Hello!
I’ve been working on a new online project for quite a while now.
I’m not ready to talk about what it is yet, but lately I’ve been spending a surprising amount of time on something I thought I had already done:
finishing it.
At some point, all the important pieces were working.
The main features were there. The pages worked. Nothing major was obviously broken.
That feels like the finish line.
It isn’t.
Once I started going through everything more carefully, I kept finding little things.
A sentence that sounded awkward.
Something that didn’t look quite right on my phone.
A step that made perfect sense to me because I already knew what was supposed to happen.
None of these were big problems.
But together, they made me realize there’s a big difference between something that works and something that is actually ready.
You Already Know Too Much
I think this is one of the hardest parts of working on anything yourself.
You know what everything is supposed to mean.0
You know the backstory.
The person seeing it for the first time knows none of that.
So instead of asking:
Does this work?
I’ve started asking:
Would this make sense if I had never seen it before?
That’s a much better question.
And it doesn’t just apply to building websites.
This Applies to Marketing Too
This is where I think it gets useful for almost anybody working online.
Think about something you’re promoting right now.
Maybe it’s an email, a landing page, or an ad you’ve been running for a while.
You probably know exactly what it is, what it does, and what you want people to notice.
But would somebody seeing it for the first time know the same thing?
That’s where things get interesting.
Look at your promotion without filling in the blanks yourself.
Is it immediately obvious what it’s about?
Is the next step clear?
Could something be simplified?
Sometimes improving a promotion isn’t about adding more.
Sometimes it’s just about making what’s already there easier to understand.
The Same Thing Happens With Almost Everything
We finish something, make sure it works, and move on. That makes sense.
The problem is that “finished” makes us stop looking.
Sometimes one more pass is where you catch the friction — something confusing, unnecessary, or not nearly as obvious as you thought it was.
Those can be small changes, but they can completely change how something feels.
I’m Learning to Respect the Last 10%
I used to think getting the major pieces done meant a project was basically finished.
Now I’m starting to think the last 10% is where you stop looking at what you made as the person who created it and start looking at it from somebody else’s point of view.
That applies whether you’re building something big or writing a short email.
Before you call something done, give it one more look.
Not as the person who made it.
As the person who is about to see it for the first time.
You may be surprised what suddenly jumps out at you.
Talk soon,
Jerry
P.S. Pick one thing you’re currently promoting and look at it with fresh eyes today. Don’t ask whether it works. Ask whether it’s obvious. That’s a much tougher test.