The Power of Saying 'No' in Software Development

If you watch Sam's videos, he talks about how he's always saying 'no' to things, and the power of that word. I think he even calls himself Mr. No.

I think it's interesting, because saying no is a great habit to have in software development, and that philosophy reflects in the quality of Skool.

Every idea should have to prove it's worth, and work hard to be implemented. It's better to say no to every idea the first time it appears, and let it stand outside in the rain for a few days.

If it keeps coming back, that's when you know it might be worth taking a deeper look - because each time you say yes, you've actually said yes to a whole chain of events.

You need to take that single yes through planning, design, coding, testing, tweaking, testing, tweaking, testing, tweaking...updating any copy if necessary, making sure pricing is not effected, launching, and then hoping you didn't break any promises.

And once that feature is out there, it's tough to take away - people will get pissed off, even if the feature sucked.

So it's better to start with no - and pick carefully when you do say yes.

Right now, Skool doesn't have a landing page builder, or a catalogue of groups, or a post scheduler, or custom gamification, or white labeling, or a myriad of other requests that come in daily.

I definitely like a few of those ideas, and some of them may become reality - but I think what makes great software is the tendency to lean towards no, instead of trying to please everyone all the time.

Because great software has a vision, instead of being as flexible as possible. Great software is opinionated, and doesn't just give you every feature - it gives you an approach.

Skool certainly does that, and I think it's better for it.

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