Freedom to fail

Last week I broke Edicek for two days and nobody complained. Not because the bug was subtle or hidden—but because there was basically nobody there to see it.

I was working on timeline cards. The issue was that every time you refreshed the page, the card would render small first, then suddenly jump taller when the image loaded. It looked janky and unprofessional.

So I spent a few hours calculating thumbnail sizes upfront to reserve the proper space with a placeholder. While I was at it, I added caching so images wouldn't reload every single time someone refreshed, which would save bandwidth for users.

I made a mistake with the caching logic. Everything stopped loading. The images were stuck—broken for anyone trying to use the timeline.

It took me two full days to notice because of how caching works. If you had already loaded the page before the bug, your browser would keep serving the cached version. But anyone trying to load it fresh got nothing.

If I had a thousand users, this would have been a nightmare. My inbox would be full of angry emails. People would be complaining on social media. I'd be losing trust and credibility. Some users would probably switch to competitors because they'd assume the product is unreliable.

But I have three users. So when I finally noticed the bug, I fixed it, and moved on. No damage done.

I used to stress about having so few users. Now I realize I have something valuable that won't last forever—the freedom to fail without consequences.

I can experiment with systems I don't fully understand yet. I can try new features that might break things. I can refactor the entire codebase on a Tuesday afternoon if I feel like it. When something breaks, I learn from it and fix it. There are no angry users to manage, no revenue losses to explain, no reputation damage to repair.

This is the real advantage of being early. Once Edicek has hundreds or thousands of users, I won't be able to take these kinds of risks anymore. Every code change will need proper testing. Every bug will have real consequences. The stakes will be higher.

So I'm using this window while I have it. Experimenting with things I'm curious about. Making mistakes and learning from them. Building the foundation while it's still safe to break things.

This freedom doesn't last forever. I'm making the most of it while I can.