I first wrote about the business cost of perfection on February 2, 2010.
At the time, I had a client who asked me to build a temporary three-page website that could serve as an online business card. She planned to replace it with a larger website once she had determined what content she wanted to include.
That temporary website was never published.
The graphics and layout were completely redesigned three times. The content was rewritten repeatedly as she found new ways to describe her business. Then the colors needed to change.
By the time we were finished, the money spent perfecting the temporary website could easily have paid for the larger website she originally intended to build. But because she could never decide that the temporary version was ready, neither website reached her customers.
I wondered then how many potential clients she had missed while trying to make that small website perfect.
More than 16 years later, I wish I could say that was an unusual situation.
The technology has changed. The cost of waiting has not.
Perfection Can Look Like Responsible Planning
Most business owners do not intentionally decide to stall a project indefinitely. They believe they are protecting their business from a costly mistake.
They want more time to consider the message, refine the offer, choose the right photographs or make sure everyone involved agrees. Each individual delay sounds reasonable:
- “We need to think about this a little longer.”
- “We’re almost there.”
- “Let’s make one more change.”
- “We want to get this right the first time.”
There are decisions that deserve careful consideration, and a website should never be launched with inaccurate information or broken functionality. But preparation stops being useful when it no longer leads to a decision.
Perfectionism can disguise itself as diligence while the months continue passing.
They Rushed to Begin—and Never Launched
One of our more recent projects was for a charitable organization governed by a board.
The organization had an understandably urgent wish list. Its existing website was limited, and the new site needed to support livestreamed videos, online donations and other technology that would help it serve its community more effectively.
The board had not finalized the content, but its members wanted us to begin immediately while they worked through the messaging. Although I normally require content before design begins, I agreed to move forward.
The technology and design progressed. The content did not.
A board brings multiple perspectives, which can be valuable, but it can also make final decisions difficult. The organization struggled to agree on how to describe its mission, programs and priorities. Before those decisions were completed, board members changed, the organization’s focus shifted and the project lost momentum.
No one deliberately abandoned the website. It simply became harder to restart with every passing month.
The project began nearly three years ago. The organization still has the same limited website it was in such a hurry to replace.
That is one of the strange ways urgency and perfection can coexist. The pressure to begin creates visible activity, but the most difficult decisions are postponed. Everyone feels as though the project is moving—until it isn’t.
For organizations with several decision-makers, “ready” requires more than approving a design. Someone must own the content, someone must have the authority to approve it and everyone must understand that the first published version can continue to improve.
Otherwise, the pursuit of consensus can leave an organization with the one outcome nobody wanted: no progress at all.
Waiting Does Not Preserve the Work
When a project pauses, it can feel as though everything completed so far is being safely held until the client is ready to continue.
That is rarely what happens.
The business continues changing. Board members, employees and priorities change. Services evolve. Technology advances. Software subscriptions and integrations change. The design decisions that made sense at the beginning of the project may need to be revisited.
The service provider’s business changes too. Expenses, pricing, availability and processes do not remain frozen with the unfinished project. Restarting after a lengthy delay may require a new review, revised scope and a new place in the production schedule.
The unfinished project also consumes capacity without producing a finished result. It cannot be launched, celebrated or added to a portfolio. Most importantly, it generates no visibility, attracts no leads and helps no customers.
Waiting does not preserve the work in its finished state. The work ages while it waits.
That is the holding cost of perfection.
The Opposite Approach: Launch to Test the Idea
Around ten years ago, we took a very different approach with the websites that eventually became a used equipment site.
The owner wanted to find out whether there was a viable online market for used veterinary equipment. We did not begin by trying to build the most comprehensive veterinary-equipment website possible. We launched relatively simple sites that allowed the business to present available equipment and test whether customers would respond to the concept.
They did.
The websites attracted buyers, generated inquiries and helped validate the business model. The response was strong enough that the owner became busy operating and growing the business.
Those “temporary” sites remained in place far longer than either of us originally intended. That eventually created limitations of its own, and during the past year we began rebuilding the online experience to better reflect what the business had become.
But the original websites had already accomplished something important: they answered the question the business needed answered.
An imperfect website that validated an idea, attracted customers and generated revenue for a decade produced considerably more value than a perfect website that never launched.
VEEN may have waited too long to improve its early websites. The other projects waited too long to begin producing value. The goal is not to choose one extreme or the other. It is to launch something useful, learn from it and continue improving it before it becomes an obstacle.
Your Version of Perfect May Not Match Your Customer’s
There is another weakness in trying to perfect a website entirely behind the scenes: your ideal customer has not yet had a chance to respond.
A message that seems perfectly clear to you may raise questions for a new visitor. A page you believe contains everything customers need may bury the one detail that matters most. A service name that makes sense internally may not use the words customers recognize.
You cannot discover those things by continuing to review the work with the same people who created it.
Publishing provides information that speculation cannot:
- Customer questions reveal what needs more explanation.
- Website analytics show where visitors continue, pause or leave.
- Search data reveals the language people use when looking for the service.
- Inquiries and sales show which offers connect with the right customers.
- Usability testing exposes steps that are obvious to the business but confusing to everyone else.
Launching does not mean declaring the website permanently finished. It allows you to replace imagined perfection with informed improvement.
Your customers’ response may bring you closer to an effective version of “perfect” than another year of revising the website without them.
What Must Be Ready Before You Launch?
“Launch before it’s perfect” should never mean publishing careless or unfinished work.
Before a website, service or campaign is released, it should be credible and capable of completing its essential purpose. At a minimum:
- The primary message should accurately explain what you offer and whom it helps.
- Essential business and contact information should be correct.
- The next step should be easy to find and understand.
- Forms, scheduling tools, payments and other critical functions should work.
- The experience should be usable on both computers and mobile devices.
- Claims, prices and policies should be accurate.
- The business should be prepared to respond when customers take action.
Those are launch requirements because they affect trust and the customer’s ability to do business with you.
What Can Improve After Launch?
Many of the details that delay projects are not genuine launch requirements. Depending on the business, you may be able to add or improve these later:
- Secondary service pages
- Additional examples or case studies
- A larger portfolio
- Expanded frequently asked questions
- Advanced integrations and automations
- Downloadable resources
- Alternative photographs or design refinements
- Wording that has already become clear enough to understand
The distinction is simple: does the missing element prevent the customer from understanding, trusting or taking the intended next step?
If it does, resolve it before launch. If it does not, add it to a post-launch improvement list.
Give the Project a Way to Move Forward
If your website or another important project has been “almost ready” for months, more open-ended discussion may not solve the problem. Give the project a decision structure:
- Name its essential purpose. What must this version allow a customer to understand or do?
- Identify one decision-maker. Someone needs the authority to collect input and make the final call.
- Separate launch requirements from future improvements. Not every good idea belongs in the first version.
- Set a real release date. A deadline without ownership is only a wish.
- Schedule the first review before launch. Decide when you will evaluate questions, analytics and customer response.
This changes launch from a final judgment into the beginning of a useful learning cycle.
Progress Creates the Information Perfection Needs
Mistakes can be costly, but inaction is not free.
The temporary website from 2010 produced no value because it never reached the people it was built to serve. The charitable organization’s new technology remains unavailable while its limited website continues representing the organization. VEEN’s early websites were far from permanent, but they proved the concept, connected buyers with equipment and supported years of business growth.
Perfection is not something you achieve in isolation before customers see your work. It is something you move toward by learning from what happens after they do.
If your project is accurate, credible and capable of doing its most important job, it may not need another round of internal revisions.
It may need the opportunity to work.
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