I’m about to hit you with some truth that might make a few “product excellence” zealots clutch their pearls, but after years of shipping products and watching countless PMs burn themselves out chasing perfection, it’s time we had this talk.

Your obsession with maximizing everything is killing your product.

The Perfectionist’s Paradox

In my earlier days as a PM, I used to be the one who’d spend weeks perfecting feature specs, agonizing over every pixel in the mockups, and driving engineers crazy with “just one more tweak.” I thought I was being thorough. Professional. Excellence-driven.

I was actually being an idiot.

Here’s what nobody tells you in those fancy PM books: The difference between a good product and a perfect product usually isn’t worth the time it takes to get there. And while you’re polishing that golden feature to perfection, your competitors are shipping three “good enough” features that customers are actually using.

Before you start thinking I’m advocating for mediocrity, let me explain. Satisficing (a blend of “satisfy” and “suffice”) is about finding the sweet spot between “this is garbage” and “this is perfect.” It’s about making conscious decisions about what’s good enough to ship.

Think of it like this:

Maximizing:

Satisficing:

The Cost of Maximizing (That Nobody Talks About)

Let me paint you a picture I see way too often:

Team A (The Maximizers):

• Spent 6 months perfecting their onboarding flow

• Tested 12 different variations

• Debated button colors for 2 weeks

• Shipped a “perfect” solution

• Users had already found workarounds

Team B (The Satisficers):

• Shipped basic onboarding in 1 month

• Monitored actual user behavior

• Made incremental improvements

• Had 5 months of real data

• Already on version 3.0

Which team do you think delivered more value?

Why Most PMs Suck at Satisficing

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Many of us became PMs because we’re perfectionists. We like control. We enjoy sweating the details. And that makes satisficing feel… wrong.

But here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:

Market timing trumps perfection:

• A good solution now beats a perfect solution later

• Markets don’t wait for your pixel-perfect design

• First-mover advantage is real

Users don’t care about your perfection

• They care about their problems

• They’ll forgive rough edges if you solve their pain

• They’d rather have something useful now than perfect later

Perfect products often fail anyway

• Google+ was perfectly engineered

• Amazon Fire Phone was beautifully designed

• Both failed because perfection ≠ needed

The Satisficing Framework

After painful lessons during my initial years as a PM, here’s the framework I use to decide when something is “good enough” to ship:

1. Define Your Non-Negotiables

Must-Have:

Nice to Have:

2. Set Clear “Good Enough” Metrics

• What’s the minimum viable performance?

• What’s an acceptable error rate?

• What level of user satisfaction is enough?

• What’s the baseline adoption rate we need?

3. Create Your “Ship It” Checklist

• Core user journey works ✓

• Major bugs fixed ✓

• Basic analytics in place ✓

• Support team trained ✓

• Rollback plan ready ✓

But Wait, When Should You Maximize?

I’m not saying never maximize. There are times when “good enough” isn’t good enough:

Core Product Promise

• If you’re Zoom, video quality can’t be “good enough”

• If you’re Stripe, payment processing must be perfect

• If you’re 1Password, security can’t be satisfied

Brand Defining Features

• Apple maximizes design because it’s their differentiator

• Netflix maximizes recommendation accuracy

• Spotify maximizes music discovery

Critical User Moments

• First-time user experience

• Payment flows

• Data migration tools

Making the Shift: Practical Steps

Here’s how to start embracing satisficing without losing your product soul:

1. Start Small

• Pick a low-risk feature

• Define “good enough” criteria

• Ship faster than feels comfortable

• Monitor the world not ending

2. Build Trust

• Show stakeholders the speed benefits

• Document the value delivered earlier

• Highlight iterative improvements

• Celebrate quick wins

3. Create Safety Nets

• Strong monitoring

• Easy rollback processes

• Clear success metrics

• Rapid feedback loops

The Hard Truth About Modern Product Management

The market doesn’t care about your perfect product. It cares about solved problems. While you’re maximizing, your competitors are solving problems. While you’re perfecting, users are finding alternatives.

Remember:

• Perfect products are often perfect solutions to yesterday’s problems

• The market rewards speed and iteration over perfection

• Users prefer “good enough now” over “perfect later”

Stop being a product purist. Start being a product pragmatist. Your users and team will thank you.

Remember: Every day you spend perfecting is a day your users spend suffering with the current solution. Ship it. Learn from it. Improve it.

That’s not just product management. That’s product leadership.

P.S. This post isn’t perfect. I could have spent a few more days polishing it. But it’s good enough to help you think differently about product development. And that’s what matters.