I love people that challenge the status quo, especially when it comes to management and how best to run your company. One such individual who challenges continuously is a gentlemen by the name of Jason Fried. Jason and his partner David Heinemeier Hansson (Who invented Ruby on Rails for the geeks amongst you) run a company called 37signals which is famous for a product called Basecamp, indeed they have recently changed the company name to basecamp. You can read about them here.
Anyway Jason wrote a book a while back called ‘Getting Real’ which was about how to manage a startup software business without VC funding, and was soon followed by a book (effectively V2.0 of Getting Real) called “Rework” which is in my opinion a seminal book on startup management.
This book is a very easy read, with each topic presented in bite sized segments. I can guarantee that any one who has been involved in management for a decent period of time will find some of the advice absolutely abhorrent, but give it some thought especially if you are a startup or the S in SME.
The book is available here
If anyone wants an idea of his ideas, you can watch a 30 minute video of Jason at a Tech conference expanding on his view.
I would love to hear any comments on what you think of his ideas, so by all means leave comments below.