Product

working at a pre-PMF startup requires a change in perspective when it comes to quality. you can't afford to ship everything 95% polished, because you can't afford to invest that much effort in ideas which are likely to flop

ship as much quality as it's possible, but not much more

until you find PMF. then go WILD

✳︎ design engineer → @ponder 
✳︎ explorer of humanism • petrolhead/gearhead
✳︎ React/SwiftUI
✳︎ bento.me/matthew

Chief Fire Fighter @Intract. Curious about incentive distribution, AI Agents & more...

it’s exactly my experience, but that’s why it requires a perspective shift. If you want to do your “best engineering work” then a pre-pmf startup is not a good fit

every choice in life is a trade-off

this is on point. another challenge is often the products don't require solving the most complex engineering problems or building the best tech architecture at a pre pMF stage - a lot of engineers end up covering more breadth than depth when they work in such startups. 

Has a slightly negative impact on motivation.

linear is maybe not a good example because they went ape on quality from day 0

raycast is a good example imo; very good from the start, but it’s only getting better since they hit pmf and started charging for pro

the quality bar is insane in both cases

what are some examples of apps that invested into quality only once they hit pmf?

i my experience, the quality can only go down over time, never up