I enjoyed reading Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson’s earlier book – Getting Real too. Of course, what worked for 37Signals (for Basecamp, Campfire, Ta-da list and their other products) may or may not work in your situation. Their advise is still valuable and worth pondering over for any startup / productivity aspirant.

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1. Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or service.
2. Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you don’t actually control.
3. Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to make the change you want to see.
4. Stuff that was impossible just a few years ago is simple today.
5. Failure is not a prerequisite for success.
6. Don’t make assumptions about how big you should be ahead of time.
7. You have the most information when you’re doing something, not before you’ve done it.
8. When you build what you need, you can assess quality directly instead of by proxy.
9. Solving your own problem lets you fall in love with what you’re making.
10. What you do matters, not what you think or say or plan.
11. When you want something bad enough, you make the time.
12. The perfect time to start something never arrives.
13. Start a business, not a startup.
14. You need a commitment strategy, not an exit strategy.
15. Huge organizations talk instead of act, and meet instead of do.
16. Build half a product, not a half-assed product.
17. Getting to greatness starts by cutting out stuff that’s merely good.
18. The real world isn’t a place, it’s an excuse. It’s a justification for not trying.
19. The big picture is all you should be worrying about in the beginning. Ignore the details.
20. It’s the stuff you leave out that matters.
21. Decide. You’re as likely to make a great call today as you are tomorrow.
22. The longer it takes to develop, the less likely it is to launch.
23. Focus on substance, not fashion. Focus on what won’t change.
24. When good enough gets the job done, go for it.
25. When you make tiny decisions, you can’t make big mistakes.
26. Pour yourself into your product.
27. You rarely regret saying no but you often regret saying yes.
28. Instead of out-spending your competitors, out-teach them.
29. Let customers look behind the curtain.
30. Better your customers grow out of your product, than never grow into them.
31. You can’t paint over a bad experience with good marketing.
32. All companies have customers. Fortunate companies have audiences too.
33. Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain.
34. Leave the poetry in what you make, there is beauty in imperfection.
35. Marketing is not a department, it’s the sum total of everything you do.
36. Don’t make up problems you don’t have yet.
37. A business without a path to profit is a hobby.

Liked it?

Download printable PDF with best insights from the book here for free!

You can also download the excerpts from here.

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2. How to pick a co-founder?
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My Best Blogs Posts for Entrepreneurs and Startups

• How to pick a co-founder?
• Are you a ‘scale-first’ or ‘money-first’ entrepreneur?
• Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations
• 5 Things That Changed My Life, and Could Change Yours
• Avoid these customers – five warning signs to say no to customers, plus three signs to die for
• 8 Traits To Be Great
• What’s the formula for Genius?
• Apple’s Marketing Secrets
• Life is about personal leadership
• Startup School 2008: Key Takeaways, from OnStartups
• The Art of Speed
• 10 Resolutions to boost your business
• Seven ways to avoid the growth traps
• Personal Brand – steps in creating a powerful personal brand
• Deliver Authentic Leadership – Robin Sharma
• HP’s Rules of Garage

Remember, there is equal risk in jobs and business

You will be concerned about four things when you consider starting on your own:

• Entrepreneurship is too risky
• It takes too much time
• Business requires significant skills and confidence
• (and best of all) Starting your own business needs lot of money

Consider that first three concerns apply to doing a job as well. As for money, it’s really about cashflows – both for individuals and businesses. If you have an urge, don’t wait, start something of your own. You can do it over weekends, you can do it on a small scale, but just do it!

And yes, you don’t need to be the poster boy of entrepreneurs, you don’t need huge successes

Most people talk about dreaming big and huge successes and the glamor around entrepreneurship. The truth is, you don’t need to be hugely successful. What matters is whether you are happier being on your own and making more than what you would have made in a job. You don’t need to grow to be the biggest company. You just need to follow your passion.

Go out, start something!

Related posts:

1. Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements – code for life and personal development
2. Entrepreneur’s Lesson: Be Frugal, Avoid Temptations
3. Entrepreneur’s Urge with Paypal, Putler brings the solution

This post is a collection of some simple yet effective techniques. Read all tips over on Web Designer Wall.

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Zig Ziglar

I have listened to only 3 episodes so far, but they are full of practical wisdom and ideas you can implement right away. If you have read self-help books and heard other leaders, you will realize that not everything is new. Truth is that nobody can come up with something completely new on self-help anyway.

Here are some points that touched me.

• On dining table, talk only positive things from the day with your family
• Take small incremental steps regularly
• You are always in control of your life, your attitudes and your moods
• Smile when you meet someone, they will smile in return

If you listen to this podcast everyday, I can bet your confidence, relationships and performance will jump.

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Don Miguel Ruiz‘s Four Agreements – code for life and personal development

Agreement 1: Be impeccable with your word

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Agreement 2: Don’t take anything personally

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering

Agreement 3: Don’t make assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life

Agreement 4: Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

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Earning Power of Computer Programmer

Three bars are locations. top bar: lowest paying, middle: average and bottom: best paying location. Orange bars indicate the gap in the middle 80% of remunerations. Wider the gap, better the growth potential in earnings.

Earning Power of CEOs

It’s better to be a Computer Programmer in a typical US city, than to be a CEO in Eastern Montana! It’s significantly better to be a CEO in New York than to be a programmer anywhere else!

On an average Computer Programmers earn $65,610 while CEOs rake up $145,000 annually. That’s 2.2 times. Of course, you can go up to $1 million as a CEO, but are limited around $110,000 as a programmer.

You can see visual survey with all other occupations here.

What insights do you get from this? Post a comment and let others know.

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2. Live Scribe – Amazing Writing Technology – Never Miss A Word
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Live Scribe is a pen, an audio recorder and much beyond that. It records everything you write, scribble and draw. Along with audio. You can then play it back from anywhere. You can even search what you wrote and share your recordings / notes with others. It’s amazing!

Live Scribe Pulse Smart Pen

This is a great tool for students, journalists and anyone who would like to record everything from a meeting. Even great for brainstorming sessions!

The 2GB pen is $199, 1GB is $149. A refill costs $5.95.

Would make a nice gift, isn’t it?

What say?

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Big Lie Repeated Audaciously becomes Truth

Hitler, for good or bad, changed the world history. Some of the things going around me, just reminded me of Dr.
Joseph Goebbels – Adolf Hitler’s public relations / marketing / propaganda man.

What’s most remembered of Goebbels is his explanation of Britain’s Big Lie theory (which was adopted by Hitler / Goebbels very well). Quoting:

That is of course rather painful for those involved. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

So a big lie + repetition + audacity will soon become truth! People won’t care to find the truth, they will just listen to the big lie, and blinded by it, soon they will start believing that’s the real truth.

If you look at it, what were the primary rules of Hitler?

• Never allow the public to cool off
• Never admit a fault or wrong
• Never concede that there may be some good in your enemy
• Never leave room for alternatives
• Never accept blame
• Concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong
• People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

The mentality of people is such that they will believe a big lie sooner than they would believe the truth. Malintentioned people use this to their advantage. They skew the facts and present only portions of it to public, omitting the original context and adding their own “big lie” context to it.

Some people realize this is so ridiculous, since they know the original facts. But the number of such people is generally less. And the propaganda man walks away to his advantage fooling everyone. By the time people realize the truth, it’s too late for them.

Have you ever experienced this happening? With you?

How would you fight it?

• Would you start countering every big lie?
• Would you keep quiet and wait?
• Would you expose the big lie?

(Image courtesy: notionscapital)

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For more such cartoons, visit BrainStuck.com

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Interested? Here are some notes:

• Nat Geo offers free Windows and Mac screensaver applications of their best Photo of the Day. If you want a screensaver and not a desktop wallpaper, that’s your best bet!
• This work on Mac. Haven’t searched for Windows / Linux alternatives yet.
• Download the NPODWallpaper Automator script by Maxwell Duncan.
• When unzipped and installed, it will create an Automator application in your Applications folder.
• Double click and run it. Status messages will be shown in top menu bar.
• If all went well, your wallpaper would have changed. Hit F11 to quickly verify.
• If you are happy, setup an iCal event to run the script everyday. That will give you the latest POD from NatGeo automatically!
• Sweet, uh!

I still remember the sweet old Webshots days! Beautiful wallpapers are always refreshing! May be time to try out their beta mac application!

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