Some famous people told me how to get superpowers. I did. They all happen to agree on this topic. Now I’m going to tell you the same secret. I’ll even help you out a bit more.

The most powerful, important thing you can do is to get your code in front of the people who will use it. Do it as fast as possible. Do it when it’s not ready yet. Do it when it makes you uncomfortable.

What does that have to do with superpowers, though? We’ll get there. But first, more about shipping code.

But It’s Not Ready!

Jeff Atwood, the guy who started Stack Overflow, knows all the excuses. That’s why he wrote Version 1 Sucks, But Ship It Anyway. It’s worth a read.

In the end, it boils down to this. You’re somebody who is reading about software when you don’t have to. Right here in this post, even! You care about your craft.

True software craft is about making software people want to use — that is worth using (Jeff Atwood again). To do that, let them use it and then fix the problems they care about. And the faster you find the problem, the cheaper it is to fix (see below, credit to gridshore.nl.)

You want to ship it “not ready.” That’s the easiest, best time to fix it.

Shipping is a Superpower

Steve Jobs says “Real Artists Ship” — and he’s right.

Seth Godin says that you don’t ship because your lizard brain is defeating your innate brilliance — and he’s right. When he talks about “the resistance” you should assume he means it from The War of Art.

When I say that shipping early means you serve your craft better and you’re more focused, I’m saying it gives you a superpower — it makes you better than you would be otherwise, and better than other people are now.

You can ignore a superpower that you’d otherwise use. I hear there may be some down-side to ignoring the power the world hands you, but it’s up to you.

Where Do Superpowers Come From?

But then, how would you get better at shipping, other than just doing it?

You do you get your superpower?

You could make shipping easy, using careful automation. You could learn the tools that make this powerful, which only a few people use yet.

But to do it right, there are many important ones. Vagrant, Chef, Librarian and Capistrano are my favorite constellation of tools, and that’s already a huge amount to learn.

But… How do you get your superpowers then?

I’d Love to Help

Most of these aren’t hard once you set them up. Setting them up is horrible, but it only happens once.

Want to do that in fast-forward and skip straight to having superpowers?

I can help. I can get those things working smoothly for you. And from there on, you can just enjoy being That Guy or Gal Who Ships Things.

Some people make a career and a ton of money from that superpower (Amy is a teacher of mine.)

By the way — I’m looking for customers for a pilot class. Wouldn’t you love to be in the first batch that I help get their superpowers?

Email me back. I’m the.codefolio.guy at Google’s well-known email provider.

The pilot program will open this week. I’d love you to be in it. Read the product web site for more details.