37signals Product Blog

How Getting Real and REWORK helped Sketch Lab creator build a web app

Shlomo Zalman Heigh is founder and CEO of Heigh Tech LLC. Below, he explains how Getting Real and REWORK inspired him to build a web app.

Our first product was a Windows application called Heigh Speed. After creating Heigh Speed, I became interested in web development. I read some books about PHP, Perl, etc., but nothing seemed too appealing to me. Then, I read a book about JavaScript, and I was very impressed by the “chilled out” nature of the language. It seemed much easier than C++, which was the main language I used at the time.

At the same time, I found out about Getting Real by 37signals. When I got to the part about “scratching your own itch”, I thought about how I was looking for a user interface sketching tool for a while. I knew about a few, like Balsamiq Mockups, but they were all too complicated, and sketches are supposed to be simple, so you need a simple app to allow you to focus on the big picture and ignore the details. I decided I would create my own UI sketching tool using Getting Real’s approach.

I started to create a JavaScript application, dealing only with the browser, and not focusing on the server at all. After a while, the application became quite big, and I decided it would be a good idea to research a project management application. Getting Real mentions Basecamp a few times, so I decided to try it out. I was very impressed by it, so I signed up.

I started to become worried about where I would store all the data for my application. I knew I needed some kind of server-side web application framework that would allow me to easily store data in a database of some kind.

Ruby on Rails was mentioned a few times in Getting Real, so I decided to try it. Needless to say, I haven’t looked back. I have been using Ruby on Rails for everything since then, and I absolutely love it.

As my web application was nearing completion, I knew it was time to work on more business-related things. It was at this time that I found out about REWORK, 37signals’ business book. I found it at my local public library (it took a while to find it, because it wasn’t with the business books; it was on display in the bestseller section :)"). REWORK has helped me immensely to run my business successfully.

The finished product is a web app called Sketch Lab, available at sketchlabhq.com.

Have you been inspired by a 37signals book? Let us know.

Entrepreneur lists the 6 best startup books to read before starting your company

At humbledMBA, Jason Freedman offers up "lessons learned...and relearned." Recently, he posted "The 6 best startup books to read before starting your company" and Getting Real and REWORK made the cut.

If you're new to the startup world, I would recommend reading and re-reading the following 6 books. In fact, I would go farther and say that you should not start your company until you read through this list:

Getting Real by the guys from 37signals
If you've never built a product or if you're a non-technical MBA, start here. The purpose is to learn the basics of agile development early on...

REWORK also by the guys from 37signals
Rework is a collection of essays from their wonderful blog, Signals vs. Noise. Reading it as a whole is a nice way to learn about how to think of your startup as a business that needs to make money. These guys are pro-bootstrapping, pro-profits, and anti-venture investing. They're a nice counterpoint to much of the startup literature that focuses on how to raise money as the primary goal in the early part of a company.

See the full list.

A reviewer lists favorite quotes from REWORK

Todd Zeigler (right) of The Bivings Report just read REWORK and says it "includes tons of little nuggets of wisdom that are useful to anyone trying to run a business." He then shares quotes that he highlighted as he read the book.

“Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or service. You have to believe in something.”

“When you don’t know what to believe everything becomes an argument.”

“Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got. There’s no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.”

“Whenever you can, swap ‘Let’s think about it’ for ‘Let’s decide on it.’ Commit to making decisions. Don’t wait for the perfect solution. Decide and move forward.”

“The longer something takes, the less likely it is that you’re going to finish it.”

More quotes highlighted by Zeigler.

How Droplist's creator made his best-selling app using REWORK ideas

Droplist is a simple to-do list App which Andrew McKinney released a couple of weeks ago. Since then, it has taken off and become one of the top selling to-do list apps and is ranked in the top 25-50 in the Productivity category. Below, McKinney explains how 37signals ideas helped him create the product.

While the inspiration for this App came from many sources, the lessons of 37signals and Signal vs. Noise and REWORK had a lot to do with it. How?

Under-doing the Competition
Apps like Things and Omnifocus are packed with to-do list functionality, and share a pricetag to reflect this. Instead of going for this all-encompassing functionality, I aimed at underdoing their approaches, and created a simple-yet-powerful to-do list app with a low price. I took the approach of removing functionality rather than adding it. For example, I did away with prioritization, favoring simple sorting instead. I also concentrated on really understanding how people create lists which brings me to the next 37signals lesson...

Nailing the basics
I took a long look at what my competitors approaches to to-do list apps and compared this with how people naturally create lists in real life. By watching how others created lists, as well as observing my own habits I learned that to-do lists are more often than not created in haste. They are scratched out within a few minutes or even seconds, and do not have time for lots of button tapping (like other to-do apps). My design was geared toward letting users quickly type out a list (hitting "return" to create a new item) or copy-paste a list from email or web. I wanted to ensure that this list-entry was as gratifying as possible, and reviews have revealed that this is its killer feature alongside Dropbox sync.

Less execution
I built this app part-time on about 10 hours per week. It took me about two months to complete this project from start to finish. As both David and Jason mention, this limited amount of time each week focused my development efforts on nailing the core of my design. When it came to a sync service, I looked at building my own service, but realized this would take too long. Instead, I looked at using something that would allow people to edit their lists outside of the App. Dropbox became a natural fit because of its excellent integration with the iPhone, as well as it's "always there" approach to file sharing.

Over the next few weeks I will be releasing an iPad universal update and improving many of the experiential features of the App. With any luck I'll be able to move from part-time on this App to full-time within the near future.

Review: "REWORK really opened my eyes and allowed me to re-evaluate"

Jamie at The Growth Curve reviews REWORK:

The book encourages people to do what they love, make a business from their hobby and make money doing it. While most businesses are trying fighting for growth, REWORK encourages business people to find the right size for their business and focus on profit rather than revenue. The book also discusses some of the misconceptions of the business world, highlighting the importance of learning from your successes and providing quality products and services.

I would advise anyone who is thinking of starting a business or has started a business to take a look at this book. It has really opened my eyes and allowed me to re-evaluate elements of business that I think most people take for granted, almost as if someone has taken a look at the business world for the very first time and questioned everything that happens.

Jamie plans to continue blogging about details of the book there over the next few weeks.

Collegiate athletic conference commissioner gains insight from REWORK

In "What I'm reading" [Sioux City Journal], Corey Westra, the commissioner of the Great Plains Athletic Conference, talks about how he's found REWORK "insightful."

What book have you recently finished reading?
“Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. It’s a book about business and work practices.

How did you find out about the book?
“I had a guy I came into contact with from the Austin Group, he recommended it to me. He actually bought it for me.”

Did you find it helpful?
“I did. It’s something good to read from time to time. One of the things I thought was applicable to me is you don’t need an office to work. You can work from anywhere.”

What did you think of the book?
“I think it’s a good read for anyone my age in their career who’s busy. You can glean many things from it.”

More info on REWORK.

UK brand strategist: "REWORK is one of the best business books of all time"

REWORK is one of the best business books of all time, according to UK brand strategist Ben Austin (shown below).

Rework by the guys behind Basecamp and Highrise (i.e. 37signals) is a piece of simple, effective mastery.

They tear to pieces the bureaucratic, corporate conforms of the business world and instead apply a brilliant flow of all things sensible, normal and just simply rational.

It's all in bitesize chunks so it's perfectly made for the "dipper" kind of reader.

I can't blow its trumpet anymore. It nails starting a business, a brand, an idea and managing it to fruition wonderfully well.

It stands tall on my bookshelf and it's an immediate top 5 business book of all time for me now.

The REWORK letters page features more reader stories.

A REWORK review that praises getting your hands dirty

Scott Buchmann doesn't read many business books. "Something about them makes me feel nauseous. There’s an ongoing fear that if I read too many of them, I’ll buy a bluetooth headset and start chewing gum," he writes. Given his anti-biz book stance, it's great to see the thoughtful review he posted praising REWORK.

Making movies teaches you how to make movies. This is such a simple concept, but is lost on so many. The world is littered with classes on how to do anything: how to ride a motorcycle, how to paint, how to juggle, how to make money. Fact is, that you will never learn to do any of these things unless you actually go out and do these things. Instruction should be supplemental, not instrumental. This is true for all art forms, as well as for more pragmatic schools, such as business, medicine, and law. You can’t be a good surgeon if you don’t get your hands dirty.

Read the full review.

REWORKing the public sector

In Reworking the public sector, an eight year veteran of public service uses REWORK as the starting point for a discussion on "How can we ‘do’ government better?"

Good enough is fine. It seems that perfectionism is a wide spread problem. In times of cuts people are afraid of making mistakes which could put their job on the line. This leads to the overcooking of documents, with people taking a week when 80% of the value was added in the first 20% of effort. Good enough is fine. As 37signals says, look for the Judo approach – Maximum efficiency for minimum effort. Your solutions to business problems may not be glamorous, but if you’ve fixed it, move on. In these times of austerity, the public sector cannot afford to keep looking for Rolls Royce solutions.

Read the full piece.

800-CEO-READ names REWORK best Entrepreneurship & Small Business book of 2010

The 2010 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards are out and 37signals' REWORK snagged best in category for Entrepreneurship & Small Business.

Whether you're managing a company, running a small business, or want to start one, this book will change all preconceptions of how to do those things. It's not contrarian for its own sake, but intuitively insightful, and refreshing in a time where job security is not what it once was. It provides hope for what can be, and will go down in history as a business book that made a big difference.

See the full list or learn more about REWORK.