Insanely great
John coined a new phrase: “Quality is the best business plan.” What he meant was that quality is not a consequence of following some set of behaviors. Rather, it is a prerequisite and a mindset you must have before you decide what you are setting out to do. Everyone says quality is important, but they must do more than say it. They must live, think, and breathe it. When our people asserted that they only wanted to make films of the highest quality and when we pushed ourselves to the limit in order to prove our commitment to that ideal, Pixar’s identity was cemented. We would be a company that would never settle.
— Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.
Try applying “insanely great” as a standard on a daily basis and see how far you get. People lower their standards in an effort to move things along and get things off their desks. Don’t do it. Fight that impulse every step of the way.
—Frank Slootman, former CEO of Snowflake
Mediocrity is everywhere in life. Insanely great quality is rare. You cannot do what everyone else does and end up with exceptional quality. It requires a different mindset and approach. It requires true devotion.
The word for this that we rally around at Whimsical is “craftsmanship.” At a minimum, craftsmanship means you care deeply. You care so much that you aren’t willing to settle. It’s more of a mindset than a milestone. We don’t expect to achieve perfection every time but we are resolutely committed to quality. It’s a part of our identity and culture. We seek insane quality across every aspect of the company—from the product itself to each customer support interaction to our internal company culture. Quality matters and it matters everywhere.
Quality and productivity are natural partners in creating exceptional work. When you commit to quality, you naturally seek ways to work more effectively—not to rush things out the door, but to create the space for careful craftsmanship. Deep, focused work allows you to uphold high standards while making meaningful progress. By eliminating distractions and protecting time for concentrated effort, you can build better and more efficiently. Without the space for uninterrupted thinking, however, quality will always take a back seat to urgency.
What this looks like at Whimsical…
- Make quality central: We post about it internally, blog about it, discuss it during off-sites, use it to evaluate our work, frame our hiring around it. It’s woven into everything.
- Quality first: When building a new product feature, we focus on ensuring the design and build meet our quality checks versus time-boxing the work into a certain number of weeks.
- Polish phases: We have entire cycles of work where we focus on shipping quality detail updates like small UI improvements or bug fixes.
- Experience it: Before shipping a new feature, we use it and evaluate it within our team first.
- Hiring: When hiring, we look for candidates with a clear track record of craftsmanship in their discipline.