Design means nothing if you don’t ship it. — Steve Jobs

Design means nothing if you don’t ship it.

Author: Steve Jobs

Insight: Most of us have experienced the gap between a great idea and actually doing it. We sketch out plans, tinker with details, imagine how perfect something could be—and then we get stuck. We're waiting for it to be absolutely flawless before we let anyone see it. The problem is, perfection is a moving target. There's always one more thing to adjust, one more way it could be better. Jobs was pointing at something crucial: a brilliant design that never leaves your desk is worthless. It exists only in your head, helping no one. The moment you actually release something into the world—even if it's rough around the edges—it becomes real. People use it, break it, tell you what actually matters versus what you worried about unnecessarily. That feedback loop is where real improvement happens. You learn things about your own work by watching others interact with it that you could never figure out alone. This applies way beyond tech products. It's true for a business you want to start, a creative project gathering dust, a difficult conversation you keep rehearsing. The shipped version—the messy, imperfect version that actually exists—will always teach you more than the perfect version that never will.

Source: Insanely Simple, 2011