Book Summaries

The book consists of the learnings which the author had while working on his startup IMVU. The book focuses on the concept of validated learning and the build-measure-learn feedback loop. It tries to bring in a systematic approach to measuring the progress of a startup. A startup has a true north, its vision. It employs a strategy that includes a business model, a product roadmap, and a view of partners, competitors, and customers. The product is the result of the strategy. Products constantly change ( engine tuning). Strategy changes occasionally ( pivot). Vision rarely changes. In general management, failure to deliver results is caused by failure to plan or failure to execute. Both are frowned upon. But in the modern economy, both are useful tools for testing new ideas. ...

The authors are founders of 37Signals. The book talks about how to go about remote work, its advantages and pitfalls. Here are some key takeaways from the book.

The book compares a set of 10 pairs of companies over a timeframe of over 20 years to demonstrate what choices the same companies make to become great. The great ones (10Xers) were not led by visionaries, they were not more innovative, they did not try to move too fast, and they were not luckier ones either.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is considered the bible of investing.

The book is an interesting take on what it takes to attain a happy marriage and why only ~30% of us end up in happy marriages. The book is divided into three sections - what is love, why we fail in the game of love and what can we do differently to succeed at it.

While the book is overall a good one, unfortunately, it contains a lot of generic financial advice which I decided not to include in the summary. Choose a sound financial lifestyle Borrowers borrow money from the future in the form of credit loans till the lifestyle collapses, consumers consume money paycheck to paycheck, keepers focus on accumulating wealth over time. The focus on net worth mentality over paycheck mentality actively works in keepers favor.

The book talks about various psychological tactics used by compliance practitioners like salespeople, waiters, car dealers, and fundraisers to influence us into saying yes to something to which ideally we would have said no. The author went and took sales jobs as a car salesman and waiter to see these tactics in action. He referred to these tactics as six weapons of influence. Each of them forms the basis of a chapter in the book. Weapons of influence Weapons of influence consist of identifying fixed action patterns and exploiting them. Compliance practitioners use them as a basis for influence.

The book is an impressive collection of unusual stories aimed at promoting a non-conventional way of approaching problems and solving them.

Some salient notes from the book If there’s an elephant in the room, introduce it. Even if you are in the position of strength, be fair. Have something to bring to the table, people would be more welcoming of you to join in then. Get the fundamentals right, fancy stuff does not work without that. When you are screwing up and nobody says anything, they have given up on you (that’s a really bad place to be). Playing sports is not about learning the technicalities of the game but about teamwork, perseverance, sportsmanship, the value of hard work and ability to deal with adversity. The brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out, they are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Manage time explicitly like money You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. Ask yourself: are you spending your time on the right things Delegate your work as much as possible What’s more fun than fulfilling one’s own dreams is to help someone else fulfill their dreams. Use positive language, “When does this [Disney] park close?” is to be responded with “This park is open until 8 PM”. Don’t complain about your problems, whining does not help, focus on working harder instead. Almost everyone has a good side, if you wait long enough, it will come out. Focus on what people do not what they say. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. You can be an optimist if you have a contingency plan for what to do when all hell breaks loose. A bad apology is worse than no apology. No job is beneath you, do your best at whatever job you are put to. Rights come with responsibilities. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

The book talks about inflection points which if not handled carefully, are drastic (10x) enough to put a company out of business.