Shouldn’t we always try to build the right thing the right way to ensure scalability, reliability, and other measures of quality?
No, we shouldn’t.
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The mission of any first-time product is to reach product-market fit, to demonstrate that it meets a need well enough that customers are willing to pay and stick with it. You don’t need a large number of customers to determine this. A few will do.
You may need to iterate on the features, the design, the pricing, and many other factors before you get the formula right, however. And if you keep volumes low while you figure it out, you can avoid the work necessary to make every feature super robust until you are sure which features are worth that effort.
I go into quality issues in Chapter 10 of my book, Product Roadmaps Relaunched. When do you choose quality over speed? Speed over quality? Tell me a story.