Would you order 12,000 units of an untested product to get to market faster?
That was my dilemma: Speed or Perfection?
And I believe the dilemma of every entrepreneur.
My first business journey taught me some hard lessons about speed or perfection:
1. Prototype pitfalls.
Our first prototypes were so off.
It was like asking for balloons & getting spoons.
Perfection takes time.
2. Sometimes you are in the hands of others.
We had to commit to 12,000 minimum order units.
Across our four designs.
This was a significant risk for a startup.
3. Trade-offs are inevitable.
With limited resources, we had to prioritize.
We chose trademark over patents.
This exposed us to potential copycats.
4. Don’t put the cart before the horse.
We thought about global logistics.
Even before we had one customer.
Just focus on acquiring customers first.
5. It’s either perfection or speed.
We insisted on getting specific materials.
Even when manufacturers pushed back.
This improved quality but slowed us down.
The beautiful and intricate thing about this (and all) trade offs is that the answer is not always the same. Sometimes we leaned towards one and other times we leaned towards the other.
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