You’re staring at the final build before launch. It’s midnight. The microcopy feels off. The animation doesn’t quite land. The loading time is 20ms slower than your goal. You could fix it, but your team is waiting. And the deadline was yesterday.
When you’re building a product, you make trade-offs. All the time. It’s important to zoom out in these contexts and remember that not everything is critical to the success of your product. Shipping something, at some point, is part of your trade-off matrix.
It is also important to do things to the best of your ability. Even when others don’t seem to mind. If you’ve sent a Slack message to colleagues and you notice spelling mistakes: correct them. If you’ve designed a signup flow and it’s being developed, but you notice a mistake: go fix it. If a colleague is doubling down on a terrible idea, try to talk them out of it one more time.
A negotiable standard isn’t a standard. So yes: ship. Move fast. Make the trade-offs. But when your gut whispers that something isn’t right, even if no one else notices? Listen. The difference between good and great often hides in those ignored corners.