Sweat the Details
In a world of templates, details make the difference
Most product meetings end the same way. Ship fast. Move quickly. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. For years, I lived by these mantras.
Software forgave everything. Quick fixes. Rapid tests. Pixels nudged until metrics moved. Each mistake meant another deploy, each bug another patch. I thought this was how products worked.
Physical products shattered this illusion for me -most recently at Meter. When a network installation fails, there's no quick deployment to fix it. Wrong cable configurations meant days of on-site debugging. Poor hardware decisions could mean months of rework. Each mistake extracted its price in time and trust.
Each lesson reinforced the same truth. A forgotten email rule at Opendoor unlocked $1 billion in revenue. A bug at LinkedIn revealed millions in hidden value by accidentally moving an ad by 15 pixels. The team at Apple spent months perfecting the magnetic pull of MagSafe—not because anyone asked, but because getting it exactly right mattered.
These breakthroughs didn't come from rapid testing. They came from relentless attention to detail. From someone caring enough to question assumptions everyone else accepted. From teams willing to make a thousand micro-adjustments until the experience felt perfect.
Now AI generates decent products in seconds. Everyone has access to the same tools, templates, and components. But machines can't replicate the human obsession that makes great products feel inevitable. They can't spend months perfecting the subtle resistance of a button press or the precise timing of an interaction.
When everyone can create effortlessly, sweating the details becomes your greatest advantage.
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