“the biggest wins we found were always like the third or fourth swing at something because you ship something you realize it doesn't work and if you move on immediately then unless you were completely off base it doesn't work”

Your Biggest Product Wins Come On The Third Or Fourth Attempt At The Same Problem

Dan's repeated experience at Codeacademy: the first and second attempt at any meaningful product problem rarely land. Engineers need time to learn the codebase area; designers need to internalize the nuances; the team needs to build intuition. The teams that win are the ones that stay focused on a problem long enough to take three or four shots — and look for 'signs of life' in test variants rather than declaring failure and moving on.