Rework

Just REMOVE all the sophisticated nonsense and REWORK how to build a thing.

It's a well written book, but sometimes it feels like they are just telling you things you want to hear. It's also kind of an ad for their own company. Nonetheless, I like the approach to turn down the stress on start-ups, that you don't have to be perfect from the beginning, not overwork yourself, don't put that much money into PR and so on. I especially like their attitude of not needing to grow bigger and bigger to be successful, that companies can have the size they like. They seem to be successful with that, so I guess it's not that bad. It's motivating, I'd suggest that to others that think about starting a business.

I really like that this book exists: a lot of its suggestions are the opposite of conventional knowledge around startups. If you follow Signal vs Noise, their blog, as I do, it's less worthwhile to buy the book. Many of the chapters are already shared as blog posts.

Some of the advice could be stronger if it thought harder about the opposing argument, rather than dismissing it as greedy or thoughtless.