall in love. You need an environment where everyone feels safe enough to be honest when things get tough. You need to know how far you can push someone. You need to know what people really mean when they say something. So hire slowly. It's the only way to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers.

Interruption is the enemy of productivity

If you're constantly staying late and working weekends, it's not because there's too much work to be done. It's because you're not getting enough done at work. And the reason is interruptions. At 2 p.m., people are usually in a meeting or answering e-mail or chatting with colleagues. Those taps on the shoulder and little impromptu get-togethers may seem harmless,At 2 p.m., people are usually in a meeting or answering e-mail or chatting with colleagues. Those taps on the shoulder and little impromptu get-togethers may seem harmless, but they're actually corrosive to productivity. Interruption is not collaboration, it's just interruption. And when you're interrupted, you're not getting work done. Instead, you should get in the alone zone. Long stretches of alone time are when you're most productive. When you don't have to mind-shift between various tasks, you get a boatload done. (Ever notice how much work you get done on a plane since you're offline and there are zero outside distractions?) Also, when you do collaborate, try to use passive communication tools, like e-mail,

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. Look at Zappos.com, a billion-dollar online shoe retailer. A pair of sneakers from Zappos is the same as a pair from Foot Locker or any other retailer. But Zappos sets itself apart by injecting CEO Tony Hsieh's obsession with customer service into everything it does. At Zappos, customer-service employees don't use scripts and are allowed to talk at length with customers. The call center and the company's headquarters are in the same place, not oceans apart. And all Zappos employees--even those who don't work in customer service or fulfillment--start out by spending four weeks answering phones and working in the warehouse. 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.

Who cares what they're doing? focus on you instead of they

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. What are they doing right now? Where are they going next? How should we react? 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. It's out of your control. What's the point of worrying about things you can't control? Focus on yourself instead. What's going on in here is way more important than what's going on out there. 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. You're allowing the competition to set the parameters. You're not going to out-Apple Apple. They're defining the rules of the game. And you can't beat someone who's making the rules. You need to redefine the rules, not just build something slightly better. Don't ask yourself whether you're "beating" Apple (or whoever the big boy is in your industry). That's the wrong question to ask. It's not a win-or-lose battle. Their profits and costs are theirs. Yours are yours. 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.

Put everyone on the front lines

In the restaurant business, there's a world of difference between working in the kitchen and dealing with customers. Cooking schools and smart restaurateurs know it's important for both sides to understand and empathize with each other. That's why they often have chefs work out front as waiters for a stretch. That way, the kitchen staff can interact with customers and see what it's actually like on the front lines. A lot of companies have a similar front-of-house/back-of-house split. 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. Too bad. Listening to customers is the best way to get in tune with a product's strengths and weaknesses. The same thing is true at your company. 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. Everyone on your team should be connected to your customers--maybe not every day, but at least a few times throughout the year. That's the only way your team is going to feel the hurt your customers are experiencing. It's feeling the hurt that really motivates people to fix the problem. And the flip side is true too: The joy of happy customers or ones who have had a problem solved can also be wildly motivating.

test drive employees

Interviews are only worth so much. Some people sound like pros but don't work like pros. 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. You can even make up a fake project. In a factory in South Carolina, BMW built a simulated assembly line where job candidates get ninety minutes to perform a variety of work-related tasks.*

the best are everywhere

It's crazy not to hire the best people just because they live far away. Especially now that there's so much technology out there making it easier to bring everyone together online. Our headquarters are in Chicago, but more than half of our team lives elsewhere. We've got people in Spain, Canada, Idaho, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. Had we limited our search only to people in Chicago, we would have missed out on half of the great people we have. To make sure your remote team stays in touch, have at least a few hours a day of real-time overlap. Working in time zones where there's no workday overlap at all is tough. Also, meet in person once in a while. You should see each other at least every few months. We make sure our whole team gets together a few times a year. These are great times to review progress, discuss what's going right or wrong, plan for the future, and get reacquainted with one another on a personal level. Geography just doesn't matter anymore. Hire the best talent, regardless of where it is.

Reasons to quit

It's easy to put your head down and just work on what you think needs to be done. It's a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why. Here are some important questions to ask yourself to ensure you're doing work that matters:\\ Why are you doing this? Ever find yourself working on something without knowing exactly why? Someone just told you to do it. It's pretty common, actually. That's why it's important to ask why you'reworking on______. What is this for? Who benefits? What's the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself. What problem are you solving? What's the problem? Are customers confused? Are you confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible before that should be possible now? Sometimes when you ask these questions, you'll find you're solving an imaginary problem. That's when it's time to stop and reevaluate what the hell you're doing. Is this actually useful? Are you making something useful or just making something? It's easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it's fine to play a bit and build something cool. But eventually you've got to stop and ask yourself if it's useful, too. Cool wears off. Useful never does. Are you adding value? Adding something is easy; adding value is hard. Is this thing you're working on actually making your product more valuable for customers? Can they get more out of it than they did before? Sometimes things you think are adding value actually subtract from it. Too much ketchup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance. Will this change behavior? Is what you're working on really going to change anything? Don't add something unless it has a real impact on how people use your product. Is there an easier way? Whenever you're working on something, ask, "Is there an easier way?" You'll often find this easy way is more than good enough for now. Problems are usually pretty simple. We just imagine that they require hard solutions. What could you be doing instead? What can't you do because you're doing this? This is especially important for small teams with constrained resources. That's when prioritization is even more important. If you work on A, can you still do B and C before April? If not, would you rather have B and C instead of A? If you're stuck on something for a long period of time, that means there are other things you're not getting done. Is it really worth it? Is what you're doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling six people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight, or could you just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor? Is it worth spending your money on advertising? Determine the real value of what you're about to do before taking the plunge. Also, don't be timid about your conclusions. Sometimes abandoning what you're working on is the right move, even if you've already put in a lot of effort. Don't throw good time after bad work.

hiring 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. These people free you from oversight. They set their own direction. When you leave them alone, they surprise you with how much they've gotten done. They don't need a lot of hand-holding or supervision. 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.

why grow?

Maybe the right size for your company is five people. Maybe it's forty. Maybe it's two hundred. Or maybe it's just you and a laptop. Don't make assumptions about how big you should be ahead of time. Grow slow and see what feels right--premature hiring is the death of many companies. And avoid huge growth spurts too--they can cause you to skip right over your appropriate size.

let your customers outgrow you

Maybe you've seen this scenario: There's a customer that's paying a company a lot of money. The company tries to please that customer in any way possible. It tweaks and changes the product per this one customer's requests and starts to alienate its general customer base. Then one day that big customer winds up leaving and the company is left holding the bag--and the bag is a product that's ideally suited to someone who's not there anymore. And now it's a bad fit for everyone else. When you stick with your current customers come hell or high water, you wind up cutting yourself off from new ones. Your product or service becomes so tailored to your current customers that it stops appealing to fresh blood. And that's how your company starts to die. After our first product had been around for a while, we started getting some heat from folks who had been with us from the beginning. They said they were starting to grow out of the application. Their businesses were changing and they wanted us to change our product to mirror their newfound complexity and requirements. We said no. Here's why: We'd rather our customers grow out of our products eventually than never be able to grow into them in the first place. Adding power-user features to satisfy some can intimidate those who aren't on board yet. Scaring away new customers is worse than losing old customers. People and situations change. You can't be everything to everyone. Companies need to be true to a type of customer more than a specific individual customer with changing needs.

quick wins

Momentum fuels motivation. It keeps you going. It drives you. Without it, you can't go anywhere. If you aren't motivated by what you're working on, it won't be very good. The way you build momentum is by getting something done and then moving on to the next thing. No one likes to be stuck on an endless project with no finish line in sight. Being in the trenches for nine months and not having anything to show for it is a real buzzkill. Eventually it just burns you out. To keep your momentum and motivation up, get in the habit of accomplishing small victories along the way. Even a tiny improvement can give you a good jolt of momentum. The longer something takes, the less likely it is that you're going to finish it. Excitement comes from doing something and then letting customers have at it. Planning a menu for a year is boring. Getting the new menu out, serving the food, and getting feedback is exciting. So don't wait too long--you'll smother your sparks if you do. If you absolutely have to work on long-term projects, try to dedicate one day a week (or every two weeks) to small victories that generate enthusiasm. Small victories let you celebrate and release good news. And you want a steady stream of good news. When there's something new to announce every two weeks, you energize your team and give your customers something to be excited about.

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. You'll know what a job well done looks like. You'll know how to write a realistic job description and which questions to ask in an interview. You'll know whether to hire someone full-time or part-time, outsource it, or keep doing it yourself (the last is preferable, if possible). You'll also be a much better manager, because you'll be supervising people who are doing a job you've done before. You'll know when to criticize and when to support. At 37signals, we didn't hire a system administrator until one of us had spent a whole summer setting up a bunch of servers on his own. For the first three years, one of us did all of our customer support. Then we hired a dedicated support person. We ran with the ball as far as we could before handing it off. That way, we knew what we were looking for once we did decide to hire. You may feel out of your element at times. You might even feel like you suck. That's all right. You can hire your way out of that feeling or you can learn your way out of it. Try learning first. What you give up in initial execution will be repaid many times over by the wisdom you gain. Plus, you should want to be intimately involved in all aspects of your business. Otherwise you'll wind up in the dark, putting your fate solely in the hands of others. That's dangerous.

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. Retailers experiment with test markets all the time for this reason. When Dunkin' Donuts thought about selling pizza, hot dogs, and other hot sandwiches, it test-marketed the products at just ten select locations. And keep in mind that once you do get bigger and more popular, you're inevitably going to take fewer risks. 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.

Workaholism

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. its not sustainable. Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions. Workaholics make the people who don't stay late feel inadequate for "merely" working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around. Plus, it leads to an ass-in-seat mentality--people stay late out of obligation, even if they aren't really being productive. If all you do is work, you're unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed.

years of experience mean nothing

Of course, requiring some baseline level of experience can be a good idea when hiring. It makes sense to go after candidates with six months to a year of experience. It takes that long to internalize the idioms, learn how things work, understand the relevant tools, etc. But after that, the curve flattens out. There's surprisingly little difference between a candidate with six months of experience and one with six years. The real difference comes from the individual's dedication, personality, and intelligence.

outside money is plan z

One of the first questions you'll probably ask: Where's the seed money going to come from? Far too often, people think the answer is to raise money from outsiders. If you're building something like a factory or restaurant, then you may indeed need that outside cash. But a lot of companies don't need expensive infrastructure--especially these days. We're in a service economy now. Service businesses (e.g., consultants, software companies, wedding planners, graphic designers, and hundreds of others) don't require much to get going. If you're running a business like that, avoid outside funding.

dont copy

Plus, if you're a copycat, you can never keep up. You're always in a passive position. You never lead; you always follow. You give birth to something that's already behind the times--just a knockoff, an inferior version of the original. That's no way to live. How do you know if you're copying someone? If someone else is doing the bulk of the work, you're copying. Be influenced, but don't steal.

pass on great people

Some companies are addicted to hiring. Some even hire when they aren't hiring. They'll hear about someone great and invent a position or title just to lure them in. And there they'll sit--parked in a position that doesn't matter, doing work that isn't important. Pass on hiring people you don't need, even if you think that person's a great catch. You'll be doing your company more harm than good if you bring in talented people who have nothing important to do. Don't worry about "the one that got away." It's much worse to have people on staff who aren't doing anything meaningful. There's plenty of talent out there. When you do have a real need, you'll find someone who fits well. Great has nothing to do with it. If you don't need someone, you don't need someone.

ASAP is poison

Stop saying ASAP. We get it. It's implied. Everyone wants things done as soon as they can be done. When you turn into one of these people who adds ASAP to the end of every request, you're saying everything is high priority. And when everything is high priority, nothing is. (Funny how everything is a top priority until you actually have to prioritize things.)

Illusions of agreement get real with it

The business world is littered with dead documents that do nothing but waste people's time. Reports no one reads, diagrams no one looks at, and specs that never resemble the finished product. These things take forever to make but only seconds to forget. If you need to explain something, try getting real with it. Instead of describing what something looks like, draw it. Instead of explaining what something sounds like, hum it. Do everything you can to remove layers of abstraction. When the team at Alaska Airlines wanted to build a new Airport of the Future, they didn't rely on blueprints and sketches. They got a warehouse and built mock-ups using cardboard boxes for podiums, kiosks, and belts. The team then built a small prototype in Anchorage to test systems with real passengers and employees. The design that resulted from this getting-real process has significantly reduced wait times and increased agent productivity.*

Send people home at 5

The dream employee for a lot of companies is a twenty-something with as little of a life as possible outside of work--someone who'll be fine working fourteen-hour days and sleeping under his desk. But packing a room full of these burn-the-midnight-oil types isn't as great as it seems. It lets you get away with lousy execution. It perpetuates myths like "This is the only way we can compete against the big guys." You don't need more hours; you need better hours. When people have something to do at home, they get down to business. They get their work done at the office because they have somewhere else to be. They find ways to be more efficient because they have to. They need to pick up the kids or get to choir practice. So they use their time wisely. As the saying goes, "If you want something done, ask the busiest person you know." You want busy people. People who have a life outside of work. People who care about more than one thing. You shouldn't expect the job to be someone's entire life--at least not if you want to keep them around for a long time.

scratch your own itch

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. At 37signals, we build products we need to run our own business. For example, we wanted a way to keep track of whom we talked to, what we said, and when we need to follow up next. So we created Highrise, our contact-management software. There was no need for focus groups, market studies, or middlemen. We had the itch, so we scratched it. one else's problem, you're constantly stabbing in the dark. When you solve your own problem, the light comes on. You know exactly what the right answer is. Best of all, this "solve your own problem" approach lets you fall in love with what you're making. You know the problem and the value of its solution intimately. There's no substitute for that. After all, you'll (hopefully) be working on this for years to come. Maybe even the rest of your life. It better be something you really care about.

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. Policies are organizational scar tissue. They are codified overreactions to situations that are unlikely to happen again. They are collective punishment for the misdeeds of an individual. This is how bureaucracies are born. No one sets out to create a bureaucracy. They sneak up on companies slowly. They are created one policy--one scar--at a time.

Four-letter words

There are four-letter words you should never use in business. hey'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. When you use these four-letter words, you create a black-and-white situation. But the truth is rarely black and white. So people get upset and problems ensue. Tension and conflict are injected unnecessarily. Here's what's wrong with some of them: Need. Very few things actually need to get done. Instead of saying "need," you're better off saying "maybe" or "What do you think about this?" or "How does this sound?" or "Do you think we could get away with that?" Can't. When you say "can't," you probably can. Sometimes there are even opposing can'ts: "We can't launch it like that, because it's not quite right" versus "We can't spend any more time on this because we have to launch." Both of those statements can't be true. Or wait a minute, can they? Easy. Easy is a word that's used to describe other people's jobs. "That should be easy for you to do, right?" But notice how rarely people describe their own tasks as easy. For you, it's "Let me look into it"--but for others, it's "Get it done." These four-letter words often pop up during debates (and also watch out for their cousins: everyone, no one, always, and never). Once uttered, they make it tough to find a solution. They box you into a corner by pitting two absolutes against each other. That's when head-butting occurs. You squeeze out any middle ground. And these words are especially dangerous when you string them together: "We need to add this feature now. We can't launch without this feature. Everyone wants it. It's only one little thing so it will be easy. You should be able to get it in there fast!" Only thirty-six words, but a hundred assumptions. That's a recipe for disaster.

be a starter

There's a new group of people out there starting businesses. They're turning profits yet never think of themselves as entrepreneurs. A lot of them don't even think of themselves as business owners. They are just doing what they love on their own terms and getting paid for it. So let's replace the fancy-sounding word with something a bit more down-to-earth. Instead of entrepreneurs, let's just call them starters. Anyone who creates a new business is a starter.

live it or leave it

There's a world of difference between truly standing for something and having a mission statement that says you stand for something. You know, those "providing the best service" signs that are created just to be posted on a wall. The ones that sound phony and disconnected from reality.

how to say your sorry

There's never really a great way to say you're sorry, but there are plenty of terrible ways. One of the worst ways is the non-apology apology, which sounds like an apology but doesn't really accept any blame. For example, "We're sorry if this upset you." Or "I'm sorry that you don't feel we lived up to your expectations." Whatever. A good apology accepts responsibility. It has no conditional if phrase attached. It shows people that the buck stops with you. And then it provides real details about what happened and what you're doing to prevent it from happening again. And it seeks a way to make things right.

make a dent in the universe

To do great work, you need to feel that you're making a difference. That you're putting a meaningful dent in the universe. That you're part of something important. This doesn't mean you need to find the cure for cancer. It's just that your efforts need to feel valuable. You want your customers to say, "This makes my life better." You want to feel that if you stopped doing what you do, people would notice. You should feel an urgency about this too. You don't have forever. This is your life's work. Do you want to build just another me-too product or do you want to shake things up? What you do is your legacy. Don't sit around and wait for

Inspiration is perishable

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. If you're inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. 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.

resumes are ridiculous

We all know resumes are a joke. They're exaggerations. They're filled with "action verbs" that don't mean anything. They list job titles and responsibilities that are vaguely accurate at best. And there's no way to verify most of what's on there. The whole thing is a farce. Worst of all, they're too easy. Anyone can create a decent-enough resume. That's why half-assed applicants love them so much. They can shotgun out hundreds at a time to potential employers. It's another form of spam. They don't care about landing your job; they just care about landing any job. If you hire based on this garbage, you're missing the point of what hiring is about. You want a specific candidate who cares specifically about your company, your products, your customers, and your job. So how do you find these candidates? 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. That's why the cover letter is a much better test than a resume. You hear someone's actual voice and are able recognize if it's in tune with you and your company. Trust your gut reaction. If the first 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.

Your estimates suck

We're all terrible estimators. We think we can guess how long something will take, when we really have no idea. We see everything going according to a best-case scenario, without the delays that inevitably pop up. Reality never sticks to best-case scenarios. That's why estimates that stretch weeks, months, and years into the future are fantasies. The truth is you just don't know what's going to happen that far in advance. How often do you think a quick trip to the grocery store will take only a few minutes and then it winds up taking an hour? And remember when cleaning out the attic took you all day instead of just the couple of hours you thought it would? Plus, we're not just a little bit wrong when we guess how long something will take--we're a lot wrong. That means if you're guessing six months, you might be way off: We're not talking seven months instead of six, we're talking one year instead of six months.

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. This mask of professionalism is a joke. We all know this. Yet small companies still try to emulate it. They think sounding big makes them appear bigger and more "professional." But it really just makes them sound ridiculous. Plus, you sacrifice one of a small company's greatest assets: the ability to communicate simply and directly, without running every last word through a legal-and PR-department sieve. There's nothing wrong with sounding your own size. Being honest about who you are is smart business, too. Language is often your first impression--why start it off with a lie? Don't be afraid to be you. That applies to the language you use everywhere--in e-mail, packaging, interviews, blog posts, presentations, etc. Talk to customers the way you would to friends. Explain things as if you were sitting next to them. Avoid jargon or any sort of corporate-speak. Stay away from buzzwords when normal words will do just fine. Don't talk about "monetization" or being "transparent;" talk about making money and being honest. Don't use seven words when four will do. And don't force your employees to end e-mails with legalese like "This e-mail message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information." That's like ending all your company e-mails with a signature that says, "We don't trust you and we're ready to prove it in court." Good luck making friends that way. 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. Writing for a mob leads to generalities and awkwardness. When you write to a specific target, you're a lot more likely to hit the mark.

Start making something

What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan. Think your idea's that valuable? Then go try to sell it and see what you get for it. Not much is probably the answer. Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea. And everyone's got one of those. Stanley Kubrick gave this advice to aspiring filmmakers: "Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all."* Kubrick knew that when you're new at something, you need to start creating. The most important thing is to begin. So get a camera, hit Record, and start shooting. 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 well you execute.

Launch now

When is your product or service finished? When should you put it out on the market? When is it safe to let people have it? Probably a lot sooner than you're comfortable with. Once your product does what it needs to do, get it out there. When you impose a deadline, you gain clarity. It's the best way to get to that gut instinct that tells you, "We don't need this." Put off anything you don't need for launch. Build the necessities now, worry about the luxuries later. If you really think about it, there's a whole lot you don't need on day one. When we launched Basecamp, we didn't even have the ability to bill customers! Because the product billed in monthly cycles, we knew we had a thirty-day gap to figure it out. So we used the time before launch to solve more urgent problems that actually mattered on day one. Day 30 could wait. Don't mistake this approach for skimping on quality, either. You still want to make something great. This approach just recognizes that the best way to get there is through iterations. Stop imagining what's going to work. Find out for real.

damage control own your bad news

When something goes wrong, someone is going to tell the story. You'll be better off if it's you. Otherwise, you create an opportunity for rumors, hearsay, and false information to spread. When something bad happens, tell your customers (even if they never noticed in the first place). Don't think you can just sweep it under the rug. You can't hide anymore. These days, someone else will call you on it if you don't do it yourself. They'll post about it online and everyone will know. There are no more secrets. People will respect you more if you are open, honest, public, and responsive during a crisis. Don't hide behind spin or try to keep your bad news on the down low. You want your customers to be as informed as possible. Here are some tips on how you can own the story: 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.

Throw less at the problem

When things aren't working, the natural inclination is to throw more at the problem. More people, time, and money. All that ends up doing is making the problem bigger. The right way to go is the opposite direction: Cut back. So do less. Your project won't suffer nearly as much as you fear. In fact, there's a good chance it'll end up even better. You'll be forced to make tough calls and sort out what truly matters. If you start pushing back deadlines and increasing your budget, you'll never stop.

Making the call is making progress

When you put off decisions, they pile up. And piles end up ignored, dealt with in haste, or thrown out. As a result, the individual problems in those piles stay unresolved. Whenever you can, swap "Let's think about it" for "Let's decide on it." Commit to making decisions. Don't wait for the perfect solution. Decide and move forward. You want to get into the rhythm of making choices. When you get in that flow of making decision after decision, you build momentum and boost morale. Decisions are progress. Each one you make is a brick in your foundation. You can't build on top of "We'll decide later," but you can build on top of "Done." The problem comes when you postpone decisions in the hope that a perfect answer will come to you later. It won't. You're as likely to make a great call today as you are tomorrow. An example from our world: For a long time, we avoided creating an affiliate program for our products because the "perfect" solution seemed way too complicated: We'd have to automate payments, mail out checks, figure out foreign tax laws for overseas affiliates, etc. The breakthrough came when we asked, "What can we easily do right now that's good enough?" The answer: Pay affiliates in credit instead of cash. So that's what we did. We stuck with that approach for a while and then eventually implemented a system that pays cash. And that's a big part of this: You don't have to live with a decision forever. If you make a mistake, you can correct it later.

Start at the epicenter

When you start anything new, there are forces pulling you in a variety of directions. There's the stuff you could do, the stuff you want to do, and the stuff you have to do. The stuff you have to do is where you should begin. Start at the epicenter. For example, if you're opening a hot dog stand, you could worry about the condiments, the cart, the name, the decoration. But the first thing you should worry about is the hot dog. The hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary. The way to find the epicenter is to ask yourself this question: "If I took this away, would what I'm selling still exist?" So figure out your epicenter. Which part of your equation can't be removed? If you can continue to get by without this thing or that thing, then those things aren't the epicenter. When you find it, you'll know. Then focus all your energy on making it the best it can be. Everything else you do depends on that foundation.

there 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." What do you gain if you ban employees from, say, visiting a social-networking site or watching YouTube while at work? You gain nothing. That time doesn't mag ically convert to work. They'll just find some other diversion. And look, you're not going to get a full eight hours a day out of people anyway. That's a myth. They might be at the office for eight hours, but they're not actually working eight hours. People need diversions. It helps disrupt the monotony of the workday. A little YouTube or Facebook time never hurt anyone. Then there's all the money and time you spend policing this stuff. How much does it cost to set up surveillance software? How much time do IT employees waste on monitoring other employees instead of working on a project that's actually valuable? How much time do you waste writing rule books that never get read? Look at the costs and you quickly realize that failing to trust your employees is awfully expensive.

planing is guessing

Why don't we just call plans what they really are: guesses. Start referring to your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial guesses, and your strategic plans as strategic guesses. Now you can stop worrying about them as much. They just aren't worth the stress. And you have to be able to improvise. You have to be able to pick up opportunities that come along. Sometimes you need to say, "We're going in a new direction because that's what makes sense today." Give up on the guesswork. Decide what you're going to do this week, not this year. Figure out the next most important thing and do that. Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance.

delegators are dead weight 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. That means you need to avoid hiring delegators, those people who love telling others what to do. Delegators are dead weight for a small team. They clog the pipes for others by coming up with busywork. And when they run out of work to assign, they make up more--regardless of whether it needs to be done. Delegators love to pull people into meetings, too. In fact, meetings are a delegator's best friend. That's where he gets to seem important. Meanwhile, everyone else who attends is pulled away from getting real work done.

outteach 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? Instead of trying to outspend, outsell, or outsponsor competitors, try to out-teach them. 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. The Hoefler Type Foundry teaches designers about type at Typography.com. Etsy, an online store for things handmade, holds entrepreneurial workshops that explain "best practices" and promotional ideas to people who sell at the site. Teach and you'll form a bond you just don't get from traditional marketing tactics. Buying people's attention with a magazine or online banner ad is one thing. Earning their loyalty by teaching them forms a whole different connection. They'll trust you more. They'll respect you more. Even if they don't use your product, they can still be your fans.

Build half a product, not a half-assed product

You can turn a bunch of great ideas into a crappy product real fast by trying to do them all at once. You just can't do everything you want to do and do it well. You have limited time, resources, ability, and focus. It's hard enough to do one thing right. Trying to do ten things well at the same time? Forget about it. So sacrifice some of your darlings for the greater good. Cut your ambition in half. You're better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole. Most of your great ideas won't seem all that great once you get some perspective, anyway. And if they truly are that fantastic, you can always do them later. Lots of things get better as they get shorter. Directors cut good scenes to make a great movie. Musicians drop good tracks to make a great album. Writers eliminate good pages to make a great book. We cut this book in half between the next-to-last and final drafts. From 57,000 words to about 27,000 words. Trust us, it's better for it. So start chopping. Getting to great starts by cutting out stuff that's merely good.

You don't create a culture

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. If you encourage people to share, then sharing will be built into your culture. If you reward trust, then trust will be built in. If you treat customers right, then treating customers right becomes your culture. Culture isn't a foosball table or trust falls. It isn't policy. It isn't the Christmas party or the company picnic. Those are objects and events, not culture. And it's not a slogan, either. Culture is action, not words. So don't worry too much about it. Don't force it. You can't install a culture. Like a fine scotch, you've got to give it time to develop.

Be a curator

You don't make a great museum by putting all the art in the world into a single room. That's a warehouse. What makes a museum great is the stuff that's not on the walls. Someone says no. A curator is involved, making conscious decisions about what should stay and what should go. There's an editing process. There's a lot more stuff off the walls than on the walls. The best is a sub-sub-subset of all the possibilities. It's the stuff you leave out that matters. So constantly look for things to remove, simplify, and streamline. Be a curator. Stick to what's truly essential. Pare things down until you're left with only the most important stuff. Then do it again. You can always add stuff back in later if you need to.

be at home good

You know what it feels like. You go to a store. You're comparing a few different products, and you're sold on the one that sounds like it's the best deal. It's got the most features. It looks the coolest. The packaging looks hot. There's sensational copy on the box. Everything seems great. But then you get it home, and it doesn't deliver. It's not as easy to use as you thought it'd be. It has too many features you don't need. You end up feeling that you've been taken. You didn't really get what you needed and you realize you spent too much. Smart companies make the opposite: something that's at-home good. When you get the product home, you're actually more impressed with it than you were at the store. You live with it and grow to like it more and more. And you tell your friends, too.

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. You know those overnight-success stories you've heard about? It's not the whole story. 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. And on the rare occasion that instant success does come along, it usually doesn't last--there's no foundation there to support it. Trade the dream of overnight success for slow, measured growth. It's hard, but you have to be patient. You have to grind it out. You have to do it for a long time before the right people notice. And remember, great brands launch without PR campaigns all the time. Starbucks, Apple, Nike, Amazon, Google, and Snapple all became great brands over time, not because of a big PR push upfront. Start building your audience today. Start getting people interested in what you have to say. And then keep at it. In a few years, you too will get to chuckle when people discuss your "overnight" success.

niche media over mass media

You're better off focusing on getting your story into a trade publication or picked up by a niche blogger. With these outlets, the barrier is much lower. You can send an e-mail and get a response (and maybe even a post) the same day. There's no editorial board or PR person nvolved. There's no pipeline your message has to go through. These guys are actually hungry for fresh meat. They thrive on being tastemakers, finding the new thing, and getting the ball rolling. That's why many big-time reporters now use these smaller sites to find new stories. Stories that start on the fringe can go mainstream quickly. We've been written up in big mainstream publications like Wired and Time, but we've found that we actually get more hits when we're profiled on sites like Daring Fireball, a site for Mac nerds, or Lifehacker, a productivity site. Links from these places result in notable spikes in our traffic and sales. Articles in big-time publications are nice, but they don't result in the same level of direct, instant activity.

emulate chefs

You've probably heard of Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Julia Child, Paula Deen, Rick Bayless, or Jacques Pepin. 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. A recipe is much easier to copy than a business. Shouldn't that scare Mario Batali? Why would he go on TV and show you how he does what he does? Why would he put all his recipes in cookbooks where anyone can buy and replicate them? Because he knows those recipes and techniques aren't enough to beat him at his own game. No one's going to buy his cookbook, open a restaurant next door, and put him out of business. It just doesn't work like that. Yet this is what many in the business world think will happen if their competitors learn how they do things. Get over it.