Shipping Beats Perfect
A short note on the only metric I trust early: did it reach a real user this week?
There is a quiet trap in solo work: polishing something nobody has touched yet. It feels like progress. It is not.
The only early signal
Early on, I trust exactly one question:
Did this reach a real user this week?
Everything else — test coverage, refactors, that elegant abstraction — is downstream of that. If real people aren’t using it, you are tuning an instrument no one is listening to.
Tight loops, small batches
- Ship the smallest honest version.
- Watch what people actually do.
- Cut what doesn’t earn its place.
- Repeat.
Perfect is a story you tell yourself in private. Shipping is a conversation with the world. I’d rather have the conversation.