Always Launch-able Manifesto

Minimally Viable Product. Sounds great in theory, but in practice, you always tell yourself, "just a little more!", "these features are important!", "rewriting it will let me iterate faster!", or "I'm still learning!". Some people may ascribe it to the perfectionist in them, while others blame it on their unwillingness to venture outside of their comfort zone, namely product development. When we're uncertain, we tend to just keep ourselves busy with what we're most adept at. It's the kind of busy-ness that lets us think we're making progress, when in fact we're running in circles. It's unproductive.

Perhaps if we stop ascribing so much importance to launching our product, we'd be more likely to launch the product. Failure to launch reflects less on our ability to implement, and more on our inability to break things down and to identify our core value propositions. If we grant this is true, then it's obvious what we have to do: to regress the vision of our product, to strip the product down to its barest, and then some more, and leave it for all to see what it really is. We then do it again the next day, and the days after, each time re-attaching a little more flesh to the bones than before. At each stage, the product, while incomplete, remains coherent with respect to its scaled back vision.

To that point, here's a question for us to ponder: if you begin with nothing, and you are given one minute to launch a product, what would you have done?

Understand that the goal of launching a product is to make your value proposition known to others. Whether it lives up to its promises, that is up to the audience.

To that end, I would spend that one minute to briefly write what the product hopes to provide, and set it loose. It could be a medium post, a tweet, or an Indiehacker post.

If an hour, I would sketch some mock-ups, and set them loose.

If a day, I would prototype the core functionality, and set it loose.

If a week, I would flesh it out some more, and set it loose.

If a month, I would make it pretty, and set it loose.

And eventually, I will have built a sizable audience, and hopefully, have them resonate with my vision for the product and recognize the value it brings.

The product, while incomplete, is always coherent, and is always in a launch-able state.

That is my always launch-able manifesto.