Top 10 Takeaways from Getting Real
Getting Real is a book by the team at 37signals focused on building web apps without all the nonsense that gets in the way of building real applications, it looks at solving real problems instead of ideas about problems and essentially doing less by focusing on the right things.
These points are from the view of a solo entrepreneur/software engineer but this book is also tailored towards engineering companies, designers and marketers.
1. If you try to please everyone, you won’t please anyone
Focusing on a defined core market makes it much easier to know which features are going to be useful and which to leave out. It is much easier to target people and get the product spread because it will be used by a specific group of people who will be passionate about using and sharing it.
2. Take whatever you think your product should be and cut it in half
In a similar vein to the first point, when coming up with your product it is very easy to think “Wouldn’t it be cool if it could also do X and Y” but you haven’t even built A and B yet. Keep it to the essentials, let the app gain traction and then build on a solid foundation.
3. Decide the little details so your customers don’t have to
When faced with a tough decision, the easy way out is to leave it up to the customer to decide. Apps with loads of settings and configurations give the user a lot to think about and spend time and focus on rather than using the app, all these settings also end up creating permutations that will be unaccounted for resulting in messier and buggier code.
4. Sometimes solving the next twenty problems is not as useful or as prudent as the one staring us right in the face
Don’t dance around the biggest problem you have because it is hard or you don’t feel like doing it, it will likely be more valuable than a lot of the other things that follow it.
5. A paper sketch is cheap and easy to change
Programming is the heaviest part of an app, starting with the design especially just with pen and paper is very cheap to change or throw out. Get a feel for how your app is going to look early and validate that it is easy to use and solves the problem at hand.
6. Epicentre design focuses on the true essence of the page - the epicentre - and then builds outward
It’s easy to think about design in a linear fashion starting with the header and navigation but this is not nearly as important as the core of the application, start with the most important piece of content and build around it.
7. Fears you have about tomorrow often never come to fruition
Keep your code simple, instead of trying to predict future problems, just focus on the ones you have today.
8. You know the least about something when you begin to build it. The more you build it, the more you use it, the more you know it, that’s when you should be making decisions
Don’t try to plan out a whole project before building anything, there is a high likelihood that parts will need to change and you’ll either be committing to something sub-par or have wasted time planning features that won’t be used.
9. Stick to the experience instead of getting hung up on the details
Write stories when explaining features to start a conversation, the details will fall into place when building the app.
10. Be open to the fact that your original idea may not be the best one
So many of the great apps today weren’t initially planned to be what they became, but after people start using the app and you find out what they want, be prepared to pivot. Keep your cost of change low.
If you enjoyed any of these quotes from the book you can read the whole book for free on the 37signals site.