Why Sucking is Okay

Posted December 05, 2007 in Innovation, Management, Starting It, 7 Comments »

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You want to release a big-bad-ridiculously-innovative new product called the Thermomastolometer.

But, "I'll finish it when I feel it's perfect," you tell yourself.

No sweat.

Days pass, and you're still stalling.

"Perfection takes time," your mantra goes.

So, you build-and-build-and-build-and-build.

And, you continue building until...you die.

Kaput.

Too bad, you should've known perfection doesn't exist.

Even if you think you're 5 miles away, a million more miles of road will appear two miles ahead -- wasting your precious time on Earth even more.

Take the quick finish line -- and worry about the other finish lines later.

It's Okay to Suck

Look at YouTube's early days.

It started as a frickin' web-2.0-hip-hip-hooray dating site.

What happened?

  1. They generated users who loved their online video formats.
  2. They evolved their site to meet demanding online video needs.

The lesson?

It's okay to suck because you'll evolve your product over time anyway.

What if Apple had waited until they "perfected" their iPod?

Boo. We'd have nothing -- because hey, they're still working on new iPod features as we're typing up this sha-ding right now.

Release That Bad Boy ASAP

  1. You've built XYZ features for your shiny new product.
  2. You wait until you can "perfect" that product.
  3. Time drives XYZ features to become obsolete in favor of new ones.

(ala: iPod, iPod video, iPod nano, etc.)

The more time you wait, the quicker you'll make your product outdated.

Remember:

  • Today's MySpace wasn't yesterday's MySpace.
  • Today's Starbucks wasn't yesterday's Starbucks.
  • Today's Whole Foods wasn't yesterday's Whole Foods.
  • Today's Google wasn't yesterday's Google.

That Sergey dude didn't think of Google AdWords until his company needed cash.

Until then, he and partner Larry were just running a simple search engine without a revenue generator.

So, it's okay to suck. It gives you somewhere to start. It's a requirement to succeed.

Even billionaire founders started sucking.

Start sucking.

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More Business Tips You Might Enjoy

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  3. Why We Suck As Managers
  4. Why Doing Philanthropy Rocks
  5. How To Not Suck As A Boss

7 Comments on Why Sucking is Okay

Chris

Posted @ 07:49 AM on December 05, 2007

Great article!


The Trizle Team

Posted @ 02:43 PM on December 05, 2007

Thanks, Chris!

-A


Le Kim

Posted @ 07:21 PM on December 05, 2007

Hahaha, this was excellent. A perfect reminder for procrastinating perfectionists....your idea will likely stay on paper if you wait 'till it's awesome. showing how the seemingly "perfect" success stories of today started out totally reinforced that. good shit.


Tezza

Posted @ 08:21 PM on December 05, 2007

Thats a refreshing article and so spot on. Not only is perfection elusive and non existent, most success stories never relied on it. Think Microsoft with all it's product releases and then service packs to deal with the problems after the fact.


Mike

Posted @ 02:36 AM on December 08, 2007

I just found this blog and read through all articles on the frontpage + subscribed to the feed. Keep up the awesome articles!


Jonathan

Posted @ 04:30 AM on December 11, 2007

Wow!!! This is soooo refreshing. Such simple truth but why have we, innovative people, never thought of the subject this way? Hey, man, I suck, so what? I will tell them to start sucking in our next business meeting.

A million thank you from Hong Kong.


jans diary » Blog Archive » I should suck more

Posted @ 09:24 AM on December 12, 2007

[...] So the conclusion is, lots of projects, few finished. Read this to understand the title of this post. [...]


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