Buy this book immediately.<\/p>\n
\nRework<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd I hate business books.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re always written by someone who’s been successful, telling you if you just do it their way, you’ll be rich too.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t account for your personality, they certainly don’t account for your industry.\u00c2\u00a0 They just give you hope.\u00c2\u00a0 That if you read this book your prayers will be answered, you’ll get rich!<\/p>\n
"Rework"<\/a> isn’t supportive, it’s oftentimes negative.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s telling you the way everybody else says to do it is the wrong path.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll get the idea just by reading the chapter titles:<\/p>\n
\n"Learning From Mistakes Is Overrated"<\/p>\n"Planning Is Guessing".<\/p>\n
"Why Grow"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Everybody’s trying to get rich, by coming up with an idea that someone else will fund and the public will ultimately buy, on the stock exchange, allowing you to cash out and lie on the beach.<\/p>\n
Is lying on the beach that much fun?<\/p>\n
Not for someone who’s built a business, who’s sweated and nurtured an idea into reality.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what turns them on, not leisure.<\/p>\n
Not that you can’t get rich by investing your own funds and staying private.\u00c2\u00a0 But is that the goal, beaucoup bucks?<\/p>\n
Our society is so screwed up.\u00c2\u00a0 We alternately revere and excoriate bankers.\u00c2\u00a0 We envy their money.\u00c2\u00a0 College students are dying to work in finance.\u00c2\u00a0 And the bankers themselves?\u00c2\u00a0 They all want to be artists.\u00c2\u00a0 Yup, if you don’t know a banker who’s a secret guitar player, who wants to play in a band, you don’t know any.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve subjugated their desire in pursuit of money.\u00c2\u00a0 They refuse to flower, to find their own way, to ask themselves the hard questions, to take the road less-traveled, they’d rather just play it safe, doing it the way their parents told them to.<\/p>\n
"Rework"<\/a> says first and foremost you need to make a dent in the universe:<\/p>\n
\n"To do great work, you need to feel that you’re making a difference.\u00c2\u00a0 That you’re putting a meaningful dent in the universe. That you’re part of something important."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nThis doesn’t mean you’ve got to find the cure for cancer.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that your efforts need to feel valuable.\u00c2\u00a0 You want customers to say, ‘This makes my life better.’\u00c2\u00a0 You want to feel that if you stopped doing what you do, people would notice.<\/p>\n
You should feel an urgency about this too.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have forever.\u00c2\u00a0 This is your life’s work.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you want to build just another me-too product or do you want to shake things up?"<\/p>\n
Once upon a time, Wall Street built America.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it only makes money…for its inhabitants, oftentimes screwing the rest of us in the process.\u00c2\u00a0 A dent is being made, that’s for sure, but it’s in America’s wallet.<\/p>\n
But even more importantly, "Rework"<\/a> says to "Scratch your own itch":<\/p>\n
\n"The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use.\u00c2\u00a0 That lets you design what you know – and you’ll figure out immediately whether or not what you’re making is any good."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nNapster was successful because Shawn Fanning wanted to use it.\u00c2\u00a0 He had a desire to trade files amongst his friends.\u00c2\u00a0 And his passion was also driven by a desire to provide this service to others, who couldn’t even conceive of P2P file-sharing until he invented it.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, Napster was a gargantuan success.\u00c2\u00a0 It was simple to use, and it delivered not only what was in your record store, but much more, including concerts\/live takes\/studio alternate takes that you never heard, but wanted to listen to.<\/p>\n
What did the music industry do?<\/p>\n
Shut it down.<\/p>\n
Rights holders still don’t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as they try to protect their revenue stream by withholding innovative ways to listen to music, they’re doomed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this doesn’t help people, this doesn’t put a dent in the universe.\u00c2\u00a0 And they can’t create something desirable because they’re too removed from the end user, they don’t know what he wants.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re rich and get all your music for free anyway, why should you worry about whether the public has access to the history of recorded music at a cheap price?<\/p>\n
This is also why so many music startups have failed.\u00c2\u00a0 The creators wanted to get paid, they didn’t really care about getting the music to listeners or helping musicians.\u00c2\u00a0 And people could tell.\u00c2\u00a0 ReverbNation provides a service where it’ll scrape the Web and tell you the age, social networks and other information of those on bands’ mailing lists.\u00c2\u00a0 Privacy be damned, we’ve got to make money!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a doomed plan.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nfan360<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAs for Rhapsody and Napster, they’ve got lousy interfaces…they broke the rule, they didn’t create what they wanted, everybody wants usability, isn’t that Apple rule number one?\u00c2\u00a0 It isn’t about including everything, just the necessary thing.<\/p>\n
The starting point for too many of today’s entrepreneurs, and "Rework" hates that moniker, is the wrong place.\u00c2\u00a0 The motivation is wrong, and all the basics of business are thrown out the window…\u00c2\u00a0 What is the road to profit?\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t spend more than you make… \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
What we hate about bands today is they don’t speak to us.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the main crime of SiriusXM.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s made for a theoretical listener who doesn’t exist.\u00c2\u00a0 One who likes bogus bumpers and sunny presentation of patter you already know or is irrelevant all the while playing the same damn tracks over and over again.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a subscriber, I’ve already heard them!\u00c2\u00a0 How about making stations for me!<\/p>\n
But that would be too risky.<\/p>\n
I’d like to sit Scott Greenstein down and make him listen to the jive talk on SiriusXM.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to see him smile and say he likes it.\u00c2\u00a0 But he doesn’t!\u00c2\u00a0 Mel Karmazin cares about the bottom line, not the listeners, which is why subscriptions barely tick up.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about the price so much as creating a desirable service that people want to listen to!<\/p>\n