When is it "Good Enough" ?

Seth's Blog: Great Enough!

"If you don't ship, it's not really worth doing. More important, we've only got a finite amount of time and resources to invest in anything (thanks, Chris Morris). The real issue is this: when do we stop working on something (because it's good enough) and work on some other element of the offering.

When do we stop working on making a keyboard better and start working on the packaging or the promotion? When do we accept the status quo as unchangeable because the marketplace has embraced a standard, and then put our effort into less earthshattering, but presumably higher leverage tasks?

If you riff through your top 10 great successes of the last decade (you pick your field, doesn't matter) aren't most of them areas where someone refused to accept that the industry's status quo wasn't good enough, and instead set out to change a fundamental rule of that industry?

Maxwell House settled. Howard at Starbucks didn't. American settled, Jet Blue didn't. Vogue settled, Daily Candy didn't. "

I have a different opinion...
I was involved with a small software outfit.
Partner was genius software guy, but could never finish a product.
It would have to be "perfect" before it could be shown to the world.
Ended up merging it into another company ... Polite for shutting down.
There is a (not so fine) line somewhere between getting the product out
the door and doing the MuSoft - sell it now, fix it later - approach.

Getting product out means generating cashflow which can be reinvested in
product improvements.
Besides, you can NEVER anticipate all the possible uses, misuses, etc of your product.
Get it into the hands of clients, customers, users, then listen to feedback to improve it.