Lesson #3: Perfect is the enemy of good enough

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on December 22, 2006

Link: What did you learn this year?

This one, of course, is from start-up guru Guy Kawasaki, and despite the many criticisms of the practice by those who insist it encourages shoddy product, I have yet to see in my professional life an example that demonstrates absolutely that more time spent always leads to better results.

Guy makes the point eloquently enough in this post which has become a cornerstone of bootstrapping philosophy.

But he's far from alone in expressing the idea.

I've always instinctively avoided the temptation to Noodle with something endlessly and have often had those instincts misinterpreted by others as evidence of an impatient temperament.

But a recent comment by Venture Capitalist James Chen first left on an earlier post then republished in a post of my own makes the case for focusing on the bare essentials and avoiding perfection like the plague. James writes:

...a good entrepreneur knows that what matters the most is the real business, not the appearance of the business. If you look at Ebay as an example, you will see one of the most well run and profitable web companies with perhaps the ugliest and most horrible looking website! Functionality is sufficient and they are smart not to mess with a good thing.

As Guy Kawasaki observes:

...perfection doesn't necessarily come with time--more unwanted features do. By shipping, you'll also learn what your customers truly want you to fix. It's definitely a tradeoff: your reputation versus cash flow, so you can't ship pure crap. But you can't wait for perfection either.