Shipping Small: Why Iterating Beats Overbuilding

When you’re building a new product, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you need to solve everything upfront.
You want to prove you’ve got the vision.
You want to launch something big and polished.
You want to make sure users are impressed the second they log in.

But here’s the hard truth:
Shipping small beats overbuilding, every time.

Why Smaller Wins

In the early days, your biggest risk isn’t that your product isn’t shiny enough.
It’s that you’ll waste time and money building things no one wants.

When you launch something small, you put your product in front of real people sooner.
You get feedback sooner.
You learn what’s working (and what’s not) sooner.

That fast learning loop is what gives you the edge and it’s what helps you stay focused on solving real problems, not just packing in features for the sake of it.

What It Looked Like for Us

When we first started brainstorming features for Shiftwell, we had all kinds of ideas.

We thought we trimmed it down to an MVP.
Then we worked with our developer and realized: we still had to cut even more.

What we launched with was super simple:

• A clean interface for creating shifts
• Basic team management
• Multiple locations

That’s it.
But that’s what worked.

Because the goal wasn’t to have the most features. The goal was to solve one specific, painful problem for our target users: helping small businesses stop wasting hours on messy Excel schedules.

The Payoff

Here’s what you gain when you focus on small, meaningful launches:

• Faster feedback → You learn what users really need, not just what you think they need.
• Less waste → You avoid sinking time into features that don’t deliver value.
• Stronger focus → You stay centered on solving one real problem, not chasing every idea.
• More momentum → Small wins stack up and keep you moving forward.

How to Apply This

Here’s what I remind myself:

• Define the single, core problem you’re solving right now.
• Cut features to the absolute minimum that solves that problem.
• Ship early! Even if it feels raw or imperfect.
• Watch how users interact.
• Learn, adjust, iterate.

You can always add later.
It’s much harder (and more painful) to pull things back once you’ve gone too big too fast.

Want to Dive Deeper?

Here are a few of the books that have shaped how I think about product and building smart:

• Inspired by Marty Cagan
• The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• Zero to One by Peter Thiel

You don’t need to launch perfect. You need to launch smart.
Stay small. Stay scrappy. Stay focused on what matters.
That’s how you build momentum and keep winning.

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