The lost art of giving a sh*t

Yesterday, I got 2 emails from the company doing my taxes indicating that I have 'outstanding items' on my account and that I should address them 'ASAP.' Annoying, but fine. Yet much to my surprise, I found no such thing upon logging in. After reaching out to my account representative, they confirmed no outstanding items.

This has happened multiple times just this month, unfortunately.

It just adds onto the grievances I've had with the product in general. Many, many small cuts — and though small, they add up and produce compounding frustration. And I'm not just picking on my tax guys, either. The norm these days is for products to simply be 'okay.'

Whether it's an e-commerce shop with broken links that have been rotting for weeks, or an analytics product that makes you copy/paste URLs for filtering instead of simply letting you click on them.

The bar is low. Very, very low —

Too low.

You can stand out if you simply give a sh*t about your product. Have some pride in what you create — regardless of your position.

If you're a founder, you should give a sh*t. You can start by dogfooding your own product. You'll immediately find the sharp edges. You'll experience what your customers have to deal with every day.

If you're a founder and you don't give a sh*t, nobody else will.

Not your employees. They'll continue to ship slop to your customers.

Not your customers. They'll consider you replaceable.

Nobody.

So give a sh*t.