Hunter S. Thompson & Visionary [Product-Building]

I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively … For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don’t lie to yourself and use the wrong words. — Hunter S. Thompson

When I sit down to write, I’m usually cognizant at some point or another about the purpose of what I’m writing. Maybe it’s to teach — explaining a particular use of a gem in a Rails project — or to explore — an off the cuff poem about a past lover — or to inform — announcing the launch of a new product. And usually, I find that the purpose tends to inform my diction, voice, time spent writing, and the amount of revisions I make. I’ve been working on a new project recently, and came across a purpose I find to be equal parts useful and challenging. And that purpose is to conceptualize.

Programming isn’t the hard part. Designing and building a meaningful product is. I’m not here to write about how writing can offer a definition of meaningful though — go ask your buddies on Twitter; I’ll hasten a guess that you’ll find a number of exciting (read: conflicting) definitions. What I’m here to write about briefly is how I’ve found writing to be invaluable in crafting the structure, feel, and vision of what you’re building. So much so that I will not start another project before first jotting down a few sentences, and then after noodling on those for a bit, putting together a post with a lengthier dissection of what’s being built.

I think primarily about two things when writing about new projects:

Why: Most importantly, why are you sitting here writing about this project? What is compelling enough about it that you see it fit to spend time — a valuable commodity — to build? What problem are you solving? The what — or the implementation — is likely to change, but I find the why to be much more static, and by proxy, poignant. I also find that this exercise helps to tease out any hypotheses I have about my project.

What: What does the project do? How is it solving the problem you outlined above? What is the medium through which you hope to provide value, whether tangible or intangible?

Like Thompson, I’ve found it’s much easier to remove this preexisting perspective bias around a project when things are written down. Putting down words on paper or on screen serves both a practical and a philosophical purpose. Practically, it is an outlet for exploring different articulations of a vision, thinking through user stories, describing certain feature sets, and otherwise providing a basic outline of what is being built. Philosophically, it lends legitimacy to the project, transcending this boundary of “sweet idea” to “work in progress” — a boundary I’ve found many folks to have a difficult time crossing. And just like all good writing went through some sort of revision process, so does a project. These words are dynamic, changing as ideas evolve. Revisions of posts about projects have turned into revisions of the projects themselves. Sometimes small things change — different words used to illustrate a value proposition. Other times, large things — like entire visions — do.

With anything you’re building, I challenge you to spend some meaningful time writing about it (there’s that word again, but this time, your own definition is the only one that matters).