#86: Why Perfectionism Kills More Startups Than Bad Products

It’s time to ship or die because speed matters

400 operators launch every week globally. By month two, 85% are dead.

Here’s what nobody tells you: they’re not dying from bad products. They’re dying from never shipping at all.

We launched Menace (media company, operator, and game provider) in two months. That’s faster than most operators update their terms and conditions. While I was going live, my competitors were still in their 47th stakeholder meeting about payment provider integrations.

The difference? We understood something critical: the market doesn’t punish imperfect products nearly as brutally as it punishes delay.

The Perfectionism Death Spiral

There’s this lie we tell ourselves: “Build it right the first time.”

It sounds responsible. It sounds smart. It’s killing your business.

Here’s what actually happens when you chase perfection:

You never reach market validation. You’re building features based on what you think users want, not what they actually want. The gap between those two things is where millions go to die.

You’re optimising for users you don’t have yet. I see this constantly. Founders obsessing over whether the button should be green or blue, whether the onboarding flow should be 3 steps or 4. You know what matters more? Having actual users to convert in the first place.

Here’s my favourite: “The green rounded button converts better, but only at scale.” If you’re doing micro-optimisations before you have thousands of daily actives, you’re polishing a car that’s still missing an engine.

Your competitors are shipping while you’re polishing. They’re learning from real users. They’re iterating based on actual behaviour. You’re still debating typography in internal meetings.

Your team is demoralised. Endless development cycles with no market feedback is soul-crushing. I’ve watched brilliant teams implode because they never got to see if their work actually mattered.

Let me be clear: There is no definition of ready. It’s always work in progress.

Of the 15% of operators who survive past month two, not a single one launched with a perfect product. Not one.

The Reckless Shipping Framework

When we built Menace, we had one goal: go live in two months.

Here’s how we did it:

Partner Selection (Ruthlessly)

We had three criteria for every third-party provider:

1. Can you help us go live fast?
2. Can the platform scale when we grow?
3. Can we eventually buy the code?

If any answer was no? Gone. Next one.

We evaluated roughly 10 turnkey providers. Most failed question three. Some people think that’s crazy—why care about buying code when you haven’t launched? Because I’m thinking in systems, not just tactics.

The Third-Party Strategy

We integrated pretty standard tools into much of our infrastructure to launch.

Why? Because I’m not in the business of rebuilding infrastructure that already works. I’ll happily pay commissions forever if it means we shipped in two months instead of two years.

The only time you build in-house is when you have a genuine USP that’s hard to replicate. For us, that’s our game provider, Ebaka. Custom content that only exists on Menace (for now). That’s worth building.

Everything else? Buy it, integrate it, move on.

The Market Research Shortcut

Here’s how to avoid wasting time on the wrong tools:

• Identify your target market (for us, starting with crypto-first, then expanding)
• Find the top 10 operators in that market
• See what platforms and tools they’re using
• Use the same ones

Why reinvent the wheel? These operators have already made every mistake you’re about to make. They’ve already tested every provider. Learn from their scars.

The Framework in Action

1. Define your market. Not “global”, be specific. We started crypto-first because it’s fast to market.
2. Identify must-have features only. Core betting, basic CRM, and payments. Everything else is noise.
3. Find partners who can deliver in weeks, not months. Speed is the filter.
4. Ship. Even if you’re embarrassed. Especially if you’re embarrassed.
5. Let users tell you what’s missing. They will. Loudly. That’s the point.

We went live on September 1st after two months of development. Was it perfect? Hell no. Did it convert? Yes. Did players have issues? Of course. Did we fix them based on real feedback? Absolutely.

The Market Doesn’t Care About Your Readiness

Here’s the choice you’re actually making:

Option A: Spend 12 months building the “perfect” product. Launch into a changed market. Watch competitors who shipped faster and own the positioning you wanted. Burn through capital before seeing a single real user interaction.

Option B: Ship in two months with core features. Iterate with real users. Learn what actually matters versus what you assumed mattered. Own the market timing.

Your perfect product launches into indifference. My imperfect product launches into a conversation.

Competitors shipping imperfect products are learning while you’re polishing. User feedback beats internal assumptions 100% of the time. The data doesn’t lie, most operators die because they never figured this out.

The only unforgivable mistake is the one you never get to make because you never shipped.

So ship. Recklessly fast.