What separates those who SHIP?

Most of us: Wildly under-estimating product development time. Perpetually blowing past target launch dates. Projects ending up abandoned instead of becoming products in customers’ hands.

The shippers: Delivering product on time. Every time. Often sooner than planned.

The rest are losing steam (or budget or runway) on their over-extended projects. The shippers have customers using V1 and they’re off and running toward V2…

Here’s the difference:

The shippers have built a very specific type of muscle.

Not a technical muscle (though they do have chops).

Not a marketing or sales muscle (although they do talk to customers, often).

This muscle enables turning building decisions into business decisions. Repeatedly.

As a natural builder myself, I’ve learned this the hard way: The skill of building things—figuring things out—often works against the ability to make wise, fast, business decisions. But this friction can be tamed. It can be turned into an asset.

What this looks like:

I’m in the thick of building a new product. Soon enough, along the way I hit a roadblock. Something’s not working. It’s more complicated I expected.

My natural instinct is to dig in. Role up my sleeves and dive down the rabbit hole: Searching, trying, researching, tinkering, guessing, backtracking, exploring, until… Ah ha! Got it.

But that instinct cost me extra days. The pattern repeats. The extra days add up. Before I know it, the project is behind schedule. Or over budget. Or both. Customers are waiting. Or a client is waiting. Or both.

So here’s the muscle memory I try to hone:

When building gets hard, instead of digging in, take it as a queue to hit pause. This moment of friction, or slowness, in the building process presents a few options:

• I can push through.
• I can delegate.
• Or I can table it, for now.

Each has its own calculations and tradeoffs. Experience helps make these decisions come easier and faster.

The key is to turn these building decisions into business decisions. Your real task isn’t always to find the technical solution to this blocker. It’s to remove the blocker and ship.

I often delegate when this blocker doesn’t play well with my personal strengths. Give this one to a teammate who thrives in areas where I don’t. This thing that’s hard (and slow) for me is easy (and fast) for them.

Or sometimes I table it. Forward motion doesn’t always depend on this blocker getting resolved right now. Often by the time we return to it, the progress we’ve made eliminated the blocker altogether.

And then sometimes I do dig in. I embrace the slowness (for a minute). It’s a skill-building opportunity. But don’t mistake it: This too is a business decision. I’ll make it when it’s clear that this won’t be the last time I see this blocker. Acquire the solution now so I can add it to my toolbelt for later.

Building decisions are business decisions when you’re in the business of building :)