DO IT, THEN FIX IT AS YOU GO.

The record books (Wikipedia) tell us that Karl Benz was the first person to build a practical car and the first to get a car into production.?

Karl was a great engineer and a perfectionist, but his drive to perfectionism almost cost him his place in history.?

After developing and patenting the car Karl then tinkered with the design, then he tinkered a little more, and then some more, until two and a half years had passed with no sign that that car was ready to launch.

Karl was married to Bertha, and Bertha was the main investor in their business and Karl’s invention.?With no sign of money was coming in and yet more tinkering on the horizon, Bertha’s patience finally broke.?

The 'Motorwagon' was ready and it needed to be showcased, to turn an obsession into a business that would support the family.?

One day 5 August 1888, without telling Karl, Betha jumped in the car with her two young boys and headed off to drive the return trip to her mother’s house 66 miles away... inventing the road trip.?

Throughout the journey Bertha discovered issues that only appeared in a real world test of the car, and she had to develop solutions as she want.?

The Motorwagen only managed 25 mpg with the tank that only held 1.3 gallons, so she’d need to fill it up four times, but there were no fuel stations. Twenty miles into her journey she stopped at an apothecary and bought their entire stock of ligroin (a form of petrol used as a cleaning product)... inventing the filling station.?

The wooden brake blocks rapidly wore out, so she stopped at a shoemaker and got them to make some leather pads... inventing brake pads.

She encountered a number of hills which forced Bertha and her boys to get out and push, so on her return she got Karl to add an extra gear... inventing third gear.

Her demonstration caused a sensation throughout Germany. It was a PR and Marketing triumph.

By driving over 130 miles, she’d demonstrated that a much maligned oddity that had previously been banned from public roads was a viable competitor to the horse and carriage.

With interest in the car rising, the rules were relaxed and Karl was allowed to drive around Munich, “followed by a great crowd of breathless pedestrians, and the astonishment of everyone can easily be imagined”, as reported by The Münchener Tageblatt.

Bertha's proactivity kick-started the business. The car went into production, by the end of the nineteenth century Benz was the largest automobile company in the world, and that business is still thriving today as Mercedes-Benz.

“DO IT, THEN FIX IT AS YOU GO.” ?

"Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it.?Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you’ve got, and fix it as you go."?

―?Paul Arden