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The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better

The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it. I could list literally hundreds of half-assed, broken, bloated applications that I've encountered in the past 25 years that have done very well simply because they kind of solve a problem a bit for the user. Pushing out something completely broken that doesn't do what it's supposed to is definitely not going to work (duh!). Pushing out an app that solves the problem of managing shopping lists that has a bug where it doesn't work given a particular set of circumstances will still lead to many people using it if the users don't have any alternatives and it's better than using a piece of paper. Software quality is important to companies because it means that they can spend more time building features instead of fighting fires, and because low quality represents a threat that a competitor could launch a better, less buggy app. Users mostly don't care so long as the app works well enough to do what they need it to do (but they're not dumb, they'll still pick the least buggy option if there are alternatives..). A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. I wish it was.

knuthsat 5y ago
I agree. I've been naive at the beginning of my career, thinking that a great product sells itself, but it's simply not true. There's so much trash everywhere that is earning millions (book reading apps, silly chart-db software, proprietary SQL databases etc.). I was quite shocked by the levels of disfunctionality in the software engineering sections of the company I worked at yet still, the company has huge success. We basically got requests from the product team to make something work in a day or two and even though it was completely horrible code that absolutely paralyzes us at some moment in the future, the company still reigns.
cheschire 5y ago
Just guessing, but I suspect this is because most software is designed to extract some minimum acceptable investment per person from maximum people, and simply focus on scaling. When software is designed to focus on extracting maximum investment per person, and focus on whaling vs scaling, then you get loot boxes. Suddenly overall software quality matters a whole lot to the user base.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > whaling vs scaling This is a great phrase that I'll have to remember. Pretty much all enterprise sales is "whaling".
  - andruby 5y ago
    And yet, what I see is that enterprise software seems much less polished than consumer software. My assumption is also that enterprise software contains _more_ bugs than consumer software.
    - cheschire 5y ago
      That's probably why articles like this get written so often. The companies who create enterprise software seem to think they're still working on scale. And I don't intend my loot box reference to be taken too seriously. The gaming industry isn't any better. As an obvious example, Cyberpunk 2077 was delivered as a hot mess only to meet overhyped timelines. But look at games like Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc. They work very diligently to ensure the core gameplay is solid so streamers will provide eyeballs, driving lootbox sales. Whales provide the biggest investments there, with some individuals spending thousands of dollars for cosmetic lootboxes in what would otherwise be a free game. Then look at games like Quake Champions which should've been successful in the same way, and completely failed because they didn't focus on making the core game tech (net code specifically) rock solid before attempting to monetize. They immediately lost the pro crowd and failed to convert the people playing Quake Live (or even the die hard Q3A players). Enterprise software often doesn't spend enough time improving core process loops, or worse, provides too many core loops making the experience disjointed and unproductive.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Yes, the "whale" is the single huge client who pays a lot of money for the enterprise software. The client is not the users. The sales pitch for enterprise software is where the polish goes.
      - 5y ago
rusk 5y ago
Depends on where the “terrible” is. People are happy to work around UI/UX issues so long as they can get the job done (chronic ergonomic issues notwithstanding perhaps) but anything “back end” or “low level” can have catastrophic implications for mere usability. It’s funny because we often seem to ascribe higher priorities to the more visible stuff.
hipitihop 5y ago
There is also a difference between buggy for the first time, which tends to cause a user to dismiss the app, versus sometimes buggy after the app is well established as useful for the user. At that point, there is a different dynamic at play for competitors, they need to be perceived a significant percentage better than the incumbent to overcome and justify the effort of the user changing. I have no sources to back that up sorry, just something observed.
andruby 5y ago
You are right. Solving the right problem the wrong way is more important than solving the wrong problem the right way. As an engineer, that has been one of the most important lessons for me in my career so far.
- Lorkki 5y ago
  Or: Assuming a vacuum, solving the right problem is more important than solving it the right way. But also, solving it the wrong way may create an opportunity to do better.
amelius 5y ago
> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. And don't get me started on security/privacy issues.
narag 5y ago
The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it. I've been saying that for a long time, but I don't see as a problem in itself, but as a fact of life. The problem comes because people get the wrong impression that "state of the art" is always a compliment and terrible usability is best of possible worlds. I'm reminded of this every time I try to teach my mother anything about Android or Windows. Or even when I must deal myself with a new app with its quirky "state of the art" GUI.
- hobs 5y ago
  Android apps dont solve problems better than anything else, they are just more available so this doesn't gel for me. Windows and Android keep reinventing the same wheel even though (especially Windows) is basically still in "Windows 95" mode - getting fancy with a phone ui is just trash.
illuminati1911 5y ago
” A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. I wish it was.” I’d say better way to say the same thing would be ”Unless you are building something truly innovative and unique that people must use anyway no matter how bad the experience is, software quality matters.”
- namdnay 5y ago
  The thing is, 90% of software is “unique”, in the sense that it solves a specific business requirement
  - illuminati1911 5y ago
    I guess it depends how you look at it, but regarding my point it isn’t. For example most ecom apps/sites are surely ”unique” based on how you described it, but customers have nearly unlimited options/alternatives these days.
    - namdnay 5y ago
      I was referring to enterprise internal or b2b software
PaulKeeble 5y ago
The first mover advantage is huge. Once users have already chosen to use your software it will take something substantially better over an extended period of time for most to move over to a competitor that has solved it better. The risk of that happening when you are already making money and solving the problem and have most of the market is small. If you keep irritating your customers and they have a better alternative then you will slowly loose share of the market. The cultures that tend to ship buggy software also tend to be the sort of cultures where the quality doesn't improve in response to a competitor however. But so far almost every software business has ultimately failed so being on top for a decade because you shipped some of the solution earlier works better. Customers are more than happy to buy exceptionally buggy software and games.
- Retric 5y ago
  The first mover advantage is an illusion. Google didn’t invent search or online Email. Microsoft didn’t pioneer personal computing, spreadsheets, or word processing. Facebook wasn’t the first social network. Apple made most of it’s money from markets it entered late iPod, iPhone, and then iPad where the Newton failed. Intel wasn’t the first to build a microprocessor. IBM didn’t invent the computer.
  - dagw 5y ago
    The first mover advantage is an illusion. I wouldn't go that far. All the cases you cite are of products that definitely classify as substantially better than what they replaced. Before Gmail took over the market from Hotmail there had been several other companies that failed due to only being slightly better. Yes you can beat the "first mover", but doing so is hard and requires an almost revolutionizing better product.
    - Retric 5y ago
      I am not saying it’s easy to beat them, rather first movers also generally die or move on. Atari, Electronic Controls Company, Mosaic, etc simply aren’t around any more. Sure Yahoo isn’t dead, but it’s also moved on from it’s initial success.
indigochill 5y ago
> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. Even then, it's not what's important. The core important thing in the product is that it does a job the customer needs done. If you write a program that provides complete feature parity with the incumbent with better engineering principles, you're going to lose because the engineering principles aren't the job the customer needs done. Where it will make the difference is that your company will be able to respond to changing requirements better than the incumbent. So solid software engineering is never the product for the customer. It might be the product for the company, depending if the company actually needs the improved developer efficiency and happiness it provides.
bishoprook2 5y ago
>The problem that the article doesn't address Another. Industries that are oriented towards tradeshow or holiday launches. It ain't like they're going to move NAB or Christmas just for you. Inevitable feature pruning occurs. Having said that, I wonder how many of the great fortunes have been built on horrid, half-finished websites and associated software that were all about being first out of the gate and heavy marketing. An interesting subcase is software that is difficult or impossible to update vs. immovable deadlines. I guess in a world that consists entirely of one silly internet surveillance marketing company after another is doesn't really matter much anymore.
- iso1631 5y ago
  October will be interesting, wonder how busy NAB will be. I know one supplier from the UK who's planning on quarantining in the carribean for 2 weeks ahead of NAB because the US still wont let people from Europe in (other than Nigel Farage)
  - bishoprook2 5y ago
    I think that eventually the vendors will decide that it's a waste of money.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Personally, I write software that I consider extremely high-quality. The folks that use it, seem to agree. It isn't eye-candy fancy, but it works very well, in a not-in-your-face manner. The idea is that it does what it says on the tin, without fanfare, robustly, usably, accessibly, localizably, and dependably; providing a user experience that gets out of the way of the user, in a manner that does not surprise the user (even "good" surprises can be an issue. Boring software can be just what the doctor ordered). In my book, that's the definition of "quality." I'm working on an application that has been over a year in the making. Its functionality is something that I could have popped out in a month, but making sure of the Quality of the app has necessitated that I spend a great deal more time, "polishing the fenders." If this were a commercial app (it isn't), then it would have been unbearably expensive for a startup. I tend to write test harnesses in a day or two, that have similar levels of functionality to this application. High Quality is significantly more expensive than even "decent, but lesser" quality.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Professional developers should strive to write the highest quality code they can given the constraints of the project. That's pretty much a given. I'm only arguing that customers don't seem to care, not that we shouldn't care.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Exactly. I read a book, where one of the characters is a smith. It has this exchange, between him, and another character: "Always do the very best job you can," he said on another occasion as he put a last few finishing touches with a file on the metal parts of a wagon tongue he was repairing. "But that piece goes underneath," Garion said. "No one will ever see it." "But I know it's there," Durnik said, still smoothing the metal. "If it isn't done as well as I can do it, I'll be ashamed every time I see this wagon go by -and I'll see the wagon every day.”
    - moonchrome 5y ago
      One reason I like this kind of work is that it implies when someone spent that much effort on an irrelevant detail they probably paid attention to important parts as well. Not always the case but yeah.
Causality1 5y ago
This is true, although there are other aspects. For example, if the best available solution to a problem is using software I hate then I'm going to develop a resentment towards its developers and consider them last when trying to solve future problems.
occz 5y ago
I like what Peopleware says on the matter - the market has squarely selected low quality software over high quality, but if you try to drive your teams to build low quality software you will lose because you will be unable to retain good developers.
- Joeri 5y ago
  Well, the market does not select for low quality, it just selects for an attribute that often coincides with low quality, like time to market or low cost.
taneq 5y ago
> users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it This is true and, once you get over the myopic code focus that most of us shared in university, incredibly self-evident. "Users prefer to use the thing that solves their problem better than not using the thing." I mean... yes? The real takeaway is that "software quality" means something very different to users than it does to developers. Developers want efficient, ergonomic libraries, aesthetically pleasing logical structures, and elegant software designs. That's what we call "quality". Users just want their damn problem solved, and if they can GET software like that which solves that problem, then you bet they'll buy it, but if they can't then anything which actually solves their problem is far better than doing it by hand. This was the first big lesson I learned out of uni and it's stuck with me ever since. If you're interested in making commercial software, you're not there to solve the problems YOU think are important, you're there to solve the problems YOUR CUSTOMERS think are important.
kongolongo 5y ago
I agree with that last sentence, but IMO even in a well-served market things like brand loyalty, familiarity, and social momentum can often be major deterrents to switching just for the sake of quality and often times unless the major players in a market are really messing up users will not see much of a reason to switch.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Users mostly don't care so long as the app works well enough to do what they need it to do (but they're not dumb, they'll still pick the least buggy option if there are alternatives..). In other words: users do care. They just don't have a choice. That's not the same than users "not minding" bad software.
spottybanana 5y ago
> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. I wish it was. Somewhat weird mindset. It is natural that when a new market gap is discovered, the first iteration of products are crappy and do the job just barely. Applies to software, cell phones, forestry machines, water toilets. Having a mindset where everything should be perfect from the start will get you nowhere.
avidiax 5y ago
A classic screed on the same topic: https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs240/old/sp2014/readings/worse-is-better.html https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs240/old/sp2014/readings/wor...
coffee 5y ago
> The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it. I could list literally hundreds of half-assed, broken, bloated applications that I've encountered in the past 25 years that have done very well simply because they kind of solve a problem a bit for the user. This is ZERO snark, but I'm genuinely curious for lots of examples. I ask because I'm confronted with this problem ALL THE TIME working at startups that obsessively focus on visual elements that won't move the needle, versus being obsessive about solving pain better than others. I need to start building a list that I can just pull out at a moments notice. Would love to hear more!

knuthsat 5y ago

I agree. I've been naive at the beginning of my career, thinking that a great product sells itself, but it's simply not true. There's so much trash everywhere that is earning millions (book reading apps, silly chart-db software, proprietary SQL databases etc.). I was quite shocked by the levels of disfunctionality in the software engineering sections of the company I worked at yet still, the company has huge success. We basically got requests from the product team to make something work in a day or two and even though it was completely horrible code that absolutely paralyzes us at some moment in the future, the company still reigns.

cheschire 5y ago

Just guessing, but I suspect this is because most software is designed to extract some minimum acceptable investment per person from maximum people, and simply focus on scaling. When software is designed to focus on extracting maximum investment per person, and focus on whaling vs scaling, then you get loot boxes. Suddenly overall software quality matters a whole lot to the user base.

pjc50 5y ago
> whaling vs scaling This is a great phrase that I'll have to remember. Pretty much all enterprise sales is "whaling".
- andruby 5y ago
  And yet, what I see is that enterprise software seems much less polished than consumer software. My assumption is also that enterprise software contains _more_ bugs than consumer software.
  - cheschire 5y ago
    That's probably why articles like this get written so often. The companies who create enterprise software seem to think they're still working on scale. And I don't intend my loot box reference to be taken too seriously. The gaming industry isn't any better. As an obvious example, Cyberpunk 2077 was delivered as a hot mess only to meet overhyped timelines. But look at games like Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc. They work very diligently to ensure the core gameplay is solid so streamers will provide eyeballs, driving lootbox sales. Whales provide the biggest investments there, with some individuals spending thousands of dollars for cosmetic lootboxes in what would otherwise be a free game. Then look at games like Quake Champions which should've been successful in the same way, and completely failed because they didn't focus on making the core game tech (net code specifically) rock solid before attempting to monetize. They immediately lost the pro crowd and failed to convert the people playing Quake Live (or even the die hard Q3A players). Enterprise software often doesn't spend enough time improving core process loops, or worse, provides too many core loops making the experience disjointed and unproductive.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Yes, the "whale" is the single huge client who pays a lot of money for the enterprise software. The client is not the users. The sales pitch for enterprise software is where the polish goes.
    - 5y ago

rusk 5y ago

Depends on where the “terrible” is. People are happy to work around UI/UX issues so long as they can get the job done (chronic ergonomic issues notwithstanding perhaps) but anything “back end” or “low level” can have catastrophic implications for mere usability. It’s funny because we often seem to ascribe higher priorities to the more visible stuff.

hipitihop 5y ago

There is also a difference between buggy for the first time, which tends to cause a user to dismiss the app, versus sometimes buggy after the app is well established as useful for the user. At that point, there is a different dynamic at play for competitors, they need to be perceived a significant percentage better than the incumbent to overcome and justify the effort of the user changing. I have no sources to back that up sorry, just something observed.

andruby 5y ago

You are right. Solving the right problem the wrong way is more important than solving the wrong problem the right way. As an engineer, that has been one of the most important lessons for me in my career so far.

Lorkki 5y ago
Or: Assuming a vacuum, solving the right problem is more important than solving it the right way. But also, solving it the wrong way may create an opportunity to do better.

amelius 5y ago

> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. And don't get me started on security/privacy issues.

narag 5y ago

The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it. I've been saying that for a long time, but I don't see as a problem in itself, but as a fact of life. The problem comes because people get the wrong impression that "state of the art" is always a compliment and terrible usability is best of possible worlds. I'm reminded of this every time I try to teach my mother anything about Android or Windows. Or even when I must deal myself with a new app with its quirky "state of the art" GUI.

hobs 5y ago
Android apps dont solve problems better than anything else, they are just more available so this doesn't gel for me. Windows and Android keep reinventing the same wheel even though (especially Windows) is basically still in "Windows 95" mode - getting fancy with a phone ui is just trash.

illuminati1911 5y ago

” A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. I wish it was.” I’d say better way to say the same thing would be ”Unless you are building something truly innovative and unique that people must use anyway no matter how bad the experience is, software quality matters.”

namdnay 5y ago
The thing is, 90% of software is “unique”, in the sense that it solves a specific business requirement
- illuminati1911 5y ago
  I guess it depends how you look at it, but regarding my point it isn’t. For example most ecom apps/sites are surely ”unique” based on how you described it, but customers have nearly unlimited options/alternatives these days.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    I was referring to enterprise internal or b2b software

PaulKeeble 5y ago

The first mover advantage is huge. Once users have already chosen to use your software it will take something substantially better over an extended period of time for most to move over to a competitor that has solved it better. The risk of that happening when you are already making money and solving the problem and have most of the market is small. If you keep irritating your customers and they have a better alternative then you will slowly loose share of the market. The cultures that tend to ship buggy software also tend to be the sort of cultures where the quality doesn't improve in response to a competitor however. But so far almost every software business has ultimately failed so being on top for a decade because you shipped some of the solution earlier works better. Customers are more than happy to buy exceptionally buggy software and games.

Retric 5y ago
The first mover advantage is an illusion. Google didn’t invent search or online Email. Microsoft didn’t pioneer personal computing, spreadsheets, or word processing. Facebook wasn’t the first social network. Apple made most of it’s money from markets it entered late iPod, iPhone, and then iPad where the Newton failed. Intel wasn’t the first to build a microprocessor. IBM didn’t invent the computer.
- dagw 5y ago
  The first mover advantage is an illusion. I wouldn't go that far. All the cases you cite are of products that definitely classify as substantially better than what they replaced. Before Gmail took over the market from Hotmail there had been several other companies that failed due to only being slightly better. Yes you can beat the "first mover", but doing so is hard and requires an almost revolutionizing better product.
  - Retric 5y ago
    I am not saying it’s easy to beat them, rather first movers also generally die or move on. Atari, Electronic Controls Company, Mosaic, etc simply aren’t around any more. Sure Yahoo isn’t dead, but it’s also moved on from it’s initial success.

indigochill 5y ago

> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. Even then, it's not what's important. The core important thing in the product is that it does a job the customer needs done. If you write a program that provides complete feature parity with the incumbent with better engineering principles, you're going to lose because the engineering principles aren't the job the customer needs done. Where it will make the difference is that your company will be able to respond to changing requirements better than the incumbent. So solid software engineering is never the product for the customer. It might be the product for the company, depending if the company actually needs the improved developer efficiency and happiness it provides.

bishoprook2 5y ago

>The problem that the article doesn't address Another. Industries that are oriented towards tradeshow or holiday launches. It ain't like they're going to move NAB or Christmas just for you. Inevitable feature pruning occurs. Having said that, I wonder how many of the great fortunes have been built on horrid, half-finished websites and associated software that were all about being first out of the gate and heavy marketing. An interesting subcase is software that is difficult or impossible to update vs. immovable deadlines. I guess in a world that consists entirely of one silly internet surveillance marketing company after another is doesn't really matter much anymore.

iso1631 5y ago
October will be interesting, wonder how busy NAB will be. I know one supplier from the UK who's planning on quarantining in the carribean for 2 weeks ahead of NAB because the US still wont let people from Europe in (other than Nigel Farage)
- bishoprook2 5y ago
  I think that eventually the vendors will decide that it's a waste of money.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

Personally, I write software that I consider extremely high-quality. The folks that use it, seem to agree. It isn't eye-candy fancy, but it works very well, in a not-in-your-face manner. The idea is that it does what it says on the tin, without fanfare, robustly, usably, accessibly, localizably, and dependably; providing a user experience that gets out of the way of the user, in a manner that does not surprise the user (even "good" surprises can be an issue. Boring software can be just what the doctor ordered). In my book, that's the definition of "quality." I'm working on an application that has been over a year in the making. Its functionality is something that I could have popped out in a month, but making sure of the Quality of the app has necessitated that I spend a great deal more time, "polishing the fenders." If this were a commercial app (it isn't), then it would have been unbearably expensive for a startup. I tend to write test harnesses in a day or two, that have similar levels of functionality to this application. High Quality is significantly more expensive than even "decent, but lesser" quality.

onion2k 5y ago
Professional developers should strive to write the highest quality code they can given the constraints of the project. That's pretty much a given. I'm only arguing that customers don't seem to care, not that we shouldn't care.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Exactly. I read a book, where one of the characters is a smith. It has this exchange, between him, and another character: "Always do the very best job you can," he said on another occasion as he put a last few finishing touches with a file on the metal parts of a wagon tongue he was repairing. "But that piece goes underneath," Garion said. "No one will ever see it." "But I know it's there," Durnik said, still smoothing the metal. "If it isn't done as well as I can do it, I'll be ashamed every time I see this wagon go by -and I'll see the wagon every day.”
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    One reason I like this kind of work is that it implies when someone spent that much effort on an irrelevant detail they probably paid attention to important parts as well. Not always the case but yeah.

Causality1 5y ago

This is true, although there are other aspects. For example, if the best available solution to a problem is using software I hate then I'm going to develop a resentment towards its developers and consider them last when trying to solve future problems.

occz 5y ago

I like what Peopleware says on the matter - the market has squarely selected low quality software over high quality, but if you try to drive your teams to build low quality software you will lose because you will be unable to retain good developers.

Joeri 5y ago
Well, the market does not select for low quality, it just selects for an attribute that often coincides with low quality, like time to market or low cost.

taneq 5y ago

> users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it This is true and, once you get over the myopic code focus that most of us shared in university, incredibly self-evident. "Users prefer to use the thing that solves their problem better than not using the thing." I mean... yes? The real takeaway is that "software quality" means something very different to users than it does to developers. Developers want efficient, ergonomic libraries, aesthetically pleasing logical structures, and elegant software designs. That's what we call "quality". Users just want their damn problem solved, and if they can GET software like that which solves that problem, then you bet they'll buy it, but if they can't then anything which actually solves their problem is far better than doing it by hand. This was the first big lesson I learned out of uni and it's stuck with me ever since. If you're interested in making commercial software, you're not there to solve the problems YOU think are important, you're there to solve the problems YOUR CUSTOMERS think are important.

kongolongo 5y ago

I agree with that last sentence, but IMO even in a well-served market things like brand loyalty, familiarity, and social momentum can often be major deterrents to switching just for the sake of quality and often times unless the major players in a market are really messing up users will not see much of a reason to switch.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> Users mostly don't care so long as the app works well enough to do what they need it to do (but they're not dumb, they'll still pick the least buggy option if there are alternatives..). In other words: users do care. They just don't have a choice. That's not the same than users "not minding" bad software.

spottybanana 5y ago

> A high level of quality in software is not important unless you're entering an already well-served market. I wish it was. Somewhat weird mindset. It is natural that when a new market gap is discovered, the first iteration of products are crappy and do the job just barely. Applies to software, cell phones, forestry machines, water toilets. Having a mindset where everything should be perfect from the start will get you nowhere.

avidiax 5y ago

A classic screed on the same topic: https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs240/old/sp2014/readings/worse-is-better.html https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs240/old/sp2014/readings/wor...

coffee 5y ago

> The problem that the article doesn't address is that users don't actually seem to mind using terrible software so long as it solves the problem they face better than not using it. I could list literally hundreds of half-assed, broken, bloated applications that I've encountered in the past 25 years that have done very well simply because they kind of solve a problem a bit for the user. This is ZERO snark, but I'm genuinely curious for lots of examples. I ask because I'm confronted with this problem ALL THE TIME working at startups that obsessively focus on visual elements that won't move the needle, versus being obsessive about solving pain better than others. I need to start building a list that I can just pull out at a moments notice. Would love to hear more!