Mar 20, 2017. Chasing Perfection. Vs Shipping.
Hello!
This week I will talk about a debate that I’ve often been on the receiving end of (and thus super close to my heart) — chasing perfection vs shipping it.
Chasing perfection is defined as a pursuit when you work on something and you continue to tweak it till the time it’s so perfect, so gorgeous, so complete, so brilliant that you can not add anymore to it. It’s your masterpiece, if you will. If you are lucky (or a genius), the masterpiece can happen in a day. And if you are someone like me, you will never have one masterpiece (but have a thousand tiny pieces — some great
On the contrary, a dictionary says that “Shipping” means “making available for purchase”. And if you go by the shipping that is often attributed to Steve Jobs (backstory), it essentially means throwing the output in the world, for others to purchase, consume, judge, evaluate etc. And all the emotional turmoil that it brings along. Will come to the emotional bit in a bit.
So the debate that rages often in the community of creators, doers is, is it better to chase perfection? Or do I just ship? Keyword: Creators. Doers. Not paper pushers. Not those sitting on the fences. Not the ones who face the Type B failure.
Also, please do not mistake shipping for shipping bad / incomplete / non-functional things. They are “ready.”
Honestly, I don’t know which one is better but I have started to believe that shipping is better than chasing perfection. Here are a few arguments in the favour of shipping. And then may be you feed me some in favour or perfectionism.
A. Quality vs Quantity
We have super limited time (about 70 years. 80 if you are lucky) and we spend a large part of it preparing ourselves (education). And then whatever is left, we try to create.
Now in that super limited time, you could either spend years chasing perfection (and then see your heart break into a million pieces if that one piece gets rejected). Or you could ship 1000 “ready” (not perfect) pieces and then build on top of those.
Apparently Picasso painted more than 50000 pieces. We know of his top 10, top 15 but then look at the amount of work he did. Warren Buffett has been picking stocks since I don’t know when. If he sat around thinking that he would pick that one perfect stock that will make him rich, he would still be a newspaper delivery boy.
A cricketer knows that you can’t hit a six (or get a wicket) on every ball. An investor knows that each stock that she picks will not a multibagger. A songwrite knows that each song will not be a blockbuster. So what do they do? Take one thing at a time and hone the process with each output. With each output they take inputs and feedback from customers, partners, friends, strangers and then go back to the drawing board and they and ship another. They continue to repeat the process. In a loop. With each piece they ship, they are closer to that masterpiece.
You write a 1000 stories and one will for sure make the audience cry. Look at serial, tech entrepreneurs. They didn’t wait to perfect their software (or the product). They would start. Somewhere. With a MVP. And then build on top. Case in point, Wordpress (a CMS). It apparently powers 25% of the Internet. Started by a guy in his teens in his bedroom (or garage or wherever) in 2003. They shipped something. People kept adding, contributing and look at them today.
With each iteration they shipped, they met more people who believed in what they were doing and helped them make the next version better. Brings me to the next things. Kindness of strangers. And collaborators.
B. Collaborate / Kindness of strangers
I am of sincere opinion that the myth of the sole genius is a, well, a myth. From a Steve Jobs to a Warren Buffett to a Sachin Tendulkar, while they look like lone geniuses in a band of lunatics, truth be told, they have had access to knowledge and work of others. They had shoulders of giants to stand on.
They weren’t the first to create things that we know them for. But they did something really simple. They showed up. They were out there. Learning. Adapting. And most importantly, shipping. Showcasing whatever they had. And hoping to get help from people.
And the world helped! In shape of Andy Grove, Ben Graham and Ramakant Achrekar. And other nameless and faceless people that were around when they went about.
Also, in my experience, the world at large (except the ones that you know of) is super kind. I learnt this for myself when #tnks came out. So many people wrote in to extend their help and they did not expect anything in return! Truth be told, I could have worked for 10 more years on #tnks before I could call it perfect. But I reached a point where I thought I was happy sharing the story to the world. And I shipped. The book hasn’t made me a millionaire but it has definitely made me richer. Rich with connections, inputs, friends and even opportunities.
If I did not ship, if I would have lost out on of all of that. Just that I had to fight the demons in my head when the book was getting published. Demons. Hmmm. Next thing — demons. And the fight!
C. The demons in the head
I touched upon the emotional turmoil that shipping accompanies.
I’ve written 1500 odd blog posts but I still get goosebumps when I hit the Publish button. Doubt is ok. Butterflies in stomach are fine. But what is not good is if the questions in your head torment you so much that you don’t want to ship.
When you ship, the questions that cloud your head often are:
- What if people don’t like it?
- How will my boss react?
- What if I am ridiculed? Laughed at?
- What about my reputation?
- Why did I even think about doing this?
- And so on and so forth…
Look closer. Each of these excuses (that’s what they are — excuses) tend to cluster around two broad things.
- The perception that your work, your output, your shipped thing will create in the minds of your people (friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances) and strangers. The fear of getting judged, evaluated, and laughed on.
- Fear of making mistakes.
Being an outcast is a scary thing. As we were evolving, if we were an outcast, we would die — left behind in the race against predators, limited opportunity to mate, last in the queue to get whatever food was left. Etc. We are still guided by our animal brain. So can’t blame us there. But may be, we take advantage of this fear? To actually ship!
In fact, the best piece of “advice” to help get over these “fears” comes from Anton Ego (of the Ratatouille fame). He is a precursor, the father to the modern day food bloggers. Anton is a restaurant critic and is often harsh on anything that does not fit into his ideas of food or restaurants.
He says and I quote,
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”
He further says,
“Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere”
See this YouTube video for full text of his speech. I think I don’t need to make any more points against these “critics” and fears of getting judged.
The other bit could be the fear of making mistakes. I mean come on! We are all a mistake. A lot of coincidences would have happened some millions of years ago to make life as we know it. Even now, if you are reading this, you were lucky to have born to family and a n environment that made you “capable” to access email and comprehend these words.
Mistakes are our best damn friends!
They allow to discover so many new things. About us. And about the world. Think of any great thing that you love. Each would have a history riddled with hordes of people making mistakes and then paving way for others to build on their mistakes. If Christopher Columbus did not go on the voyage thinking that he was making a mistake, how would he discover America and other places? The discovery / invention of Penicillin was a mistake. Ice Cream was a mistake. Iced Tea was a mistake. The Post-It notes was a mistake. The list is endless. Mistakes, like someone one once told me, are our best friends. Let’s make some mistakes!
D. Everything is in the perpetual beta stage
Lately as I read more, i realise that everything is in perpetual beta. (Beta is defined as a stage when its ship-ready and requires some improvements). Like the Pareto rule. 20% time to build a thing with 80% functionality. This is where you ship.
Look at nature. Everything around us WIP. Nature just shipped us and then as have evolved over the years, we are remain WIP. From being monkeys to social animals to becoming super-humans, we are still evolving.
Look at how people write books. There are drafts, preview copies, reviewers, editors and other such things. Each part is ship-worthy.
Look at software. MVP. Enough said.
That’s about it. I’d end this by quoting the best damn thing ever said on shipping. By none other than Steve Jobs. He said, “Real artists ship.”
Oh, one more thing. Can I help you ship something? I am just one email away :)
Apart from this, I have just started reading Sapiens — a book that everyone from Bill Gates to Prof. Bakshi to my neighbour is talking about. I am about 60 pages into it and I know why all these people are so full of praise. Do read it. Even if non-fiction is not your thing, please do read the book if you haven’t already. Hopefully, by next week I would’ve finished reading it and once I do that I will try and write what I took away from the book.
Till then, thanks for reading!
As always, do lemme know how to improve this. How to get more readers. If I could help you in any way. And if you’d want to unsubscribe :)
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