Too Early

“ If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. ”
– Reid Hoffman

(via venturevoice)

5 Comments leave a comment below

  1. hmmm…interesting “best practice” idea… a few thoughts/questions though:

    1) being embarrassed is much different than being humiliated…
    2) How do you judge something is sufficient enough to be released that it only embarrasses you/your company, but doesn’t humiliate you/your company?
    3) launching before everything is “perfect” – what do you get from this? Hype, press, alpha/beta-version fans, jump on marketshare, scaring competitors, etc.? Anything else?

  2. My takeaway from this practice is that it enables us to be critical of ourselves, to constantly seek self-improvement, to be unafraid to take risks, and to recover quickly when we make mistakes.

    I need to live this quote!

  3. @Shalin

    Regarding (3): As far as practicality goes, the best result of releasing something before it is “perfect” is that you get a reality check. It is almost impossible to actually know which part of your product will work work and which will not. Sure, we have guesses and expectations but they are just that and have to be tested. It’s very easy to spend years creating a “perfect” vision fo find out at launch that it was completely wrong.

  4. @Gleb – copy that! I know that “perfect” is typically not cost-effective and that “better” is often the enemy of “good”.

  5. Danke Tina!
    Let’s go for it!
    Häb en schöne Tag!