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In your example, plane safety has nothing to do with perfectionism of a person who runs the airline, it's simply the essential thing: no safety—not enough peopl

In your example, plane safety has nothing to do with perfectionism of a person who runs the airline, it's simply the essential thing: no safety—not enough people flying to keep business profitable. I agree that for a person who designs plane safety systems or performs QA, perfectionism might be a good quality. However, OP is talking about entrepreneurs, who don't normally design safety systems or perform QA. Entrepreneurs decide which things are necessary for a product to be “80/20 good enough”, but it doesn't necessarily mean that each of those things is of 80/20 quality itself. Now this is, actually, a bit simplistic. Personally I tend to agree with the author, although the word “theory” may not belong to the headline. My observations mostly match his, and it's disappointing to frequently see cases when people with big potential just don't do things they (supposedly) love. Well, maybe they just have different definition of “love” and “passion”. (Forgot to add: Also, I don't think perfectionism is the only or the primary point of the article, it's more about doing and being passionate.)

ekianjo 15y ago
Well, if you take the example of video games entrepreneurs, the market expects you to be as good as the rest and you cannot just be "good enough". No matter if you're an indie game developer with few resources. You product needs to be polished to the very last bit. The OP's point is mostly relevant when you are talking about new services, new ideas, new concepts which have never, ever been explored. True innovations. In such cases, you effectively have an advantage to rush it first on the market, and worry about the polish later. Unfortunately, such ideas are very rare, and following the author's advice will results in releasing half-baked not-so-cool products and then move to the next thing, because one feels it's "good enough". There were tons of people in the past who thought their new products were "good enough" and failed miserably in the market, even among entrepreneurs. Because a lot of people have the same ideas at the same time, quality WILL inevitably make a difference. The problem with the OP's post is that he provides no examples to demonstrate how good is his theory. Because it's just that. A theory, with no living examples of it. Being perfectionist is not about getting to the perfect product. It's about trying your *ss off to create such a good one that everyone will say "Wow!".
- ThomPete 15y ago
  And yet the team from Duke Nukem proves that you can in fact be too perfectionist.
  - lobo_tuerto 15y ago
    And still end with a $%#% product after so many years.
  - ekianjo 15y ago
    Well, a team that does not even deliver a product cannot be called perfectionist. That's just procrastination. They only managed to deliver once being bought over by Gearbox and given additional resources and time to just ship the unfinished game. The end product speaks for itself : obviously noone was satisfied with it, not even the ones who made it.
- goblin89 15y ago
  Then in your first example being polished to the last bit from the user perspective would become essential. There still are things you can sacrifice, e.g., the source code running the game doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be “good enough”. Although I think in your first example “being polished” is a subjective value. There's not such thing as being polished 100% and not less, you have to stop somewhere anyway. I think there's a complex relationship between gameplay, polished interface, marketing efforts, maintainable code, etc., and your entrepreneur objective is to pick when it's a “good enough” combination. Also, I'd disagree with you, a lot of games aren't really polished, say some popular Zynga's products I am guilty I had been using some years ago—although I'm not an expert in game industry (maybe it's a different market, or things has changed).

ekianjo 15y ago

Well, if you take the example of video games entrepreneurs, the market expects you to be as good as the rest and you cannot just be "good enough". No matter if you're an indie game developer with few resources. You product needs to be polished to the very last bit. The OP's point is mostly relevant when you are talking about new services, new ideas, new concepts which have never, ever been explored. True innovations. In such cases, you effectively have an advantage to rush it first on the market, and worry about the polish later. Unfortunately, such ideas are very rare, and following the author's advice will results in releasing half-baked not-so-cool products and then move to the next thing, because one feels it's "good enough". There were tons of people in the past who thought their new products were "good enough" and failed miserably in the market, even among entrepreneurs. Because a lot of people have the same ideas at the same time, quality WILL inevitably make a difference. The problem with the OP's post is that he provides no examples to demonstrate how good is his theory. Because it's just that. A theory, with no living examples of it. Being perfectionist is not about getting to the perfect product. It's about trying your *ss off to create such a good one that everyone will say "Wow!".

ThomPete 15y ago
And yet the team from Duke Nukem proves that you can in fact be too perfectionist.
- lobo_tuerto 15y ago
  And still end with a $%#% product after so many years.
- ekianjo 15y ago
  Well, a team that does not even deliver a product cannot be called perfectionist. That's just procrastination. They only managed to deliver once being bought over by Gearbox and given additional resources and time to just ship the unfinished game. The end product speaks for itself : obviously noone was satisfied with it, not even the ones who made it.
goblin89 15y ago
Then in your first example being polished to the last bit from the user perspective would become essential. There still are things you can sacrifice, e.g., the source code running the game doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be “good enough”. Although I think in your first example “being polished” is a subjective value. There's not such thing as being polished 100% and not less, you have to stop somewhere anyway. I think there's a complex relationship between gameplay, polished interface, marketing efforts, maintainable code, etc., and your entrepreneur objective is to pick when it's a “good enough” combination. Also, I'd disagree with you, a lot of games aren't really polished, say some popular Zynga's products I am guilty I had been using some years ago—although I'm not an expert in game industry (maybe it's a different market, or things has changed).