Be seen trying

I got very good at describing projects nobody could use.

There was always something left to finish before I could show them. A better interface. A missing feature. A clearer explanation of what I was trying to do. Each reason sounded sensible on its own. Together, they let me spend years working without finding out what anyone thought of the work.

I told myself I had high standards. I also liked being the only person who could judge whether I'd met them.

An unfinished project has a peculiar advantage: it can still become everything you imagined. The moment someone uses it, the possibilities narrow. They miss the feature you spent weeks on. They ask for something you hadn't considered. They aren't interested. Keeping the work private postpones all of that. It also lets you keep confusing the thing in your head with the thing you've built.

By the time I asked for feedback, I'd often made so many decisions that using it meant undoing weeks of work. Waiting had made changing my mind expensive. That gave me another reason to keep going in the direction I'd already chosen.

A friend put it to me last year: if you want to be seen as someone who ships, the watching has to come first.

I resisted that. People can misunderstand unfinished work. Some will assume the rough version is the best you can do and never return to see the improvement. There is a cost to being seen before you're ready. I've spent enough time paying the cost of staying invisible to want to try the other one.

"Be seen trying" asks more of me than announcing a plan. A plan can attract encouragement without exposing anything to scrutiny. Showing a working piece gives someone something to react to. It gives me a chance to discover that my explanation is clearer than my product, or that the part I thought was unfinished is already useful.

I don't need every draft to have a public audience. One person who might use the thing can tell me more than a room full of people who like the idea of it.

Three years from now, I want a record of work that reached someone. Some finished well. Some finished badly. Enough that I can see what happened after I stopped describing it.

For now, that means showing one person something real while I can still afford to change it.