During the first summer of Pardot we embarked on a crazy adventure with 11 full-time summer interns. While I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone, we learned a ton and built the foundation of an amazing product. Near the end of the summer, most of the interns had finished and one excellent one stayed around to continue working part-time during the school year. One day, when all the immediate summer engineering projects were done, he walked in and said with a straight face:
Well, there’s nothing left to build. We finished everything and the product is completely done.
Of course, the product is never done. Here are a few reasons why:
- Markets are constantly iterating and evolving (features that are hot one quarter won’t be hot the next)
- Customer demands and needs continually change (as customer usage matures, more requests come in for edge cases)
- Competitors introduce valuable new functionality (there’s always an arms-race between the major players in an industry)
- New technologies emerge (e.g. supporting different screen resolutions, devices, and formats)
Products with fast-growing customer bases are continually improving and never done. If anyone suggests otherwise, take them through any major product they use on a regular basis and point out how it’s evolved.
What else? What are some other thoughts on the idea that there’s always room to improve?
David Cummings on Startups 
That is still one of my favorite memories from the early days of Pardot!
Were all the full-time interns paid, or was it part of a credit for college course? If they were paid, how does a lean startup go about setting the rate? Thoughts?