Philip Toussaint

Under our first contract we were late on nearly every delivery. Not because we rushed. The opposite, we kept polishing.

What it actually taught us: being critical earlier, making harder cutthroat calls on scope, and owning misses instead of explaining them.

The uncomfortable part is that "we care about quality" was the excuse, but the real problem was we couldn't say no to our own ideas.

Anyone else had a first client that basically beat product discipline into them? What did it cost you and what did it teach you?