You’re probably already familiar with the story of the tortoise and the hare. A hare mocks a tortoise and challenges him to a race. The hare is over confident, and keeps resting, sleeping and checking his email. What happens? The tortoise wins the race.
The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race. It’s a good rule for many situations in life, and is the kiss of death for many businesses.
If, for example, your company develops software, slow and steady doesn’t win the race. It guarantees lost revenue, lost market share and lost opportunities.
No matter what you’re working on right now, I guarantee that you’re going to miss your deadline. And in the unlikely event that you do somehow make it, it’s still going to be too late.
Think of the biggest software companies in the world. The likes of Microsoft, Adobe and Symantec. All of their final releases are buggy as hell, but they’re out there. Warts, crashes and all.
And for all the criticism and scorn that’s rained upon them, people start buying and using their products as soon as they’re released.
Too many small companies apply incredibly high standards to their software. In principle that’s a good thing, but the reality amounts to lost income.
Make yourself accountable. Set yourself a release date and stick to it. If it works, even with issues, then fix them once your doors are open. In the software industry the race is between the dodo and the hare.
Pride and perfectionism hurt profit.
