Fried Jason - Rework

More Praise for Rework

In typical 37signals fashion, the wisdom in these pages is edgy yet simple, straightforward, and proven Read this book multiple times to help give you the courage you need to get out there and make something great.

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

The brilliance of Rework is that it inspires you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strategy, customers, and getting things done.

William C. Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company and coauthor of Mavericks at Work

For me, Rework posed a new challenge: stifling the urge to rip out each page and tape it to my wall Amazing, powerful, inspirationalthose adjectives might make me sound like a fawning fan, but Rework is that useful. After youve finished it, be prepared for a new feeling of clarity and motivation.

Kathy Sierra, co-creator of the bestselling Head First series and founder of javaranch.com

Inspirational In a world where we all keep getting asked to do more with less, the authors show us how to do less and create more.

Scott Rosenberg, cofounder of Salon.com and author of Dreaming in Code and Say Everything

Leave your sacred cows in the barn and let 37signals unconventional wisdom and experience show you the way to business success in the twenty-first century. No MBA jargon or consultant-speak allowed. Just practical advice we can all use. Great stuff.

Saul Kaplan, chief catalyst, Business Innovation Factory

Appealingly intimate, as if youre having coffee with the authors. Rework is not just smart and succinct but grounded in the concreteness of doing rather than hard-to-apply philosophizing. This book inspired me to trust myself in defying the status quo.

Penelope Trunk, author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success

[This books] assumption is that an organization is a piece of software. Editable. Malleable. Sharable. Fault-tolerant. Comfortable in Beta. Reworkable. The authors live by the credo keep it simple, stupid and Rework possesses the same intelligenceand irreverenceof that simple adage.

John Maeda, author of The Laws of Simplicity

Rework is like its authors: fast-moving, iconoclastic, and inspiring. Its not just for startups. Anyone who works can learn from this.

Jessica Livingston, partner, Y Combinator; author, Founders at Work

We have something new to say about building, running, and growing (or not growing) a business.

This book isnt based on academic theories. Its based on our experience. Weve been in business for more than ten years. Along the way, weve seen two recessions, one burst bubble, business-model shifts, and doom-and-gloom predictions come and goand weve remained profitable through it all.

Were an intentionally small company that makes software to help small companies and groups get things done the easy way. More than 3 million people around the world use our products.

We started out in 1999 as a three-person Web-design consulting firm. In 2004, we werent happy with the project-management software used by the rest of the industry, so we created our own: Basecamp. When we showed the online tool to clients and colleagues, they all said the same thing: We need this for our business too. Five years later, Basecamp generates millions of dollars a year in profits.

We now sell other online tools too. Highrise, our contact manager and simple CRM (customer relationship management) tool, is used by tens of thousands of small businesses to keep track of leads, deals, and more than 10 million contacts. More than 500,000 people have signed up for Backpack, our intranet and knowledge-sharing tool. And people have sent more than 100 million messages using Campfire, our real-time business chat tool. We also invented and open-sourced a computer-programming framework called Ruby on Rails that powers much of the Web 2.0 world.

Some people consider us an Internet company, but that makes us cringe. Internet companies are known for hiring compulsively, spending wildly, and failing spectacularly. Thats not us. Were small (sixteen people as this book goes to press), frugal, and profitable.

A lot of people say we cant do what we do. They call us a fluke. They advise others to ignore our advice. Some have even called us irresponsible, reckless, andgasp!unprofessional.

These critics dont understand how a company can reject growth, meetings, budgets, boards of directors, advertising, salespeople, and the real world, yet thrive. Thats their problem, not ours. They say you need to sell to the Fortune 500. Screw that. We sell to the Fortune 5,000,000.

They dont think you can have employees who almost never see each other spread out across eight cities on two continents. They say you cant succeed without making financial projections and five-year plans. Theyre wrong.

They say you need a PR firm to make it into the pages of Time, Business Week, Inc., Fast Company, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Atlantic, Entrepreneur, and Wired. Theyre wrong. They say you cant share your recipes and bare your secrets and still withstand the competition. Wrong again.

They say you cant possibly compete with the big boys without a hefty marketing and advertising budget. They say you cant succeed by building products that do less than your competitions. They say you cant make it all up as you go. But thats exactly what weve done.

They say a lot of things. We say theyre wrong. Weve proved it. And we wrote this book to show you how to prove them wrong too.

First, well start out by gutting business. Well take it down to the studs and explain why its time to throw out the traditional notions of what it takes to run a business. Then well rebuild it. Youll learn how to begin, why you need less than you think, when to launch, how to get the word out, whom (and when) to hire, and how to keep it all under control.

Now, lets get on with it.

This is a different kind of business book for different kinds of peoplefrom those who have never dreamed of starting a business to those who already have a successful company up and running.

Its for hard-core entrepreneurs, the Type A go-getters of the business world. People who feel like they were born to start, lead, and conquer.

Its also for less intense small-business owners. People who may not be Type A but still have their business at the center of their lives. People who are looking for an edge thatll help them do more, work smarter, and kick ass.

Its even for people stuck in day jobs who have always dreamed about doing their own thing. Maybe they like what they do, but they dont like their boss. Or maybe theyre just bored. They want to do something they love and get paid for it.

Finally, its for all those people whove never considered going out on their own and starting a business. Maybe they dont think theyre cut out for it. Maybe they dont think they have the time, money, or conviction to see it through. Maybe theyre just afraid of putting themselves on the line. Or maybe they just think business