rethink your priors
If an AI demo works, is it ready for production?
The short answer
No. Every demo works. That's what makes it a demo. A demo runs on the happy path: clean inputs, one user, and someone who knows which buttons not to press. The product is everything else: messy data, odd requests, permissions, the case nobody thought of, and what happens when the model is confidently wrong. That last stretch is often most of the work, and it's where the real decisions live. Before calling something ready, test it on real examples from your own work, including the ugly ones. Decide what it should do when it isn't sure. Decide who notices when it fails, and how fast. Measure the outcome it was built for. If it only works when the person who built it is in the room, it's still a demo.
Outcome first
- Ship the last 20%.
- That's where the product lives.
Want this applied to your actual workflow? That part isn't a cartoon. Work with Eduardo. Longer writing: The Compounding Founder.