I used to think being thorough meant thinking of everything upfront. Every edge case. Every feature. Every possibility. I thought that's what made me a good developer.
Then I got assigned the comment section project, and everything I thought I knew got turned upside down.
Dream Project ?
When I first sat in that meeting with design and product, I was excited. We were building a comment section! But as the requirements kept coming, my excitement turned into something else entirely.
"Users should be able to comment." Okay, cool. "And reply to comments." Makes sense. "Oh, and edit their comments. And mention other users. And attach files. And..." The list went on. And on. By the end of the meeting, we weren't building a comment section anymore—we were building a social media platform.
The Month-Long Plan
I did what I always did. I dove deep. I spent days brainstorming. I went through every design file, pixel by pixel. I researched UI patterns for nested comments. I looked at how Slack handles mentions. I studied how Discord manages attachments. I architected the database schema. I thought through every state, every edge case, every user interaction. I was thorough.
After a week of research and planning, I had it: a comprehensive plan to deliver everything. Timeline? One month. I was confident. I had done my homework. I knew my architecture was solid. I walked into that presentation ready to wow everyone with my meticulous planning.
Reality Check
"A month? That's too long." Those four words hit differently. At first, I'll admit—I was defensive. Didn't they see how much work this was? Didn't they understand the complexity? I had researched this. I had planned this.
But as I sat there, trying to justify the timeline, something shifted. The question I kept hearing wasn't "Why will this take so long?" It was "When can users start leaving comments?" That's when it clicked.
What Users Actually Wanted
I had been so caught up in building the perfect comment section that I forgot to ask the most important question: What problem are we actually solving? Users were asking for a way to leave messages. To communicate with each other. To share thoughts. They weren't asking for Medium's comment system. They weren't asking for Reddit's threading. They weren't asking for Slack's everything. They just wanted to leave a comment.
Plan 2: The Milestone Approach
I went back to the drawing board, but this time with a different mindset. Instead of "How do I build everything?" I asked "What's the smallest thing I can ship that delivers value?" The answer was almost embarrassingly simple:
- —A text box
- —A submit button
- —Display the comments
That's it. No replies. No editing. No attachments. No mentions. No nothing.
Milestone 1: Basic commenting — 3 days
Milestone 2: User mentions — TBD (based on feedback)
Milestone 3: Editing — TBD (based on feedback)
Milestone 4: Attachments — TBD (if needed)
Milestone 5: Replies — TBD (if needed)
When I presented this plan, the energy in the room completely changed. Stakeholders were excited. We could ship something in days, not weeks.
Three Days to Production
We shipped the first version in three days. It was basic. Really basic. But you know what? It worked. Users could leave comments. Other users could read them. The core value was there.
And here's the magic part: we started getting feedback immediately. "Can we edit our comments if we make a typo?" Okay, now editing moves up the priority list. "It would be nice to reply directly to someone's comment." Threading becomes relevant. But also: "This is great, we've been wanting this for months!" Wait, what? We shipped a "simple" version and users were happy? Where were all the requests for attachments? Where was the demand for @mentions?
The Real Lesson
Turns out, they weren't there. We had been building for imagined needs instead of real ones. By shipping small, we learned: what users actually cared about (editing was way more important than we thought); what we could postpone indefinitely (attachments? Nobody asked for them); what we got wrong (our nested reply design was confusing in practice). And because we had shipped incrementally, changing course was easy. We didn't have three weeks of work to throw away. We had small, shippable pieces we could iterate on.
Moving Forward, Not Starting Over
The best part? Each subsequent release built on real user feedback, not assumptions. We weren't course-correcting a month into development—we were course-correcting three days in. When users asked for editing, we added it in two days. When they wanted to mention people, we built it in a week (with the benefit of knowing exactly how they wanted to use it). When someone finally asked about attachments? We had actual user feedback to inform whether it was worth building at all.
What I Learned
Delivering value isn't about building everything. It's about building the right thing, and the only way to know what's right is to get it in users' hands as quickly as possible. My month-long plan wasn't wrong because it was complex. It was wrong because it delayed learning by 30 days. My three-day plan wasn't right because it was simple. It was right because it let us start learning on day three instead of day thirty.
Now when I look at a big project, I don't ask "How do I build all of this?" I ask: What's the core value? What's the smallest version that delivers that value? How quickly can I get it in front of users? Everything else? That's just iteration based on real feedback, not imagined needs.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Here's what nobody tells you: shipping something "incomplete" feels wrong. Your developer brain screams that it's not ready. What about edge cases? What about that feature you know they'll need eventually? But here's the thing—you don't know what they'll need. None of us do. Not until it's in their hands.
The month-long plan felt safe because it was comprehensive. The three-day plan felt risky because it was minimal. But risk isn't in shipping small—risk is in building big without validation.
Final Thoughts
I still plan. I still architect. I still think through complexity. But now I also ask: "Can I ship less?" Because the ability to change direction? That's worth more than any perfect plan.
And those early users leaving comments in our basic v1? They taught me more in a week than a month of research ever could. Ship small. Learn fast. Adjust. Your stakeholders will thank you. Your users will thank you. And your future self—the one who doesn't have to refactor a month's worth of unused features—will thank you most of all.