Skedsheet Blog

By working on skedsheet, we’re taking some of the development time that we could be spending on JobTracker and investing it in something completely unknown and unproven.

In the past we’ve built big new features based on our customers feedback, and at least we’ve had confidence that our time will pay off, even if it’s in a very modest way.  But this time, we’re doing something different.  Now, part of the reason we think this is okay:

• We’ve wasted as much time on things that we thought would work out, but got thrown away.
• It’s fun to work on new things, so we make more progress.
• We can learn some new tools, techniques, and ideas by starting from scratch.
• By taking a new approach, we can make JobTracker better, too.
• We’re building something we don’t want to compete against.

Now, I don’t know why this is a big deal – I think the hardest part for me to swallow is the very intentional choice to be working on something that only has a small chance of panning out.  One of my buddies is a product-development management consultant and his claim is that only 20% of new products succeed.  I think that’s a generous percentage, but I guess it depends on what you mean by success.