Art is never finished, only abandoned. — Leonardo Da Vinci
Working in a startup company and developing a new product, I can vouch for the accuracy of this statement. We’ve spent countless months of hours laboring on our little project only to determine we need more time to finish it. This button isn’t polished … that color is off by a shade … this might not be the right word to describe it … the reasons to not move forward are endless.
All the same, we must still move forward.
Without taking the next step, we will never verify our hypotheses about the customers. We’ll never know if the market research was accurate. So rather than completing our masterpiece, we abandon it to the sphere of public opinion and customer demand. It’s a depressing aspect of customer development, but a necessary one.
No product is ever completed to perfection – to spend precious resources trying is futile and wasteful. There’s a reason iTunes is on version 8.2. There’s a reason we aren’t still using MS DOS. Development and progress requires that we take the next step and deliver our product.
So how far are you on the deliver schedule for your next breakthrough? Has development stalled so you can apply the final finishing touches? Or are you ready to take the plunge?
