It Doesn't Matter How Fast You Ship

It doesn't matter how fast you ship if you don't ship enough of the right stuff.

The team we built at the startup I cofounded in 2014 and 2015 was my favorite pre-AI software team I've been a part of, and I've been on some great ones.

We built what was then an insane amount of software in a short period of time - a hugely ambitious mobile app and super scalable backend. We crafted a super fast process that was a joy to work with day to day.

But, it wasn't enough of the right stuff to get traction for what the company needed at the time. We waited until we had built a lot of stuff over six months before we launched to real customers.

When that startup shut down, I decided I needed to become an expert in what the right thing to build is. I spent 7 years in product and leadership roles that were primarily that - discovery, strategy, alignment, talking to customers in a structured way.

Those product skills I honed made me a dramatically better builder. Now that I can personally build more stuff faster than ever, it's the most important thing.

Everybody in this industry is about to face the same lesson I learned the hard way a decade ago: understanding humans and figuring out how to serve them better is the most valuable skill in this business.

I think a huge chunk of the demand for builders is going to shift to people who can directly develop an intuition for what the market and customer base needs and can execute on it directly and effectively. Whether they come from an engineering, design, product, or unrelated background, building for adoption beats everything else.

I know lots of folks are with me in using AI to ship a whole lot faster. But do you have the team with the discipline to ship the right stuff?

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