Manish

My instinct is always to polish. I want the first thing someone sees to be good, because I figure you only get one first impression and an embarrassing v1 sticks to you.
But almost every product I actually respect started out rough. The early versions were janky and half-broken, and the founders shipped anyway because real users teach you things a year of polishing never will.
So I go back and forth on this constantly.
The case for shipping ugly is that you stop guessing. You find out what people actually care about instead of perfecting features nobody asked for. The case for waiting is that a bad first experience can kill momentum before it ever gets a chance to stick, and you don't always get told why people left.
I think the answer depends on how reversible the launch is. A small audience that forgives you is very different from a big public moment you can't take back.
But I'm probably biased toward polishing longer than I should, and I've definitely buried good ideas thinking they were not ready yet.
Where do you land: ship the ugly version and learn, or hold it until you're proud of it?

This could be related to your industry, or even a side project you're working on.

Here are my 5 (I couldn't function without them):

1. Grammarly proofreading my texts, not just posts, but also client communication

2. ChatGPT / Claude mostly brainstorming, help with copy, and summarising

3. Figma I can put the basic graphics together quickly.

4. Translator sounds incredibly old-school, but English is not my mother tongue

5. Gmail and not only for communication, but also for storing ideas and sending myself email reminders for posts

Most AI features feel like gimmicks because they're a button looking for a reason to exist. Someone in a meeting said "we need AI" and three weeks later (or maybe hours now with Claude Code) there's a sparkle icon in the corner that summarizes things nobody asked to have summarized.

The test I use: if you stripped the word "AI" off it entirely, would people still want it? If the answer is no, it's a gimmick.