[nadam]

Hmm, I think 'fail fast' and 'embrace the grind' are popular and somewhat contradictory advices. Which is better? I think 'fail fast' is (or was?) a bit overhyped so I tend to err on the side of 'embrace the grind'. But obviously the art is in deciding which one to follow in a case by case basis. Working on your dream game for years only to find absolutely no traction is not a good place to be in, but constantly chasing low-effort ideas without any 'moat' can be also fruitless. Moat usually comes with time, effort, and resources invested.

[baxtr]

I wonder if this isn't the same as explore vs. exploit.

Fail fast = use it when in exploration mode. Dig here, dig there until you find something of worth

Embrace the grind = once you have found something worthwhile, speed a lot of time

[isaiahwp]

Maybe "embrace the grind" encapsulates "fail fast"? Success rarely comes from failing just once—most of the time, repeated failure is part of the grind.

[grayhatter]

fail fast is about making money as a startup, embrace the grind is about improving something hard to improve. Startups rarely care about deeper aspects of quality.

Fail fast is a pretty trash idea, if you exclusively mean don't be afraid to do new things, then I'm all for it. If you're careless with the idea, as most of the people who embrace it seem to be. It means do something bad to your users.

I'm gonna steal (badly) a quote from superfastmatt here (before I go find the video and correct the quote)

> The motto of hech companies is "fail fast", the motto of companies like NASA might be "never fail", the motto of Boeing is just "fail"

I think it perfectly highlights the dichotomy between good engineering, and bad.

edit: yeah, his delivery is so much better than my atrocious attempt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ867EDWcls it's the very start of the video, and his entire channel is amazing and hilarious.

the real quote: Tech companies have a mantra of "fail fast, fail often", This is in contrast to an organization like NASA who could have the phrase "try not to fail", or Boeing who prefers the simpler "fail". While NASA would prefer to do things methodically making sure to check all the boxes along the way; SpaceX would rather just take an educated guess build something strap a bunch of sensors to it and see what happens. You can learn a lot very quickly the second way, I also do things this way but not because I'm trying to disrupt any paradigms it's because it's just more fun to do it that way [...]