I agree that this is hard and necessary. Whoa. When we were developing the first version of the product, we were always torn between releasing it and letting people see our steaming pile of half-finished code and tearing it apart and waiting until it was "perfect" and "wowing" everyone that came to our site. The reality was exactly what Kent is talking about. We released a terrible looking and difficult-to-use alpha version that people actually used, and it took months to disavow ourselves of features that we thought were awesome that users simply didn't want.
I also agree strongly with bmelton, geez, it's so tough to fight the desire to release something "perfect" when it's way more valuable to answer the burning questions and leave perfect for the birds.
A lot of people have this inclination. Maybe this frame of reference will help you, because it helped me: don't worry about not making a splash your first day, because nobody will see you, anyway. 99.99999% of the people who eventually visit you will not be there on your first day. For someone who arrives on day 2, day 20, or day 2,000, you just launched.
The day I launched, I had 124 visitors to my site. Most of them were, in all probability, not wowed. I got better. It is now 3 years later. Today, I launched to 800 people (plus some folks who have visited before -- welcome back, returning customers, I am eternally grateful for your support).
I've got a notebook sheet worth of tweaks to do today, to get ready for the launch tomorrow.
I worry over introducing incompatible changes (which is more of an issue in middleware and libraries). OTOH, it's common to see "deprecated features", and ActionScript (in flash) has been utterly redesigned a few times. They're still ahead.
Another issue applies to patentable inventions. You need to get this right, because you need to file a prov before you can launch. What if you find out your invention doesn't work in some cases, and you need to change it? What if you have improvements? These encourage a perfectionistic approach - but the truth is, you can just file another prov (depending on jurisdiction, they cost $80, so filing several is no real problem). The only danger is that time started ticking on the first one (you have a year), so you're using up your time until you have to expend real money and effort to patent it for real - or let it go.
From what I understand, you can retroactively file an [American] patent application from within a year of your first public/open demo. Then you have another year to file a real claim.
Comments
I agree that this is hard and necessary. Whoa. When we were developing the first version of the product, we were always torn between releasing it and letting people see our steaming pile of half-finished code and tearing it apart and waiting until it was "perfect" and "wowing" everyone that came to our site. The reality was exactly what Kent is talking about. We released a terrible looking and difficult-to-use alpha version that people actually used, and it took months to disavow ourselves of features that we thought were awesome that users simply didn't want.
I also agree strongly with bmelton, geez, it's so tough to fight the desire to release something "perfect" when it's way more valuable to answer the burning questions and leave perfect for the birds.
"wowing" everyone that came to our site.
A lot of people have this inclination. Maybe this frame of reference will help you, because it helped me: don't worry about not making a splash your first day, because nobody will see you, anyway. 99.99999% of the people who eventually visit you will not be there on your first day. For someone who arrives on day 2, day 20, or day 2,000, you just launched.
The day I launched, I had 124 visitors to my site. Most of them were, in all probability, not wowed. I got better. It is now 3 years later. Today, I launched to 800 people (plus some folks who have visited before -- welcome back, returning customers, I am eternally grateful for your support).
I've got a notebook sheet worth of tweaks to do today, to get ready for the launch tomorrow.
I worry over introducing incompatible changes (which is more of an issue in middleware and libraries). OTOH, it's common to see "deprecated features", and ActionScript (in flash) has been utterly redesigned a few times. They're still ahead.
Another issue applies to patentable inventions. You need to get this right, because you need to file a prov before you can launch. What if you find out your invention doesn't work in some cases, and you need to change it? What if you have improvements? These encourage a perfectionistic approach - but the truth is, you can just file another prov (depending on jurisdiction, they cost $80, so filing several is no real problem). The only danger is that time started ticking on the first one (you have a year), so you're using up your time until you have to expend real money and effort to patent it for real - or let it go.
From what I understand, you can retroactively file an [American] patent application from within a year of your first public/open demo. Then you have another year to file a real claim.