Usable Output

When production is democratized, the deliverables become generic commodities. We need new standards of value and quality.

“You learn more in one hour of doing it than in three months of thinking about it"

Marc Randolph said this, talking about all the other startups he launched that didn’t go anywhere. He said he had no idea that Netflix would be the one. And yet it seems so obvious in retrospect.

I would add to his statement. It’s not just doing. It’s creating something that you can:

Ship, Use, and Test.

Here is what could be called the “toxic mimic”… Ai gives you the power to create anything digital, in minutes. That means output is not the measurement, because you can constantly put out crap. Instead, the best employees will create artifacts that have verifiable value. That means three requirements:

Shippable

Is it in a state where someone can understand the value proposition? Quickly? Do they immediately connect it to their work/life or will they get confused and walk away. The trap here is you never ship because it keeps getting "perfected.” Oh how everything is so perfect and beautiful in our minds!

Usable

Is it intuitive? Will I know what to do with it? Do I have to learn a lot? Or does it require so much explanation and caveats that it slows everything down.

Testable

Did it actually solve a problem, or lead to a result (determined in advance).

I think about that for myself as I’m currently working on a “no-app” dating app (I need a new word!), and I definitely find myself getting lost in all the ideas and research. In other words… I’m writing this to myself.

What have you been thinking a lot about, but not shipping?