One of the things that truly shocked me when I first joined a tech startup in my early 20s was how everything seemed to be held together by duct tape. To give you an idea, when a customer clicked “Produce Report,” someone on our team was literally creating an Excel file and emailing it to the customer, pretending it was an automatic email. Automatic payouts? Also done manually by a human being. There were tons of Google spreadsheets and manual calculations masquerading as the marvelous software we were trying to build. Bugs appeared whenever new features were shipped. If I were to grade the level of performance, it would have barely been a B- work. It felt like building a car while driving it.
As an A+ student who was taught that everything had to be perfect, this was difficult for me to process. I loved having a good plan. I came from years of schooling with curriculums that had clearly defined assignments and deadlines for the next four months. Color-coded calendars. A sense of control. But in a startup, you get none of that.
I constantly felt like a grown-up would eventually come in and punish us all for the mess we created. No one came. No one got punished. The company grew into a major player in health tech in North America and is on track to hit $1 billion in revenue next year. Things are much different now. They have the capacity and time to ship better quality work. But I’ll always remember how it was in the beginning.
I’ve had to carry this build-with-duct-tape mentality through grad school, every job I’ve had, and the launch of my own projects.
The mental trick for shipping the B- work
As a recovering perfectionist, shipping the B- work is not easy. My husband is much better at this. He fully embraces ChatGPT in his work and benefits from the speed and progress it allows him. I, on the other hand, remain stubborn and snobby about this whole AI thing. But I’m slowly trying to get acquainted with it.
In moments like this, I ask myself, “Are you behaving like a successful startup or like the federal government right now?” I’ve worked in both, and you couldn’t find two more opposite workplaces. In the federal government, everything was perfect. Color-coded. Without typos. It didn’t offend a fly passing by. But nothing got done, because everyone was busy perfecting the plan. In a startup, no one had a plan. People were busy actually shipping the product. You can pick your own opposites for this question.
Done first. Improved later.
Don’t get me wrong—I admire businesses and people who produce high-quality work. I would hate to live in a world without seeing examples of human excellence.
However, I’ve learned to view human excellence as a ladder. The first few steps are always the B- work. The top step is the A+ work. And you can’t get to the top without shipping the B- work first.
Time constraints make it easier
This is one of my all-time favorite podcast episodes where Brooke Castillo discusses personal productivity, time-blocking, and the idea of the B- work.
“B-minus work can change people’s lives. Work that you don’t produce at all, does nothing in the world.” Brooke Castillo
The main reason you want to ship the B- work is that it gives you speed. You can get more done in a shorter amount of time. Having a limited amount of time to complete something is actually a good thing.
Try writing that article in 30 minutes. Film that video in one hour. Finish that assignment by the end of the day. Apply for that grant before the weekend begins.
I think time constraints are often necessary to actually hit that “send,” “publish,” or “submit” button. So don’t be afraid of a deadline. If you don’t have one, create one for yourself.
On that note, I hit “Publish” and celebrated shipping another post that could’ve been better.
If you want to practice shipping B- work instead of just thinking about it, try it as a one-week experiment.
Finish one small thing and let it be imperfect.
I wrote up a simple version you can follow here:
Create Instead of Consume: A One-Week Experiment
