Book Review – Small Is the New Big – Part 3

Final thoughts about Seth Godin’s Small Is the New Big.

Relax… – turns out, personal freedom, including work-life balance, is one of the top 5 reasons people start their own businesses (here’s another “Been there, made that mistake” T-shirt for my collection). So we’re all looking for something less than 40-50-60 hours a week. Turns out, owning a business is not it. Wait a second though… Let’s take a close look at how and on what do we, the entrepreneurs, spend our time. Why do we stay up ’til the day’s early light?

I think that most of the times it’s a vestige of our past, of being employees, of exchanging our time for money. Back then it made sense (at least partially) to work longer hours, overtime hours, weekends and holidays. We saw the difference on our next paycheck.

But for entrepreneurs, this makes absolutely no sense. Actually, we should try to achieve just the opposite – to aim at making more money while spending less time working. Of course, figuring out how to do that requires a lot of effort and a measure of risk.

It’s much easier to continue believing that more hours mean more money. We don’t have to stay up past midnight 7 days a week or go without a single day off for years, this time without any overtime pay or even guaranteed paycheck; we choose to do it because the alternative scares us. 

Playing By the Rules – industry leaders make the rules. Try to go by these rules and you’ll most certainly lose. Changing the rules is the only way to both stay and get ahead in the game.

Ugly, the Web Is – Seth talks about how so many websites are plain ugly (also see his Hershey (No Kisses) riff). I can think of a handful of B2B sites that are absolutely horrible, including a site from a company that offers blogsite design. But what’s even worse is how many websites are very average, in either their design or their content or both.

Oh, and then, just as I was ready to put the book down at the end of the last riff (Zebra Cake, Famous), I found out the book had a special bonus (actually, two bonuses). SPOILER ALERT: they are about website design and the laws of blogging.

Related posts:

1. Book Review – Small Is the New Big – Part 1
2. Book Review – Small Is the New Big – Part 2
3. Do You Know When to Outsource?