Why The Rush And Impatience?

Unfinished products rushed out of the door plague us. We are tired. And not many seem to notice. The accelerated pace of innovation has been what we like. But the problem with the shortening design / products cycle is it does not improve the overall quality and satisfaction. I have posted around this subject many times here on this blog. It is the ROI thing. And being the number one. And delivering value to shareholders. You have to be fast. Or may be not?

There are countless examples of products rushed out of the door just because they were expected. Both by shareholders and by markets. Probably the most famous of the last decade was Windows Vista. Delayed and delayed and yet released way to early. Looking from today's perspective, who really needed it? The Vista failure cut the value of Microsoft by a lot. It frustrated customers, accelerating the migration from Windows to MacOS.

The opposite example is Apple. The market was disappointed with the iPad 2. Calling it even the iPad 1.5. Now everybody expected the iPhone 5, getting the 4S instead. Hey, what is wrong with the original iPad 1? Do you REALLY need a new one? Ditto the iPhone 4. It is one of the finest devices human civilization has ever made. And you have had it for a year now. And you want a completely new one? Why?

I try to pull some brakes on this madness. There is no point of chasing the latest and greatest every quarter or two. Especially as the new ones, are often not fully finished products. Earning bad reviews and disappointing users and shareholders. In today's world it does not make sense to come up with a product that is not significantly better and clearly differentiated from the siblings on the market. Otherwise it is a wasted effort and lost opportunity.

And a look from a little different, but aligned perspective. Being a startup, you do not have many chances to appear on a stage in full limelight. So before you do, make sure what you present will absolutely delight the crowd. Or your opportunity will be lost.

And a footnote. 20 years ago I wrote a good piece of software. At that time it was state-of-the-art, DOS-based. Then 10 years ago I sold the company. And just last year alone the company had record revenues selling this 20-years old software. Not all is what it seems. And very often the value is the opposite of the new. And it not only applies to wine :)