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This issue's content is excerpted from the "Close Reading of Business Classics" reading membership course. In this course, Wei Dandi, editor-in-chief of Wu Xiaobo Channel, interpreted "Start Over". Log in to the Wu Xiaobo Channel APP to watch the full content.

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Compiled by Ba Jiuling (WeChat public account: Wu Xiaobo Channel)

Hello everyone, I am Wei Dandi, the editor-in-chief of Wu Xiaobo Channel. Today I will introduce a book called "Start Over". When you study business, you often learn economic thinking, and the most important thing in economics is resource allocation.What entrepreneurs really do is allocate scarce resources, so learning how they allocate scarce resources, plan company culture, and deal with life challenges may be more inspiring to us. If you are also pursuing simpler and more efficient business thinking, I recommend this book to everyone.

Most SaaS platforms and technology companies are loss-making when they start, but 37 Signals, the company founded by the author of "Start Over," has been profitable since the first year, and has made millions of dollars in net profit every year after stabilization. After deducting all costs, it has been higher than its peers for a long time. This is very difficult for a company.

Even after experiencing several rounds of major declines among US technology companies, its profits are still rising slowly. It is a very healthy, small, beautiful and stable company.

Unlike many entrepreneurs who are constantly looking for financing and expansion, the author is proud of being a small company and advocates the business philosophy of "no listing, no expansion, and profit as the goal."

At the same time, they have a very special corporate culture.

Don't focus on details too early

They believe there are two principles that make a product useful.I think these two principles can be used as a reference by all companies that make products or consumer goods. The first one is not to focus on details too early.

Many people spend too much time on details. For example, when an architect designs a house, he never thinks about what the floor tiles should be, but focuses on building the structure, level, and overall structure of the house. Discussing details too early will lead to more disputes, countless meetings, many delays, and waste time making changes that will change sooner or later.

This sentence is simple, but this methodology can urge us. When we start planning a design, we can use a very large whiteboard pen to write on the blackboard, because this large pen can only serve to draw the structure. But we can't use a ballpoint pen, why? Because a ballpoint pen can write down a lot of details. When you use a pen as thick as a whiteboard pen, you can only focus on the most important framework things that must be done now.

In addition, when they were developing the remote management software, they did not consider additional functions at the beginning, and did not even consider the payment function.

This is a company where users must pay for the software, but why is there no payment function? Because this software is charged monthly and annually, and the payment action will not take place until 30 days at the earliest. Therefore, within the 30 days before it happens, other core issues should be solved as soon as possible, and the payment issue can be solved after 30 days. Even payment can be a detail, which shows how logical they are when arranging important and urgent things.

Subtract, not add

Another rule to make a product better is to do subtraction, not addition.

The traditional thinking is that if you want to beat your competitors, you must do more. If your competitor has four functions, we must do five, and each one must be better than it. If its promotion costs 1 million and is placed on 10 channels, we must spend 2 million and place it on 20 channels.

The author David calls this kind of comparison an arms race during the Cold War, which is very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly. Seeing the opponent as the ceiling puts oneself in a completely defensive and insecure state. But in fact, the reason why one can defeat the opponent in the competition is that one never looks at what the opponent does, but only does what one believes is right.

Therefore, companies that make products should abandon the Cold War-style arms race waste and focus all their energy on the most important things.

In addition, they mentioned putting less effort into the problem.

Most people, when they encounter a problem or a bottleneck, think it is very important to find out the problem.

But after reading Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the authors David and Jason discovered a pattern: all failed restaurants always have the most dishes. So the first thing Ramsay did when he was working was not to study the dishes that were rarely ordered and not tasty, but to keep only the 10 most popular dishes and remove the rest. When you reduce from 30 dishes to 10 dishes, you are a successful company and a fine menu.

Similarly, in the process of business management, we should not put too much energy on problems, but should cut them down so that they do not exist.

Don't be a hero

At the same time, they also tell us not to try to be heroes.

Suppose you judge that a task can be completed within two hours, but after one hour, it has not started smoothly, will you still insist on completing the task?

I am a very heroic person in my philosophy. In this case, my choice is to bite the bullet and finish it. I will never give up. This is because in traditional thinking, giving up is equal to failure.

But in reality,When we decide to do something that will take more than two weeks, we must ask other people for their opinions to determine whether this is the right way to do it and whether there are other solutions. Even if he is not the most professional person, he can probably see the problem at a glance. Because at this moment, we are the ones who "cannot see clearly because we are in the mountains."

Learn to say "no" to users

Another point that goes against common sense is that we must develop the habit of saying "no" to customers.

In particularWhen you need to establish a company with higher efficiency and higher standardization, you must have standardized products, and you must say no to your users.

Users who come to report problems may only account for 1% of the total users, and among this 1%, only 0.03% or 0.03% of them may express this view. In fact, the other 99% of people may not have this demand. This phenomenon is called the survivor effect.

Therefore, we should not believe that users are always right. If you are a chef and customers say that the food is too salty or too bland, you can make some changes. But if a picky gourmet says that bananas should be put in the wide noodles instead of avocado, don't believe them.

Don't ignore the majority of silent users in order to cater to certain customers, as this will not only cost you more than you gain.

The full content is included in the 85th book of the "Close Reading of Business Classics" course, "Restart", which is interpreted by Wei Dandi, editor-in-chief of Wu Xiaobo Channel. The course also introduces ideas that go against traditional common sense and teaches you to think about business, work, and life in a simpler and more efficient way. If you want to learn more about the course content, please go to Wu Xiaobo Channel APP to watch it.

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