I'm sure you have heard of the saying "Quality over Quantity" or variations of it before. It basically means it's better to build, create, have, better things rather than more things. Today I'm going to be talking about my opinion of this saying and when it should and shouldn't apply. For this post I will be focusing on Quality vs Quantity in the sense of building products, services, and software.
Now you might be thinking, isn't no quality a bad thing? Yes, no quality is a bad thing. You should always strive to build the best things possible. I'm not saying that you shouldn't focus on that.
Although I still try to put a heavy focus on quality, I also am trying a new strategy that focuses on building new products based on new technologies that I don't have quite as much experience in. For example my company's new faxdeliver application I built with 3 new technologies that although I had read a lot about, I had never actually used in an application. I have also been building some Electron and React Native applications recently, which are technologies I don't have a ton of experience in.
In order to do this I try to come up with ideas in a very limited scope. At times I might decide on a new technology I want to learn and think of an application or service idea based on that new technology. Working on limiting my scope has always been difficult for me, and I think it will continue to be, but I have strived for it to be one of my goals recently. It has lead to releasing more products recently which I'm very proud of and is a major benefit of limiting scope.
There are some applications and services that don't require a large amount of quality focus. Sometimes customers just want something that works, and if you are able to provide a lot of those products in an efficient manner, I believe that is a road to success.
I have learned countless technologies due to having the mindset of limiting scope and trying to release more simple products than one huge product.
Now I still do believe my mindset is slightly bad. I honestly believe what I release is high quality and has a purpose. Sometimes I confuse quality, with advanced, suffocated, and large. Which I think can be detrimental to me. Simple quality is possible. At times throughout the development process that is something I tend to forget, which I believe is a bad mindset to have.
I believe that is my major point. Don't sacrifice Quality for Quantity. But know when to limit your scope to get a product out there. Know how to release a simple product and learn new technologies along the way. And ALWAYS be learning. Because in the end, one of those products might become a massive hit, and you will then have the experience of all the other products you developed, and the technologies you learned along the way to expand that billion dollar idea.