The Devil is in the Execution

As anyone in industry can attest to, the huge gap between an idea and actually doing it can make or break it. I’m always keen to see people talk about the details as to how they got something going.

This post on an email first startup reminded me of a talk I saw a while by Rob Fitzpatrick at Lean Northeast: in that he related how one startup he’d worked on for connecting presenters with conferences started just this way—email only—and only started building when they had a proof of concept.

Printing t-shirts? Find a good printer, United Pixel Workers will tell you.  (And, as it turns out, the ever-industrious designer Jessica Hische even created a website to highlight good printers!) More generally, this is about how a good vendor is worth their weight in gold. As an undergrad, I heard similar stories about the children’s clothing company Pumpkin Patch working with Chinese clothing manufacturers: when they found a good one that respected their attention to detail, they stuck with them.

Writing a UX book? Keep writing, according to various authors for Rosenfeld Media (and other tips).

And at a more general level, don’t be the expert, be the professional.