Don't build what you can't explain to your team

If I can't explain how a tool works in a couple of plain sentences, I don't hand it to my team yet, no matter how well it runs. A tool nobody but me understands is a risk waiting to happen.

Owners who build alone sometimes forget that the tool eventually needs to survive without them standing over it. If you go on vacation, or hand off a task, someone else needs to trust and use the thing you built. Being able to explain it simply is proof you actually understand it yourself, not just proof it happens to work today.

Try this today: try explaining your most recent tool to a teammate in two plain sentences, and if you can't, spend today simplifying it until you can.