One book…everyone knows the rules. This pizz..book gets a 5.6/10.
3 Points:
- Don’t push growth, allow it to happen, but don’t force it.
- The internet/space to make money is such a massive space. Don’t forget the 20 million dollar corners and niches.
- Until you sell 1, you haven’t proved anything. (No amount of theory beats action.)
Favourite Quotes:
[On the internet] “1 percent create, 9 percent contribute, and 90 percent consume” [pg. 33] -Ben McConnell + Jackie Huba
[Describing a successful coding learning vs unsuccessful]…They were both doing the work, but Chris was sharing it, but Nathan was not. [p.36]
Don’t get permission, just get started. [p.58]
Most apps on the internet consist of two things: forms and lists. [p.71]
When businesses fail, it’s unlikely that a tornado of unforeseeable misfortunes is the cause. Instead, it’s usually one or more of the same handful of mistakes: overspending on inventory or office space, hiring too quickly, cofounder infighting. [p.142]
The longest lived businesses in the world are also some of the smallest. [p.162]
…don’t get an office, don’t get too big. Grow as fast as your customers want you to—and are paying you to. [p.163]
Ultimately, you are responsible for spending our creators’ money. [p.173]
Behaviour is what someone is doing; intention is why they’re doing it. Most people judge themselves based on their own intentions but then judge others based on their behaviour. [pg. 175]
Would I re-read this?
Probably page through if I was considering starting a business, but the basic lesson felt pretty clear: Don’t rush to scale.
I read this about 6 months before the large tech layoffs started happening in 2022. It felt oddly applicable as I watched companies layoff employees, often stating transparently it was due to ‘scaling too fast.’
This book is memorable to me because of the Notion-esq art style on some pages, but otherwise fell a bit flat. I would have liked more of a decision to give case studies, tools, resource recommendations, or experienced based advice. As it was, it was a mix of all 4.
What did I implement?
I don’t currently have a business, but I loved the concept of manual viable process. Since taking Six Sigma training, I’ve advocated for a quick process map to clarify almost any problem. A manual viable process answers the question of: “What’s the minimum manual work we can accomplish to get the customer what they need?”
In Summary...
I can’t say I would recommend this except to a small class of entrepreneur that is 1) not on Twitter and 2) scaling too quickly
