Every great software engineer I have met is, in some way, a perfectionist when it comes to what they produce. In most cases, this is the code that powers their products. This trait is what makes most software engineers not great at managing products.
I have been sitting on bits and pieces of JunoHRMS for an embarassingly long time. Some pieces are working well, some pieces are on paper, some pieces are full of bugs in draft stages. I am sitting on them because I have this perfect vision of how I want everything to fit together. This is obviously bad because nothing is ever perfect. Every product evolves and usually what ends up working is far from what you can imagine.
Even writing on this blog took a pause because I was deliberating over every post, wanting every word, every sentence, every paragraph to be perfect. This is why I have a drafts folder that is many times larger than what is actually published.
I have given up on perfectionism. Recently, I decided to abandon this need to perfect everything and put a starting point online and go with it. I stripped everything off of Juno and put a single landing page and simple form for requesting access online. I did this with no idea what would happen next. It was a scary moment but I pushed on.
I setup Google Analytics on the 2 page site and created a Google Ads Smart Campaign. The first day was quiet. Doubt crept in and I thought "this is a bad idea". I really thought about taking everything down.
Something happened on the second day though. Interest. One person filled out the form. I didn't even see this until the next day; because there is not even a notification when the form is submitted. Then the next day 3 more people filled out the form. Now I suddenly had a new problem that I never would have imagined in my perfect little vision that I would ever have. What to do with these people's emails? There is nothing online to give them access to. I have no idea what exactly triggered them to request access. Are they even genuine?
Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of work that has been done behind these 2 pages. The pictures in the landing page are not mocks. They are screenshots of an iteration of the product.
I followed through on my plan to abandom perfectionism. I decided to check if this is genuine interest or not. I have had to setup email using the junohrms.com domain so I could contact the people who filled out the form and engage them in conversation.
In the mean time, I am going to be taking the next imperfect step. I am going to put out the first feature of my 2 page site and take it from them.
I have no idea what comes next but I am excited to find out. If you are too, subscribe and come back to find out.