Why You Haven't Launched
softwarebyrob.com
softwarebyrob.com
A recurring meme here (and almost everywhere else) is the equivalent of "Just Do It". Excellent advice, almost all the time. Almost. Except when it's terrible advice.
Yes, as someone who has suffered after launching too soon, I will go against prevailing wisdom and suggest the unthinkable, "Maybe you're really not ready and can do more harm than good by launching prematurely." Just a few of the bad things that can happen:
1. People will visit once, see that it's crap and never come back again, no matter what you do.
2. You will be overwhelmed by support requirements to the extent that all development stops.
3. You will be overwhelmed by support requirements to the extent that much support never gets addressed.
4. Your calendar becomes science fiction; everything has changed and it's a whole new ballgame.
5. The stress level will become so overwhelming for some of your people that you will simply lose them. Forever.
6. If you have taken people's money and not delivered, the guilt can become so overwhelming that it cripples you.
7. Your marathon has turned into a sprint you cannot finish. You have launched and lost.
I love the idea of pushing the envelope and launching sooner rather than later. You must have real world feedback and launching is best way to get it. But launching too early early is just as bad as launching too late. So how do you know when the time is right? I don't have a definitive answer, but I do know that "your gut" is a critical input. Sooner or later, you just have to go with it.
Launch with the absolute minimum amount that actually provides value to the customer. This is usually a lot less than you think it is.
It doesn't matter if other products are more useful; nor if that minimum set expresses the really cool goal I have, or the essence of my approach. Just that it be some use to some one.
I think of this a little bit like a strategy for proving theorems: if you haven't got time to prove the thing you are aiming at, but you need to publish something, you can always restrict your assumptions and goal to what you can manage, and prove that. Now you have a base you can build on.
everything > something; but something > nothing
But some of those problems sound like they could be ameliorated by minimising features and making sure that the few features that you do implement are tested as thoroughly as possible. If someone looks at your software and it doesn't do what they want, they might come back, especially if they hear that you've added stuff. If they look at your software and it tries to do what they want then crashes, it's less likely. Similarly, if you lack features then more of the support requests you have to deal with will be "I want this!" rather than "I tried to do this and it didn't work" -- so you can send back a quick "thanks for the feedback" form email and then direct development to add the features people are asking for. And, of course, if your product does what it says on the tin (and just doesn't say it does very much) then #6 won't apply.
So agreed that "your gut" is a great input on the go-live date, but another good one is:
- Have I used it enough to be sure that I know about most of the bugs? - Have I fixed all of the ones that matter (for a fairly pernickety value of "matter")?
(Of course, the line between a "bug" and a "feature that I really want" can be a fine one, especially in some industries and for certain users. But I don't think that's avoidable -- when you launch you are guaranteed to not have every feature that every user wants.)
Most of your cases are valid and important, but this point is unworthy of your concern. It's unbelievably hard to produce Internet content that is hated AND widespread. More often, crap is filtered and forgotten. Scroll to the bottom of any large HN thread to see what I mean - there's always a long tail of posts that are practically unread, some written by well-respected members of the community.
Irritating some fickle people is a small price to pay for getting feedback from someone who likes your idea.
I don't buy it.
The corollary of this is that every entrepreneur should be able to come up with an idea that will be a rock solid success every month.
It is easy to come up with ideas, but successful ideas (whether the reason for the success is being first to a new market, a better implementation of an existing idea, or whatever reason turns a good idea into a successful idea) are hard to come by.
Superstar entrepreneurs may be able to come up with such ideas with such frequency.
But if you can't, you should give up? I don't think so.
Maybe his point(1) is indirectly really about point(5) (for many of us)
I can't imagine someone not being able to think of an idea within a month -- but I can imagine someone who shuts down all of his own ideas because he's afraid of failure. Following the blog post, someone like this really probably isn't suited for startup life at all. He'd probably find himself in some of the other of the Five Reasons if he gets that far.
I've done it. I've seen others do it.
What do other HN'ers use here to cut down on distractions and interruptions?
1) Constraints force innovation. This could be taken several directions, but what I'm really trying to get at here is if you have very limited time and limited budget, you're forced to do only what is necessary and only add critical features to your product. A one-man bootstrapped startup probably won't have the time and funding to add every single feature, which is blessing in disguise - the product ships faster and doesn't have a bunch of crap that nobody wants.
2) Nobody realizes your vision like you do. Sure, other people could do some of the coding, design, and usability work for you, but who says those people will get it right? They don't see the product like you do, and that could make or break your vision. (This doesn't apply to dime-a-dozen skills like psd slicing).
3) It's invaluable to learn new skillsets. Maybe you aren't destined to be the world's greatest designer or code ninja, but learning these skills will enhance your understanding and communication down the road. Knowledge of these skills could certainly aid in hiring employees and could prevent you from getting burned in an outsource deal later on.
Looking at my Analytics stats, most of my visitors are from the USA, but my site is more Asia focused. So now, I'm working on a variation to make it more localized.
- Target Asian traffic instead USA traffic.
- Try to convince users I'm not selling snake oil. It is not easy especially when the service can help investors make money. A common question I get is why then am I giving it away. People might think I'm trying to Pump and Dump the stocks.
So now, I am focusing my efforts on my friends and WOM instead. I hope by helping them, they can recommend potential customers to me. I feel that this approach might be more appropriate for this type of service.
Any feedbacks welcome. :)
Although it has meant I've got the cash now, so I'm bringing a guy on part-time through summer.
What eventually worked for me was getting myself about 2.5 months of a breather from all consulting commitments and getting BCC past the busy season. I've been able to devote almost 100% of my time the last two weeks to AR, and it is progressing faster than any project in my life.
I also hired a virtual assistant and have been aggressive about firing off things to her rather than spending an hour or two chasing them down myself. I'll write it up after I have some results to show, but it has been a real stress saver to know that e.g. bookkeeping for January through October is now in the "being accomplished" pile rather than the "have to put it off to tomorrow because I've got code to write today" pile.
I'll be happy to recommend them after they produce recommendation-worthy results, but I'm barely started with her yet. The first task was only partially successful, but that wasn't her fault. (I had her cancel a service that I've had AOLesque difficulty canceling. They wouldn't talk other about it, but she did get a direct line to a CSR with cancellation authority for me to call, so I was done in two minutes on the phone instead of an hour.)
If she can reduce my bookkeeping backlog from ten hours to one, then I'll spend an hour singing their praises on my blog. (And then figure out some more grunt work to get rid of.)