The Last 10%

Written in 2011 by Ryan O'Rourke

Two weeks ago my friend and I shipped our first app. We call it Timecop. It was a learning experience, so here is what I learned.

The beginning was easy, just a lot of ideas and excitement. Progress got made quickly (mapping the model, proof of concept, design explorations). It was fun. I remember sketching ideas endlessly during a 14-hour flight to Tokyo and only wanting to do more upon landing. We were less burdened with the minutia of execution (or at least I tried to be) and the ideas flowed fast. Fantasizing about what something could become is intoxicating.

Then began the march toward making it real. It took a lot longer than it should have. A lot of ideas got left behind as we started to define our minimal viable product. (In retrospect, our MVP had way too much functionality.) Implementing is a different kind of fun. But it was still fun. The idea becomes more real every day. The scaffolding was up and there was sawdust in the air.

After months of slowly moving on implementing, we got it to the point where we just needed to add the finishing touches. The last 10%. Shipping. It sucks. QA testing, designing corner case views, endless emails with Nick, slicing and then reslicing assets to fix minuscule alignment issues, designing and building a marketing website, setting up support email accounts, waiting on app store approval. It’s not sexy.

Yet that last 10% was the most important piece to this puzzle. If we hadn’t shipped it, it was never more than an idea. Nothing was more satisfying then putting it out in the world… As of writing this, we’ve sold well over 1000 copies and the response from users has been awesome.

Now the process starts again.

My lesson is this, you learn more from shipping a less-than-perfect product than you ever will from hoarding an unfinished idea on a hard drive.