"Unveiling the Wonders of Coda, One Day at a Time" |
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Happy Tuesday!
In the software world, it's really easy to add tons of "what if" features . . .
What if they want to change the color of the font? Spend a week adding a color changing features.
What if they want to export to a PDF? Spend three weeks creating a PDF export feature.
We haven't actually talked to customers about it.
But we spend time building features that we don't know if customers will actually use.
We call this YAGNI . . . You Ain't Gonna Need It
The acronym has been around for decades and the concept is this: don't build things until you need them. Don't add features until paying customers actually request them.
Sometimes when a developer on my team wants to add a feature, I'll literally say, "YAGNI." That's a code for -- don't waste your time on that.
The same is true with business software tools.
"Oh, cool! It has Slack integration!" Do you really need Slack integration?
"OOOOOhhh . . . it integrates with Zapier!" Do you even use Zapier now? Will you all-of-a-sudden start using it?
"Tons of notification options!" How long before you turn OFF the notifications?
I've been a victim of this mentality for years--optimism about features, but in reality they didn't work the way I thought . . . or I just didn't have time to work with them.
There's nothing wrong with choosing software for features you don't have.
The question is . . . do you need really them? More importantly, do you have the time to maintain them?
I'm going to talk more about that tomorrow . . .
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See you tomorrow!
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Troy Larson
CODA MAGIC™️ , CEO | SOFTWARE DEVELOPER | CODA MAKER
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