Just Ship It!

Every time you send an email, launch a product or release something you created into the world, you’re exposing yourself to criticism. We’re all fearful of this criticism and maybe other things as well like wasting money, annoying someone in power or making a fool of yourself.

No wonder we find it tough to release our creations into the world, but it’s not just individuals that suffer this shipping paralysis. The same happens to companies that delay shipping their products.

Recently I was asked to help a company ready their product for an international launch. They had a long list of feature changes they believed were necessary to ensure a successful launch, but we could never have delivered them all in time. As it turned out, 80% of the changes weren’t needed. They were changes designed to mitigate future problems that had yet to arrive.

It’s when we ship it that we find out if our fears were founded in reality or not. Once we release our creations, we can see how the world reacts to them and make changes based on this reaction, not on the assumptions we had about a future that may never have turned into reality.

So, if you’ve created something and struggled to release it into the world stop worrying about the future problems, why not ship it now?