I recently read Rework by Jason Fried of 37 Signals ($13 @ Amazon) and it talks about a lot of philosophy and lessons learned from their business. Some of it I found interesting, some I agreed with – for example, his views on running a small business being ok, not having to have a 100 employees before you can hold your head up. Some I didn’t agree with – I’ve found remote workers to be very hard to collaborate with compared to those that are in the office each day.

I think the part I like best is that it really teaches the importance of having a philosophy about how you want to run and grow your business. Not anything as obvious as ethics, more complex stuff like how big do you really want to be, how will you react to customer service failures, and whether you’re building it to sell or hold.

It’s an easy read. I wouldn’t call it a how-to book. Instead, I’d say this is a book to read before you start a business, and then one to re-read a year after you’ve started the business and learned some lessons about what works for you.