Please listen to Brian Chesky!
Guys hello!
Very brief one here. Please just listen to Brian Chesky!
Listen to this podcast from the founder of Airbnb.
No matter where you are, if you're creating a product just listen to this very simple advice.
Do not over-complicate things! Do not try to solve for every problem that you think may arise in the future.
Do not worry about scaling to millions of users and thousands of clients; while you're just still presenting an idea to the world.
Guys please if you're going to be focusing on delivering a good product and a good service to the world, just get something out of the door. Be fast, be quick. Don't take ages on solving all the unforeseeable, just to end up being snitched by someone else who actually solved the actual problem before you and got there before you by being a bit more pragmatic.
While you're still optimizing and planning for scale, that other guy over there is already getting market share and is already building a brand and and a fan/customer base.
While you're still wasting your time on some useless long discussions, that other guy is discussing with his users and listening to them and gathering feedback and handcrafting for their best experience.
Please take this advice on board specially if you're an engineer; cause us engineers tend to get trapped into over-engineering things. We know it's wrong, but yet sometimes some of us just seem to love it.
After all "aren't we problem solvers?" you may say. Yeah we are, but do you really need to create more problems to have that feeling of satisfaction?
Just remember basic software engineering principles:
KISS! Keep It Silly Simple!
YAGNI! You Ain't Gonna Need it!
Keep it in mind that less is more. Simpler is better.
And do not forget that premature optimization is the root of all evil...
Also from a business perspective, remember that 99% of products and startups do not make it.
So do not worry for now about "what if we had a million users".
Do not worry for now about "what if we sold to IBM".
Cause as one colleague of mine said it very well recently: "By the time you have a million users, you probably won't even be working on the product no more. You'd probably have a dedicated team." and I add to that: When you get acquired by Google, well let the very competent Google engineers take care of it 😉 And I'd be very happy if you sold to Google, but you probably won't. In case you do, I'll be happy for you and will be ready to buy you a beer 🍺
I'll be writing more in details about the whole topic and about the whole idea of handcrafting products... But for now this was a quick one, after I had a debate at work with a colleague who was already thinking about hitting AWS's api request limits (of apparently 5000 requests a minute).
Guys take it easy!
Have a great weekend!
I'm shutting down for now.
Until next time ✌
Note: Oh and really, please listen to the podcast. You will find it very enlightening.
Very brief one here. Please just listen to Brian Chesky!
Listen to this podcast from the founder of Airbnb.
No matter where you are, if you're creating a product just listen to this very simple advice.
Do not over-complicate things! Do not try to solve for every problem that you think may arise in the future.
Do not worry about scaling to millions of users and thousands of clients; while you're just still presenting an idea to the world.
Guys please if you're going to be focusing on delivering a good product and a good service to the world, just get something out of the door. Be fast, be quick. Don't take ages on solving all the unforeseeable, just to end up being snitched by someone else who actually solved the actual problem before you and got there before you by being a bit more pragmatic.
While you're still optimizing and planning for scale, that other guy over there is already getting market share and is already building a brand and and a fan/customer base.
While you're still wasting your time on some useless long discussions, that other guy is discussing with his users and listening to them and gathering feedback and handcrafting for their best experience.
Please take this advice on board specially if you're an engineer; cause us engineers tend to get trapped into over-engineering things. We know it's wrong, but yet sometimes some of us just seem to love it.
After all "aren't we problem solvers?" you may say. Yeah we are, but do you really need to create more problems to have that feeling of satisfaction?
Just remember basic software engineering principles:
KISS! Keep It Silly Simple!
YAGNI! You Ain't Gonna Need it!
Keep it in mind that less is more. Simpler is better.
And do not forget that premature optimization is the root of all evil...
Also from a business perspective, remember that 99% of products and startups do not make it.
So do not worry for now about "what if we had a million users".
Do not worry for now about "what if we sold to IBM".
Cause as one colleague of mine said it very well recently: "By the time you have a million users, you probably won't even be working on the product no more. You'd probably have a dedicated team." and I add to that: When you get acquired by Google, well let the very competent Google engineers take care of it 😉 And I'd be very happy if you sold to Google, but you probably won't. In case you do, I'll be happy for you and will be ready to buy you a beer 🍺
I'll be writing more in details about the whole topic and about the whole idea of handcrafting products... But for now this was a quick one, after I had a debate at work with a colleague who was already thinking about hitting AWS's api request limits (of apparently 5000 requests a minute).
Guys take it easy!
Have a great weekend!
I'm shutting down for now.
Until next time ✌
Note: Oh and really, please listen to the podcast. You will find it very enlightening.
 |
| The AirBnb king of scaling, is asking you to not scale NOW! |
Very true about just getting out there and not over engineering things. After all is there a point over engineering things which users may not even want in the end. Better to get out there, start small, and find out what users want and value, then build upon what you have.
ReplyDelete