Did you ever find yourself standing at a counter for a car rental, looking around at dirty carpets, rude staff and a long waiting line?  Then you glanced at a big poster above the counter that says “Mission Statement” that has some completely disconnected ideas from what is actually happening in their office. THAT simply…

Decide what you stand for. Being passionate and consistent about your philosophy will attract superfans who can advocate for you better than any advertising. It will also alienate some people, but that is the cost of having strong beliefs. That’s why Coke and Snickers buyers don’t go to Whole Food to get their favorite snacks…

We all have ideas. They are plentiful and they are cheap. Don’t think so? Try to sell your idea and see what you get for it. Sure you’ve heard somebody say, “if I acted on this idea I had, I would now be a millionaire”. That’s nonsense. Idea is just an idea if there is…

One of the easiest ways to start something is to fix a problem that you have. A ton of people started the most successful companies by simply creating a solution to the problem they personally experienced. From Nike shoes to Dyson vacuum cleaners, to social networks, to Apple computers – the founders simply “scratched their…

This concept is really simple yet so few people actually practice it. To do great work you must enjoy what you’re doing. Better yet, you must be truly passionate about your work. Once you have this inner drive to do the best you can – all old models and ways of doing things begin to…

Why the numbered posts? Who is an entrepreneur? A person with a greater than usual tolerance for risk? A person with a suit and an MBA? Not so says the author of Rework. In fact, he suggests retiring the world altogether. Why? According to him, it’s loaded with baggage and “smells like a member-only club”.…

Why the numbered posts? In this chapter Jason bashes the workaholics. The following summarizes Jason’s take on the workaholics: “Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix the problems by throwing sheer hours at them.” It can’t be more true. First of all we must know that after a certain amount of hours our…

In economics there is a principle of continuous growth, a sort of Darwinism: grow or die. Its accepted that if a company does not grow, it will not be able to sustain itself in a long term. To survive – you must grow. It then must be this predisposition that leads us into being impressed…

Jason says: “unless you’re a fortune teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy” and adds that “when you turn guesses into plans, you enter a danger zone”. So should we call “planning” “guessing”? Sure. At the least it will keep us mindful about impermanence of a plan, while still allowing us to use it and…

This is referring to the idea of startup community embracing failure too much: “Fail early and fail often”. According to the author, research shows that successful entrepreneurs are much more likely to succeed the next time around, so you shouldn’t embrace the failure.  You should not seek failure as a road to success, but at…