| I have found myself saying this in my mobile apps business. Oftentimes, I will contact someone associated with the community for a product I am building and ask them if they want to help promote the product once it's out. They take this as some sort of partnership where I have to get their permission to publish my products or go in the direction they want to go, just because they might help me out. And usually these companies are slower moving than I am, so doing the back-and-forth and getting feedback would take forever. With mobile apps, you have no idea if the thing will ever take off, and I have found it is best to just launch the thing and see what happens. I'm not sure what some of these people think. I'm an independent businessman. I have the right to do whatever I want with my own products, and yes, I can choose to launch something whenever I damn well please. If you like it, go ahead and promote it. If you don't, don't. I honestly don't care. So I take this saying more as "Doing anything at all will always be perceived as offensive to someone. You might as well do it and let them get offended." And I know that soundbite lacks nuance and could easily be taken to mean something else, but then it wouldn't be a cool soundbite either. Obviously don't murder, rape, etc, and do take others into consideration when you are working on a team and you need their help longterm. But I think the essence of the saying is that nobody is purely innocent and anything worth doing will probably ruffle some feathers. If you're overly cautious, you won't ever accomplish anything significant. |