New Governments & New Products

[Originally posted on Cent]

"To form a new government requires infinite care and unbounded attention, for if the foundation is badly laid, the superstructure must be bad.”

~ George Washington, 1776

I love that quote; and not for any nostalgic, American-pride reason, but because it clearly drives home the ungodly, gargantuan, all encompassing effort needed to get a new product the initial traction it needs to have a fighting chance at becoming something more.

Infinite care

You need to have god-level consideration for every new user and their experience. Every pain point needs to be identified and sanded off. When you talk with users, you need to really hear what they're saying and show them love back. And then you gotta follow through and deliver on what you talked about and heard!

Caring infinitely is a self-sustaining practice though. The more you care, the more positive feedback you'll get. Product updates, new features, different perspectives, novel use cases you hadn't considered before - all of these things become possible as a result infinite care and in turn fuel you so that you and your team so that you all can continue to move forward and develop the product.

Unbounded attention

The internet never sleeps. Likewise your product can be used and mentioned anytime, all the time. Your attention needs to be always on your product and users. The time you spend thinking about and monitoring your project is never enough. What's more, you need to pay attention to everything else going on around you (unbounded ftw) because external changes and risks can be just as, if not more consequential than internal or local factors.

Paying attention without limits also means biases and pre-judgements need to get set aside. Seeing things as they really are is paramount. If takes more effort to convince yourself that you are seeing one thing instead of another as opposed to simply seeing one thing or another. This clarity and energy conserving attention are as self reinforcing as the benefits of infinite care.

And all this effort is just to ensure that the foundation is properly laid. That's basic table stakes. There is still so much more to build and so much more that can go wrong!

But if infinite care describes you and at least a couple other members of your team, and if you and your partner-in-crime can focus your attention on anything and everything all the damn time, well then those next features or mechanisms will start to present themselves in a way that begins to make sense within a bigger picture that in turn will continue to be revised and checked against reality at every step of the way.

During the First Continental Congress in 1787, Washington said he “attentively heard and read every oral and printed information on both sides of every question that could be procured” while intervening in debates or making final decisions infrequently. The foundation laid as a result of that meeting is legend.

That's a leader. That's someone who, even if they aren't responsible for making every single decision, can influence the right decisions and help make everyone else better by their simple example. Leaders are responsible for laying the foundation. Thus leaders must show infinite care and display unbounded attention. If they don't, well, it all falls down.