Jason Fried

“If you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they'll never happen.”

“Don't let yourself off the hook with excuses.”

“Once you [work on your idea extra hours], you'll learn whether your excitement and interest is real or just a passing phase.”

“When you are new at something, you need to start creating.”

“Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea.”

“If you're solving someone else's problem, you're constantly stabbing in the dark. When you solve your own problem, the light comes on.”

“If you are going to do something, do something that matters.”

“Don't sit around and wait for someone else to make the change you want to see. And don't think it takes a huge team to make that difference either.”

“What you do is your legacy.”

“To do great work, you need to feel that you're making a difference. That you're putting a meaningful dent in the universe. That you are part of something important.”

“Plans let past drives the future.”

“Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.”

“If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesn't matter if the person is marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. great writers know how to communicate. they make things easy to understand. they can put themselves in someone else's shoes. they know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society... Writing is today's currency for good ideas.”

“Plus, if you’re a copycat, you can never keep up. You’re always in a passive position. You never lead; you always follow. You give birth to something that’s already behind the times—just a knockoff, an inferior version of the original. That’s no way to live.”

“It’s a beautiful way to put it: Leave the poetry in what you make. When something becomes too polished, it loses its soul. It seems robotic.”

“That world may be real for them, but it doesn't mean you have to live in it.”

“When you don’t know what you believe, everything becomes an argument. Everything is debatable. But when you stand for something, decisions are obvious.”

“It’s a lot harder to pull your head up and ask why.”

“Pass on hiring people you don't need, even if you think that person's a great catch.”

“If you build software, every error message is marketing”

“Press Releases are spam”

“It's better to have people be happy using someone else's product than disgruntled using yours.”

“If you're opening a hot dog stand, you could worry about the condiments, the cart, the name, the decoration. But the first thing you should worry aout is the hot dog. The hot dogs are the epicenter. Everything else is secondary.”

“It's like when you're on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people so I don't have to wait thirty minutes to get help.”

“Working without a plan may seem scary. But blindly following a plan that has no relationship with reality is even scarier.”

“Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is home because she figured out a faster way”

“Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination itself”

“Unless you are a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy”

“Failure is not a pre-requisite for success. Already successful entrepreneurs are far more likely to succeed again than who failed”

“Find a judo solution, one that delivers maximum efficiency with minimum effort. When good enough gets the job done, go for it.”

“If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.”

“What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.”