Rules for Revolutionaries

As adapted from Guy Kawasaki’s book – Rules for Revolutionaries (the capitalist manifesto for creating and marketing new products and services).

Purge – dispose of old prejudices, procedures and presuppositions that cloud and constrict your thinking.

Zero-based idolizing (a variation of zero-based budgeting – in which every expense is questioned from the very first dollar with nothing continued from previous budgets) means to question every business practice and preconceived ideas and beliefs. These idols spring up for good reason, through experience we discover effective ways to avoid ghastly and stupid mistakes. Because success is habit-forming, creates rules and fosters crowds that follow these rules, no one amends the rules when, over time, they become no longer optimal,  or even applicable because the marketplace has changed.

So, ask these questions periodically

1. Why did this practice come to be?
2. Is it still relevant?
3. Most importantly, will it be relevant in the future?

The two most important things about people on a revolutionary team are their ability and passion. Their educational level or work experience is meaningless – most of the engineers who did the ground breaking work of the Macintosh design didn’t even graduate from college.

A good starting point for revolutionaries is to find fault with existing products and services and then do something big to improve them.