1. Good Enough Never Is
By Mridula Velagapudi
“Good enough never is,” says Fields. “Set your standards so high that even the flaws are considered
excellent.”*
“Good enough never is”, a business philosophy closely associated with Mrs Debbi Fields, is one of my
favourite quotes. When you are out there in the market providing a service or a product, what do you
think defines “good enough” for your product or service? Nothing! “Good enough” is just a milestone
or a stage in the continuous process of improving the quality of your service or product. So it keeps
moving further and it is difficult to capture it [for your business] within the bounds of a definition for
a long time-period or for that matter, even for the moment when you try to define it!
There can be two viewpoints here – one, that you can reach near-excellence, but can never actually
achieve excellence. If you follow this tenet then you will always work for improvement - unless it is
"good enough"! Two, that no matter how much you work to make something excellent, there will
always be someone somewhere in time and space who would not be a satisfied customer - who will not
find your product/service "good enough". So, you judge the "fit-for-the-purpose" state of your
product/service for that time and go to the market.
What do these two viewpoints mean for Entrepreneurs? If you choose the second viewpoint, then the
startup runs a risk of getting beaten down because of lack of excellence. But if you choose the first
viewpoint then, for an entrepreneur who plans to launch his/her start-up, this may sound extremely
unpractical and daunting. After all, if that were the case [that good enough never is] then a start-up
could never take off.
The point that should be appreciated here is that “good enough never is” should always be applied in
relativity; it should be a mantra for a continuous effort towards the detail to quality. From an
entrepreneur‟s point of view, it is better to look at it in this way. Let us assume that you are either
addressing a niche or new market with a product. For example, if you are providing a software product
then you must see which features you can do with just being „good enough” and which features need
nothing less than excellence [or close to it]. Your validation stage in the Entrepreneurial Process
would have helped you in adjusting the requirements and features that you have planned to finally roll
out your product with. You should keep listening to your customers and judging the future trends to
meet the new expectation levels of “good enough”. This way you will see your product evolve into what
the market needs. Seek for perfections that could make a difference to your startup at that stage.
Anything secondary could be “fit for the purpose”. But if you are venturing into a crowded market with
a 'me-too' model, then the “good enough” should be nothing less than excellence – ever!
Since good enough never is, hence there is always a spark for innovative thinking and it brings out
better value propositions. Open markets, globalization, efficient flow of information and business
philosophies such as “good enough never is” are the important factors that propagate
Entrepreneurship.
*Referenced from: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Famous-Entrepreneurs/1558/Lesson-4-Good-Enough-Never-Is.html