I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the Holy Grail but it's the Holy Grail. For the right type of business. Sure, this book is specific to 37signals' business, or shall I say companies who make a living selling service-based software for the masses. Regardless, take these points and interpret them for your business and you'll be better for it.
The following points, directly from the book, are "bang-on". I don't care what kind of software you're creating. These points make a helluva-lot of sense to me, because I've either lived either this side and experienced the joy or that side and experienced the pain. I'm not saying that I don't agree with the others points in the book, it's just that these are the ones that really shine for me.
Note: These are in the order as taken from the book
- Build Less
- Fund Yourself
- It Shouldn't Be A Chore
- Less Mass
- The Three Musketeers
- What's The Big Idea
- Ignore Details Early On
- It's a Problem When It's a Problem
- Hire the Right Customers
- Scale Later
- Make Opinionated Software
- Half, Not Half-Assed
- It Just Doesn't Matter
- Start With No
- Hidden Costs
- Done!
- Alone Time
- Meetings Are Toxic
- You Can't Fake Enthusiasm
- Less Software
- Optimize for Happiness
- Manage Debt
- There's Nothing Functional About a Functional Spec
- Don't Do Dead Documents
- Tell Me a Quick Story
- Tough Love
- Better, Not Beta
Stay The Course
Be cautious about changing your mind. Being flexible is not the same as being schizophrenic. Embrace change when you know, not when you think. See out the decisions you've made. Test them on your market. If you hire the right customer, you'll find this won't be a problem for you.
Don't Be Lazy
Agreed, you won't get it right the first time, but don't let that be an excuse to being lazy. See the big picture when you're building an application and pay attention to what you're doing. Don't let the race to running software get in the way of quality.
