Before you complete any project that you really care about and show it to the world, you'll likely be plagued by self-doubt. Will others understand it? Is it missing anything? Can you make it better somehow? At some point, you have to just say "Fuck it, ship it."
That's the motto the Opbeat development team adopted. Like other web entrepreneurs, they were excited yet nervous to finally release their hosted web operations service. Then they realized they were already using it themselves successfully and it was time to get past the anxiety and let go.
The image above is now a poster hanging in Opbeat's office. A high-res (NSFW) version is available for download if you'd like a reminder to overcome your fear of "shipping" too.
It reminds me of another maxim, "Done is better than perfect" and also this quote from Dave Winer:
Software is a process, it's never finished, it's always evolving. That's its nature. We know our software sucks. But it's shipping! Next time we'll do better, but even then it will be shitty. The only software that's perfect is one you're dreaming about. Real software crashes, loses data, is hard to learn and hard to use. But it's a process. We'll make it less shitty. Just watch!
or, as Stack Overflow's Jeff Atwood says in his "How to stop sucking and be awesome instead" presentation: "Version 1 sucks, but ship it anyway."
That's not to say we shouldn't strive to make the best stuff possible. It just means don't let fear or the quest for perfection keep you from finishing things.
Fuck It, Ship It | Opbeat