Dubinsky: "at Handspring...we kill projects"
Donna Dubinsky talks relates the Palm and Handspring story in this Fortune feature:
The PalmPilot was born out of frustration. At first almost all we did at Palm Computing was sell handwriting-recognition software. But we got tired of seeing our great software run on others' so-so handheld computers. We'd tell them what we thought they could do to improve, but they wouldn't accept our little company's influence. Bruce Dunlevie got sick of Jeff and me complaining about our partners' lack of innovation and vision and said, 'You know, if you guys know what to do, why don't you go do it?' The next day Jeff shows up with a little cardboard and wooden model he'd glued together in his garage. That model became the PalmPilot.
...You have to be nimble. I doubt there's any entrepreneur who's succeeded on his original business plan. Situations change, the dynamic changes, the competitive environment changes, the technologies change. You have to be able to adapt.
You also have to be able to stop things. One of the disciplines I'm most proud of at Handspring is that we kill projects. That is so hard to do when people have invested their time and effort. And they're good projects. But you have to decide, Hey, when we started, it made a lot of sense. Today, for whatever reason, it doesn't. We can't keep doing it just because it's got momentum.