If you constantly improve your product without releasing it, here's what I've learned
After a few months of working on Bathtimer -- first without, then with users -- I've realized something - 99% of my all-time users won't even see the app as it is right now.
Even though it's become a common mantra to "launch early and launch often," I've found myself falling into the loop of "but I can't present this to real users if it doesn't have x, y, z." That looks unprofessional!
A few days ago, I sat down and thought about it. 1 year, 5 years from now, new users will use my app for the first time. It'll be more user-friendly, useful, and attractive, and they won't even know about the primitive beginnings. Just got to take the hit early on. That motivates me to keep going.
What do you think, is this relatable?
(Also, I decided to also post this on the site. Check if it out if you're interested: https://www.bathtimer.com/blog/early-motivation-to-continue-bathtimer)
Hey 👋
When it comes to shipping, perfection is your worst enemy. What you feel unprofessional and what your customers feel unprofessional are really two different things.
You should aim to solve the real core problem they have and launch asap to confirm that before trying to polish. And this at every small steps you take.
I realize how tempting it is to keep working on the product until it looks perfect, but perhaps the following analogy can help.
Let’s assume the perfect product for your customers is ahead of you, in a definite distance of 100 steps. Now, let’s assume you have an angle of possibilities to advance 100 steps.
If you move one step, you can correct your direction pretty easily as you dont have much momentum in the wrong way. If you move 50 steps ahead, it becomes really hard to correct and go back on track if it proves wrong, because the distance between your path and the correct path grows at each step.
Each shipping is a validation you’re in the correct path, no matter how small the step is.
As you can see, the problem is not whether or not your future customer will see your product as it was before, but more on the time and cost of changing, that will simply make you run out of money and/or motivation 😊
Love the 100 steps example. It reminds me of when I took a Machine Learning course back in college, where during model training, it would frequently make adjustments to ensure it was on the correct path towards an optimal model.
I'm happy to give insights and that you love the metaphor, thanks!😊
Sure, let's connect!
My co-founder and I are stuck in this loop right now!
We keep pushing the launch back because we want it to be perfect. This is clearly insane...
I'm trying to improve on my perfectionist tendencies, but it's so hard. We're launching the product this week, and I'm nearly crippled by all the issues I have on the linear board.
You just need to take a deep breath, stare deep into the void, and launch anyway. You're not an artist, you're a founder -- you need feedback.
Yeah, it can (and will) be really hard. I was watching a series on the Y Combinator YouTube channel about "doing things that don't scale." It's really neat to hear stories of successful companies' beginnings that were really, really scrappy.
I am also an artist by nature, but lately I can see messy beginnings as beautiful. It's nice to start off and stay elegant, but there's something glamorous about gradually bringing order to a chaotic situation.
Good luck!
I've been doing this for 10 year with https://rpgplayground.com, so I guess I can chime in :).
Even the users that drop out because your product is incomplete, they might show up later to take another look. There is a difference between "a crappy product" and "an incomplete product under development", and users really get the difference when you present it properly.
And like others have mentioned already, the feedback you get is really invaluable!
What mainly keeps me going is my hard-core fans, that are always there using the product and chiming in.
Thanks for the perspective. RPG Playground looks awesome, I would've eaten that up during my middle school days instead of using Scratch to make games!
As with most things in life and startups - I think there is a spectrum. Really depends on what your product does - that core thing. If it doesn't do that one thing well, and real people are relying on you to solve a real problem, then there is merit to polishing that before launching.
In our case, we're in the financial planning and B2B financial forecasting space, and I often remind the team that 1+1 MUST EQUAL 2 before we launch.
Now, if you're getting caught up in fonts and the colour of buttons and add on features - completely agree!
it can feel hard to chase early adopters, knowing that you'll likely NOT be able to support their needs as well as your later customers. All part of the game.
Like the way you frame this! Find it hard to put ego aside and just focus on getting signal that you're building something...anything of value
Thanks! Yeaa, ego can be an obstacle. It's why we start and why we fail.
The idea behind early mvp release and constant updates and releases feels like a marketing strategy, all of this is because people love seeing the product they use evolve.
So I think that at that time, in a year or five, you will have a new marketing strategy that will reflect the state of the app.
True, so users that have always been along for the ride also benefit, love it.
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Haha agree. I was aware of the best practice, but now it's integrated in my mind emotionally and not just logically!
The question then becomes how to know the right feedback to listen to, even non-negative feedback doesn't mean it's right as far as product, but having feedback to sift through is a good problem to have. (fwict)
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.