A finished imperfect thing can become excellent; an imaginary perfect thing cannot.

There is a path from a finished poor version to something excellent, and it consists of revision, which requires an object. There is no path from an imagined perfect version to anything, since nothing exists to work on. The comparison people make is between two things in different categories.

Make the bad complete version first. It is the only starting point that leads anywhere, and it is almost always less bad than expected.