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Comment by georgerobinson | Hacker News Reader

If you're embarrassed by the first version of your product (i.e. suppose it's buggy, or is lacking in it's UI) then it's probably not ready to ship? There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product.

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> There is nothing worse than shipping a half-baked product.

Well, other than never shipping at all, which is, of course, the point ;)

Depends on the business.

If you're shipping respirators, cryovalves, automated replenishment systems...

Somehow I doubt you or anyone else here is shipping respirators and cryovalves as side projects, and even if so, the context here is clearly web and infrastructure software.

There's a set of tradeoffs here. 1) You really, really need feedback from your users as early as possible, to help keep you on-track. 2) Shipping something truly half-baked can kill your chances with most of those users.

The trick is in threading the needle on this one. In my experience "shipping" doesn't need to be a binary operation. Seek out your early adopters as soon as possible, get your product in front of them, and take their (hopefully) constructively blunt feedback to heart. Ask them what's needed to make it truly usable for the rest of your users.

"If you're embarrassed by the first version of your product (i.e. suppose it's buggy, ..."

A first release must not be buggy. But it can have a limited set of functionality. Imho, the real art of software development is to restrict the initial set of functionality and get that done, as quickly as possible (but not quicker), bug free (sic) and useful.

Did you just (sic) your own comment? I'm confused.

No, I (sic)ed 'bug free', because this is a goal that may never be achieved. I want to say "try as hard as possible" but did not want to look like I think it actually IS possible.

I think you're both right. And knowing the right balance is the key.

Reid Hoffman:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bldr6K1IEAAzeSl.jpg:large

Thanks. I had trouble reading it in text form, but now that it's an image that includes a guy's head I get the point.

I thought there was some confusion about who the credit for the quote went to. People weren't referring to Reid by name. The link was simply the first Google result that I clicked. Random.

In the case of LinkedIn, the world might have been a better place if they'd never shipped at all.

It depends on how high your standards are. If you're a perfectionist then you're going to be forever embarrassed. Meanwhile the general public finds your product to be perfectly usable and useful, because they aren't running into any of the bugs that exist.

I think the balance is the key. It's a very catchy phrase but yeah, one should not take it very literally.

There are a lot of things, like say your competitors eating your lunch. If someone comes along and sort of satisfies the need it's easier for them to get people to upgrade than it is for you to come along later with a more polished product and ask them to migrate.

Depends on how much lock in your product has. Often an early releaser ends up creating a market and then a competitor comes in and releases a much more polished product and everyone jumps ship.

I'm embarrassed by the first versions of all of my products. I'm NOT embarrassed by the current versions.

Yes, I shipped. Yes, it was shit. Yes, it got MUCH better after it got real-world use.

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