The joy of creation

Lately I have been conflicted in where I spend my time.

I love creating things. But I also love building a team, leading, marketing, and selling.

There have been patches of time where I have done very little creation, and in those periods I realise I quickly become demoralised.

I find joy in creation.

For as long as I can remember, I have been in awe of the idea that anyone can grab a computer, connect it to the internet, and build something. And that someone else on the other side of the world can then utilise and benefit from that thing.

Anyone can create something of value, and you don't need to ask anyone else for permission.

Creating vs publishing

I don't just like creating, I like publishing.

Don't get me wrong, publishing can induce immense fear.

But I get a kick out of directly creating something and then putting it live.

Getting feedback is addictive — whether it's seeing usage, receiving comments, or simply knowing "it's out there".

I sense that the act of creating is never complete, but publishing (or shipping) is a marker to say: I've completed the first step.

"Publishing" can mean anything here — deploying to production, putting a blog post live, hitting send on a Tweet or Thread, or even just writing an idea down and sharing it with your team.

The critical benefit of "publishing" is that you not only get to call your work "done" for now, you get to receive at least a little feedback: did anyone care?

Speed vs perfection

There's a study I read a while back in the book Art and Fear that summarises the dichotomy of aiming for perfection:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Ever since I read this, it changed my views on perfection.

"Quick and scrappy" is often viewed as "not the proper way". The proper way is to do X and Y and Z in a specific order.

In reality, one can learn so much more by taking a stab at something, failing, learning, and trying again. One can often learn more by making wild and hilarious mistakes.

I shared a few more thoughts on this in a podcast a while back: How soon should you launch?

It's my belief that the faster you try, fail, and try again, the better your work gets.

Removing obstacles between creating and publishing

It's of paramount importance to remove every possible obstacle between your idea and execution.

Any "process" that gets in the way of you shipping has got some answering to do if it slows you down.

Even in late 2024 it's still far too hard to go from an idea to a design to a shipping feature when building software.

We will look back in years to come in amazement that it took several tools and numerous individuals with extensive backgrounds in multiple disciplines to ship new features to software.

It's already possible to reduce the number of steps between idea and reality — so stay vigilant and alert when you find you're spending time on something that is not real. You could be developing your idea in the wild, for real, right now.

Craft

I care a lot about craft.

Some people focus purely on shipping. Some people care about making money. I care about both of these things, but I believe they don't need to come at the expense of craft.

In fact, I believe true craftsmanship can lead to breakout success.

For a few years, the startup world became obsessed with the idea of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and this has had a lasting impact on the value of craftsmanship.

Proving ideas is important, but building every feature to a minimum bar of requirements is a sure-fire way to drain the soul of a product and a team.

I like how Katie Dill articulates Stripe's approach to craft and design in this talk at Stripe Sessions:

People like beautiful things for rational reasons. Well-crafted products are expressions of care and dedication—and that correlates to business success.

Go, build

If nothing else, the only way to create something of value and beauty is to start.

So stop reading this, and go build!

Other

  • I learned about a concept called "Jevon’s paradox" — it turns out, making something more efficient can actually lead to increased usage, neutralising the benefit of the efficiency improvement. For example, electric lights: people have responded to improved light bulb efficiency by installing so many more of them that there has been no decline in the total energy consumed by lighting.
  • The UK switched off its last coal-fired power station.
  • We shared a video wrapping up September at EcoSend.
  • We released a new area of the GoSquared site: the Analytics Glossary. It's a handy place to look up confusing analytics terms and acronyms and get simple, plain-English explanations.
  • I was sad to learn that a wonderful blog I follow is shutting down — Michael Steeber's Tabletops. You may laugh that I enjoy reading about Apple Store minutiae, but this blog was a delight. I love that Michael took such pride in writing about Apple's retail operation — the stores are works of art and Michael treated them as such. Thank you for bringing me joy, Michael.
  • Visit Ogilvyland.

Quote

“When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it.

You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”
— Steve Jobs

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