
Fear of not shipping - joelg87
http://joel.is/post/3830271787/fear-of-not-shipping
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AshMokhberi
I have the same issue when publishing blog posts. I disagree that you should
always ship without delay. Using your blog posts as an example, I often do the
same and put off publishing. Not for the reason that it could be better or
it's perfect. Mainly for the reason that I want to make sure it expresses my
thoughts/ideas/opinions correctly. I think this also applies to startups,
sometimes the things you ship are an expression of something about your
business. It is important to take the time to express your business in the way
you intend. An author will still take time to edit and reword a book. The
shipping part just means don't let it get to the point where you don't do
anything with it. Not that you should never hesitate.

I agree with main point that shipping is the most important thing you can do.
And you should always ship what you have done. In the case for startups it can
easily be referred to as shipping in stages. Not delaying shipping because
your product isn't fully built, and then shipping the rest in small chunks
over time. You shouldn't have a fear that causes you to wait until your
product is complete and perfect to ship.

But just shipping isn't the correct solution either. It's a case of balance,
you have to find the right one. There is no hard answer to what that is, it's
down to you. But as the post says don't let that stop you from shipping
anything at all.

I doubt that the intention of the post was to suggest you should just ship
anything. But that is a prime example of sometimes taking the time to express
yourself correctly. If the author didn't just click the ship button, and took
a little bit of extra time he may have expressed that part the way he
intended.

~~~
joelg87
That's a very interesting point. I agree it is important to take care that you
are expressing things in the way you intend, and also that the important thing
is to not let it get to the point where you don't do anything with it, i.e.
you don't "ship".

There is a very interesting comment on the blog:

    
    
      There is a compound effect of not getting started. The longer something takes to 'get out there' the higher the expectations are of the user, and often the owner. 
      The mentality goes like this "it's taken 1 year to build, therefore we've got to make sure it's perfect", this delays things further.
      As long as you aren't releasing quickly as an excuse for accepting a product, service or blog post which is poorly thought out, 'ship quickly' is a great mentality to go by.
    

I think that's a key point to think about with the whole "be sure you are
expressing yourself as you intend", since whilst I agree it's important, I
also think that the key is to make sure you ship, and I definitely think that
the longer you delay the more likely you are to think it needs to be to a very
high standard.

I'd love to hear what do you think about this quote from LinkedIn Founder Reid
Hoffman:

    
    
      "If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."
    

Although I guess being embarrassed is not quite the same as expressing
yourself in a way you don't intend.

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LeonW
Awesome post Joel. Exactly my feeling about shipping and doing it early. One
of the things I have also observed is that oftentimes you don't know how more
"minimum" you can actually get something to work out still. This is my next
step in line of this process. Not only having a mindset to ship early, but
also getting a feel of when the "early" is reached. More often than not it is
earlier than you think!

~~~
joelg87
Yes, that is another great point. I'm also fascinated by that question: how
minimal should you make something.

I've found, and indeed I mentioned it in the post, that with each new startup,
I aim for more minimal. Even with the latest startup I think I could have
launched it perhaps even sooner. So as you say, it is almost always earlier
and more minimal than you think.

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thibaut_barrere
Once you're done with the fear of shipping, you may move to the fear of
shipping something, even minimal, that people aren't ready to pay for, or
something that will grow sooo slow you will have to kill it (not speaking of
blog posts though!).

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OoTheNigerian
What of if you cannot ship alone? I can ship my blogposts alone. If a line of
code has to be written by someone else, I can only hope. What do you think
about that? I am working on having my initial product less dependent on
something beyond my control

~~~
joelg87
That's a very interesting question.

I think there are only really two options:

    
    
      - Ship what you can
      - Learn to ship what you can't
    

Perhaps a third - find someone to help you ship what you can't.

