Execute

by Josh Long, Drew Wilson

Execute is a new book by Josh Long and Drew Wilson about acting on inspiration immediately rather than following the normal rules They step you through the 5-day build of the Space Box app and show you in real-time how to act on inspiration. They discuss how to stay inspired until you've shipped and how to identify what to build in the first place. If you are building apps, creating art, or you're a creative professional of any kind, then Execute is your new manual. Execute was written in 3 days, designed and off to the printer in only 8 days.

Genres: Design, Business, Nonfiction, Productivity

165 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Chamara Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a super quick read, but ultimately disappointing. It was just so poorly written: full of grammatical errors, self-contradictory and repetitive. I felt like I was reading a first draft of a multi-part blog post. I do appreciate that the authors "practiced what they preached" in writing this book in only 8 days, but I don't think you can apply building a website to writing a book. I was at least happy to find some value in the chapter on inspiration and in the essay at the end written by Drew Wilson. On another positive note: the book is very beautifully designed, and I'd recommend it for those looking to get started executing on their own ideas.

[Curtismchale · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there is an epidemic of people talking about doing work and producing nothing, this is not the book to inspire confidence in the strategy of just executing.

The authors contend that you need to just work as you’re inspired and passionate and it will work out. If this book is any indication, they’re wrong. It meanders and repeats itself all over. They try to convince us that Small Viable Product is different than Minimum Viable Product. But it’s not and they didn’t think far enough ahead to try and label something so they had intellectual property.

In short, there are so many other books to read that can help you more. Read Perennial Seller, The Art of Work, The War of Art, or Finish instead. All of those books are of significantly higher utility.

[Demian Seiler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am certainly not a grammar-guru, nor would I consider myself as having any other literary credibility to judge a book. That said, this book has many flaws... And I love them all. The reason I love them all is because they actually started and shipped this book within about a week. The point of the book isn't to be perfect. The point is to document the ideas behind shipping early and often fueled by inspiration. It delivers. There does seem to be redundancies but they just reinforce the point. I loved the idea and thought the book was pretty good as well.

[Sukhneet Singh Virk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book.

The whole time I read it, I kept thinking "these guys wrote this thing in 8 days..."

Within the first few pages, I stopped and emailed people to interview for my podcast.

The week before reading this book, I spent time worrying about a microphone, the format, the questions, and other things that could be solved quickly.

The book helped me adopt a mindset of testing out ideas I have right away.

[Enrique Sánchez]

There are a lot of hard and thought-provoking truths in this book, and it sure makes you want to jump into your computer and start building.

The book is poorly written and suffers from idea repetition, but considering it was written in one week I didn't mind that too much.

[Floris Verloop · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't like the writing, it felt really rushed, which makes sense since the entire book was written in a week. The writer talks about fast paced execution, but the book itself showed me that this comes at the cost of quality.

[puyol5 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 8/10

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light read but inspiring about get shit done and ship your projects

[Mateus Pinheiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great quick book. Very inspirational and a beautiful view into Drew's process. Highly recommended to all web people, and all non-web people too!

[Tiago Dias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone that want to build something should read this book. It shows you how to accomplish things based on your inspiration. It's a must read book.

[João Ramos]

Super simple and good to read.
Really love the book. Let's get execute

[Matt Quirk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great confidence booster in getting into making my own apps, things, and generally becoming more self sufficient.

Big thanks to Josh and Drew!

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

All creatives (like me) should read this. All planners (like me) should read this. All workaholics (like me) should read this.

[Ignas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice book, which motivates to act and execute. Of course you can easily feel that it was written in 8 days, but still really worth to read if you have problems to ship the product.

[Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible copy, worst book I ever read. And from a technical side, the .mobi version is completely broken, can't select anything on a Kindle and thus can't look for definitions.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is such an awful book. It's a book by a guy explaining how he's going to write a book in 8 days. Fine. But it's still an awful read. Would not recommend.

[Mike Vardy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering this book was essentially written in a little over a week, it's very well done. The message behind it is good (although it does get rehashed many times over), so it's a book I was able to get through far quicker than most of what I've read before. If you're in need of a kick in the ass, Exectue will help you out. Just make sure you don't dwell on the words to much inside of it and focus more on the message instead.

[Antti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring read, though the 8-day writing time shows from time to time.

[Liudas Sodas · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is ok book, for inspiration.

[Blaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

not the best written but a good idea. probably better suited for a series of blog posts.