The Lost Art of Shipping Products

And that’s fine, innovation takes time. What’s not fine is what it represents: this obsession with being first rather than being ready. Also, doesn't feel right to lure your customers like that for a $20k product...

We live in a time where surfing on the press release boom is more exciting that delivering a finished product. Like if it was the only way for the product to actually release and be financed. If this is really the case, then we reached a desperate point in the tech industry.

I still remember Apple in the 2000s, during their golden age of innovation. They’d unveil the iPhone, iMac, or iPad, and the next slide would proudly say: “Shipping today.” That level of confidence in their products was unmatched. It was what made Apple so special in front of its competitors. And it feels NEO don't have that confidence.

Ship something solid, not just ship fast. Yes, you need to start somewhere. It doesn’t have to be perfect on day one. But it does need to work reliably and create a positive experience. This is what the MVP should do if time is a constraint.

Yet, we don’t lack of examples of previous products that failed to reach that simple MVP concept. Google Glass, Facebook Metaverse, Tesla Full Self Driving… All sold the dream, what we thought was science-fiction. We believed and bought it, thinking we could finally buy that very dream. Reality catch up and often disappoint, as these products were far from ready when they hit the market.

Maybe NEO will prove me wrong. I hope it does. But if not, it’ll just be another very expensive beta test with cash upfront. We’re talking about a product with a $20,000 price tag on it that is far from being perfectly reliable as we first see it now. Behind a simple disappointment, it’s the whole brand credibility that will be falling apart. And in this ultra competitive market, the European brand is risking a lot.

I would love to see NEO succeed and bring back some innovation to our European/Western market. We desperately need it. I hope that the final product (when it ships, cause it’s far from it apparently…) will fulfil its promises and not seen as a nice demo.

At the end of the day, we don’t build products to impress investors. We build them to make people’s lives better. And that still requires the one thing tech seems to have forgotten: patience.