There are many businesses where shipping 20% later leads to ceding first
mover advantage and losing the game.
So in which business exactly does shipping 20% later lead to "losing the game"? If anything, the real risk is in shipping a half-baked product too soon.
The critical window isn't when something is first possible (e.g. when the first product appears), but when the combination of technical abilities, component price points, and market characteristics intersect to permit success.
To use a physical example, the iPod and iPhone were great products, but they were hits because they launched with the features they did, at a specific point in time, at a specific price point.
We know that potential for success infection point existed then, because they did build a working device and achieved success.
Consequently, if they had not completed those devices when they did (say, +20% time), another device could have achieved their success.
Maybe nobody on the planet existed other than Apple who could do it... but the possibility was provably there.
Or in simpler form: Netflix was far from the first streaming video service. They were the one who launched with the right features at the right time.
Nobody cares if you catch a small wave perfectly. What matters is catching the best wave of the day, in the brief window you have.
That's the reason that Apple, especially, has been so successful. It's not because they launched at some perfect time window. It's because they launched damn good products. If the iPhone had launched in 2008, or even 2009, it would have been just as successful. We just would have had another two years of mediocre Windows Mobile/Symbian OS/Blackberry devices.
[1]: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
The graphic UI and the case design were distinctive. But what really sold it was an incredibly sophisticated ad campaign that carpet bombed key media outlets with super-expensive exposure.
The problem with Symbian/Blackberry/Palm wasn't just mediocre technology, but a lack of dazzle. The products were functional but mediocre. But they were also marketed in mediocre geeky/corporate ways that just weren't that interesting to most consumers.
The original iPhone was barely more functional. But again, exterior aesthetics and a huge marketing and PR campaign forced open a consumer market for a product that was - like the original Mac - barely finished.
The problem Google has is that its products and its branding are heading rapidly towards mediocrity. It reminds me of DEC - an engineering giant in the 70s and 80s, which forgot how to read the market and innovate in the 90s, and crashed far more quickly than anyone would have predicted.
This. The ideal thing is to be second, or even third, not first. "The pioneers get all the arrows."
But as a member of a small-ish company, I remember there was this time the sales VP insisted that we MUST have this product out by a certain tradeshow. Engineering worked hard and delivered, and although the thing had warts, it gave our company an advantage: the current market leader showed up at the next tradeshow a couple months later (e.g. "20%") with a similar product and price point, but our lead in time meant that we were able to exist as a strong competitor. This single product launch and subsequent sequels lifted our company for quite a long time.
So now when the sales guys insist we might need something by a certain date, I carefully evaluate rather than dismiss out of hand - I've learned to trust their role as well.
Oh? By this rule, then Facebook must have been quickly replaced by one of the many competitors who launched later, yes?
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 precisely because they were a direct threat. The FTC could have blocked that; or more recently, prevented tighter integration with FB+WA.
Currently they're using lobbyists to try to push TikTok (and WeChat) out of the US market.
Yahoo imploded because it had to pander to the short-term whims of the stock market; Zuckerberg references this frequently when talking about how FB (i.e. he) maintains control of its stock and autonomy.
This is it. With the advent of broad, powerful tools you can use to automate off your codebase, there's less and less manual rote work that needs tracking, and a greater and greater percentage of creative, hard to estimate, engineer-driven work. And the best way forward is to plan releases with certain features, and flexible timelines, or plan releases with fixed timelines, and flexible features.
There's a reason PMs are reviled to mildly tolerated by engineers: they believe the map is the end product, not the territory.
The correct answer to which is more important is "It depends."
There are many businesses where shipping 20% later leads to ceding first mover advantage and losing the game. Largely what's being discussed in the article.
More detailed and accurate project tracking and projection doesn't deliver quicker shipping. Effectively prioritizing outstanding work does.
They're similar but definitely not the same.