Apparently the thing wasn't designed correctly, which means it was designed differently from older designs that have proved to stand against the test of time. This isn't by any means an indictment against the new, rather it's a critique on how we explore the new in relation to our connections to the past. Loads of resources can safely be poured into a proven design. This doesn't mean that new designs shouldn't be explored, only that the resources we allocate to new designs should be proportional to the degree to which they have proven their worth. Though, even this doesn't seem correct. Many radical new innovations required enormous amounts of tinkering in order to get right. Thomas Edison for example is famously known to have gone through 10,000 iterations before he finally got the lightbulb correct: that's an enormous amount of resources poured into something completely unproven. But, that being said, with each iteration he did not make the largest possible lightbulb. So, it's not simply all or nothing when it comes to resources, but a matter of which resources we allocate heavily with and which we are sparing with.

 

A full sized ship is an enormous amount of wood. But a radical new design can likely be tested with a much smaller model if the ratios and proportions are correctly calculated. The Vasa was unbelievably unstable, with most of its weight in the upper structure of the hull, making it top-heavy. When a wind stronger than a breeze completely toppled the ship, it sank. One could have figured this out with a tiny model of the ship, and yet.

 

Many art projects (novels) and even start-ups - companies, can suffer from Vasa Syndrome. When founders raise unimaginable gobs of money for a product that can be prototyped and tested with customers on an incredibly slim budget, the practice seems more akin to building a Vasa. Why amass so much money and dedicate so much time on something that might not work? 

 

Let's compare the novel with Edison's lightbulb. Both take an enormous amount of time, ie, a huge amount of resources. But there's a crucial difference. Edison is getting feedback, the aspiring novelist is not. The naive novelist is much like the designer of the Vasa: imagining something radically new and envisioning it will be a triumph on the day it is finally launched into the world - only to find that no one wants to read the book and the few that do manage to crack it's pages find little to hold their attention. Edison is more like the short story writer, each iteration of the lightbulb a new little story. Each time he tries to turn on a given iteration of the lightbulb is like publishing a short story for all to see and read and give feedback on. Someone reads it and loves it and shares it? It's akin to the bulb flickering on briefly. A publisher reads a couple stories and offers a book contract? Well now that bulb is glowing brightly and steadily. 

 

Oddly, the hockey stick of exponentials is prevalent here. Whether that exponential goes up or down is dependent on how we go about our projects. A short story writer, or an inventor of a light bulb and see small gains with consistent feedback, and it seems linear - much like exponentials look in the early stage of the curve. But then, seemingly overnight, the effectiveness of the writer or the honed design of the lightbulb, turns on and takes off. 

 

Unlike the novelist who cloisters their effort from feedback or the founder who fails to acquire or interact with customers. The lack of feedback is creating a totally different kind of linear trend, one that leads to a total flop, and in the case of the Vasa, a literal flip - a sunk ship. 

 

The moral of the Vasa Syndrome is to seek consistent feedback. Don't work on the idea until it's perfect, let reality have it's say about how the design should evolve.