26-03-2025
Why Chasing Perfection Will Kill Your Startup Before It Even Begins
Just be sure not to explode on your way up.
getty
There is an undeniable allure to perfection, and many make a habit of chasing it.
For some entrepreneurs and engineers, striving for perfection is not just an ambition; it's a defining trait. They understand what excellence looks like and are willing to sacrifice nearly anything to reach it, which is exactly why they are where they are today.
However, perfection has its time and place, and entrepreneurship is usually neither.
Entrepreneurs must first identify what clients truly need and, more importantly, what they are willing to pay for. That's the real priority, with perfection being the end goal way down the road.
The ability to build something clients want and to deliver it as early as possible is what sets successful entrepreneurs apart from the rest.
Success doesn't come from perfecting a product in isolation; it comes from testing, learning, and adapting in real time.
Luckily for us, there is a proven formula for achieving it: listen to your customers, do so early and stay open to adjusting your goals.
A Swiss watch is a miracle to behold, and building one is as much an honor as owning one.
But in entrepreneurship, the pursuit of perfection can be a costly distraction.
Sure, the Wall of Fame of entrepreneurship has its share of revered builders who relentlessly chased perfection, Steve Jobs first among them. Joining their ranks is a dream many hold, but getting there is not at all an obvious matter.
Many forget that even Steve Jobs' famed persistence for perfection emerged later in life.
The Apple I, as close to a modern relic of entrepreneurship as one can get, is a far cry from perfection.
'It didn't need to be perfect, nor could it have been,' Feross Aboukhadijeh, CEO of Socket and an experienced founder with a series of successful exits and open source hits under his belt, notes.
'The key is to deliver something that solves a problem and to keep improving from there.' For Wozniak and Jobs, the Apple I met just enough client demand to chart a path forward, and what a path it's been.
It's a lesson Feross learned early.
His first startup, PeerCDN, had revolutionary peer-to-peer technology, but it failed to gain traction.
'The underlying tech was great, but there just weren't enough customers who would pay for it,' he admits.
After that, his approach to building companies, and the products they exist to ship, has shifted to focusing on what is great and also sells: 'When I built Socket I spent a long time on the road, listening and talking to clients. If out of 40 people, 39 don't say they'll pay for it or if they aren't paying enough, there's no sense in building it.'
Today, Socket's cybersecurity platform protects over 7,500 organizations and 300,000 GitHub repositories, all because Feross focused on what customers wanted him to build, not just what he wanted to create.
Building a product where go-to-market and product-market fit aren't mysteries to solve later, but rather the starting point, is entrepreneurship at its best.
Voltaire once warned us that perfect is the enemy of good, but it's more than that.
For entrepreneurs, perfection is the enemy of getting started, gaining traction, and ultimately building a successful business on what might be a great idea waiting for execution.
Jeff Gallino, CEO of CallMiner, puts it bluntly: 'Good ideas are everywhere. People who can execute are rare, and even rarer are those who execute only that which serves the client.'
CallMiner mines over one billion customer interactions annually, providing conversation intelligence to companies ranging from airlines to retailers, and Jeff credits the company's success to its relentless focus on execution.
'When we launched, we focused on only the MVP and how well it served the client,' Jeff explains. 'Perfection is the enemy of good in software. You build as much as you need to sell, then iterate.'
When founders obsess over perfection, they often forget what matters most: building something people want and will pay for, not just chasing a great idea.
Wherever ideas are abundant but execution is rare, it's the companies that launch imperfectly, listen intently, and iterate quickly that come out ahead. This is a fact that Jon Bennert, CEO of Air Oasis, has also taken to heart.
'For us, customer feedback drives everything,' Jon explains.
'When we first started out, we would often innovate for the sake of innovation and our product lineup was something entirely different than it is today. Listening to what our customers actually want, and acting on it immediately, is something we've learned to do more of, not least because of how it's guided us to build products that sell themselves.'
This mindset has transformed Air Oasis, helping the company scale its direct-to-consumer sales and maintain loyalty through rapid iteration. The company has also shifted its focus from internal R&D to a more collaborative approach where specialized third parties take over what 'perfectionist CEOs' might consider core-functions to the build such as PCB design.
When Air Oasis started out, the company focused on building innovative products in-house. But over time, Jon realized that the 'build it and they will come' approach was flawed. 'It's really the customer who matters,' he says. 'They'll tell you what they want, and what they need. You just have to listen.'
This responsiveness helped Air Oasis not only survive but thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for air purifiers skyrocketed.
'When a customer emails us with a complaint, we start planning the next product that same day,' Jon says.
Herein lies a fundamental truth about effective execution: the best products are not built in isolation.
Feross and Jon demonstrated this by integrating their clients into the creation process. By continuously seeking feedback, they ensured that every feature developed and every adjustment made was purposeful, directly addressing what customers valued and were willing to invest in.
Flexibility is the quiet force behind entrepreneurial success, and it flourishes when founders let go of chasing perfection.
The ability to pivot, to adapt quickly when something isn't working or another thing could work even better, is often the difference between failure and enduring success.
Scott Stevenson, CEO of Spellbook, knows this all too well.
'My first business was building a physical product that was a genre-bending innovation in the musical instruments industry, but commercially it never really worked out,' Scott begins.
'I'm glad I didn't double down on it any further than I did. If I hadn't let go of it, I would have never reached the core business idea that we've banked on for Spellbook's success today,' Scott adds, noting that Spellbook's foundations are built on personal frustrations with the legal industry's inefficiencies and hundreds of hours spent with lawyers, learning their workflows, before building something that fits seamlessly into how they work.
'Even with our legal product, we launched over 100 different marketing pages before we figured out how to build and market something that lawyers loved. That came from running a new experiment every week for 2 years. Fast iteration is everything.'
The Spellbook team's flexibility and focus on learning from its users allowed the company to grow its revenue fivefold in a year. 'It's all about being the wind behind your customers' backs, not a roadblock,' Scott emphasizes.
Lurein Perera, CEO of GiveCard, reinforces this idea of adaptability.
His company provides financial infrastructure for nonprofits and governments to distribute cash assistance through prepaid debit cards. 'It's easy to assume you know what people need, but the reality is often very different,' Lurein shares.
'We've found that the key to success is starting small, listening, and iterating quickly to meet the actual needs of users.'
GiveCard's ability to pivot based on client feedback has been a gamechanger for their client's social impact programs. 'One of our partners initially wanted a system for distributing food assistance, but as we engaged with end-users, it became clear that direct cash assistance gave them more freedom and dignity. That feedback reshaped how we approached the project,'
Lurein explains. 'If we hadn't been willing to pivot, we wouldn't have been able to deliver a solution that truly worked for the people who needed it most.'
The lesson Lurein learned is simple, yet powerful.
Before you build, talk. Learn more about your clients with each moment spent building. And build only what you must.
These three steps form the foundation of a perfect product-market fit:
The path to entrepreneurial success is never as straightforward as a three-point list, but as the stories of the CEOs above show, these steps provide a strong starting point to ensure you're on the right track from day one.
