If you think about it, even when a product is actually complete,
today, as consumers, we're expecting that it's never quite the finished product.
Take your smartphone, for example.
You assume that this is the finished product,
but it's actually not.
We all know that after we buy our phone,
we assume that we'll get an update of the software within maybe a couple of months,
and then within a year, probably there will be a new and improved version of it.
The company that's creating it has
learned through customer feedback and customer interactions,
what features it should eliminate,
what features it should add.
So we're in an era where we look at
the products around us and we assume that they are in permanent beta.
There is a common saying among producers and film makers,
that a mix or an edit is never completed. It's simply abandoned.
I can't stand comparing myself to the work that I did last week or last year.
Change is the only constant in life.
To stagnate would be to kill your good,
your product, or your service.
Iteration is how we got to most of
the successful records that we were doing at Bad Boy Records,
and some of the work that I did with Diddy.
We'd come in, we'd make a record that would be a chorus,
and it would be like 100 percent complete.
And then the question would be,
can it become better?
And we'd spend some time trying to make it a 110 percent complete,
and we almost always bumped into something that was better.
And then the question would come again.
Can we make it even better? And then we push.
And now, the genius of multiple iterations
is knowing when you stepped past the creative point,
and into this area of diminishing returns.
And then to back up to one of the better iterations and say, "You know what?
It can always be better,
but this is a good representation of where we are right now,
and let's communicate this to the audience."
If you listen to, say,
Bruce Springsteen's first version of Born In The USA,
and the way that he performs it today,
it sounds dramatically different.
Why? Well, it went through this process of
constant iteration and co-creation with the consumer, with the customer,
and through endless times of performing the song live,
it's changed and evolved based on that interaction and the feedback.
We all understand as creative beings that only once we release
something out there and we start the conversation that we're having with our audience,
do we perfect it and make it better and better and better.
You're putting out your best product all the time.
It's just that once it's out there,
once you've birth this product,
you want to do it different the next time, right?
Because you understand you could have done this better,
or you might consider this,
or the consumer has moved,
or something has happening in the world to effect it.
So I think, it's just kind of getting into
that metabolism of not being afraid to put it out there.
You bring a product to market,
and you know for a fact there's 15 things you want to change.
But at the end of the day,
it's a business at the same time, right?
Clients have to bring these products to market.
We need to bring products to market.
We can keep iterating to version 1,000,
10,000 100,000, but the problem is,
at the end of the day, it's got to stop at some point.
So then the consumers can have that product in their lives.
The one thing that I encourage people to put into their head
is every time someone shows me something,
a product that they've been interating and innovating, always say to them,
no matter if it's version one,
or it's version 100,
or version 150, tell me
five things that are wrong with it and five things you want to change about it.
And the day you change your mindset from what's good about this to what's bad about this,
you learn that you can improve upon the negatives,
but you can't fix the positives, right?
The positives will always be there.
Sounds extremely pessimistic, but that's the way we go
through life and it's the most tormenting role
in the world to be a product developed here,
because you know for a fact,
it's the constant search for the unattainable perfection.
It's a notion when they fly around here,
and it keeps us hungry and keeps us pushing.
I was the agent for Jazz Greats Sonny Rollins.
And Sonny would tell me that every time he would perform a song,
he would deliberately go through this process of
un-learning the solo that he played last time,
because he wanted to never ever repeat himself and always be fresh.
So, apply this mindset onto whatever you're doing.
Approach every version of whatever you're
releasing out there as if it's the first time you're doing it.
You live your life and you run your company as if it's always in a phase of prototyping,
as if it's always in permanent beta.
Panos PanayCourse Author
