Launch Your Site Too Soon • Hacker News Board

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#21

Post by lazyjeff » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 7:29 AM UTC

makthrow wrote: post #11

You should look into buying "housefeed.com" and perhaps renaming your site to that. That's what I thought I saw as your name upon first glance. My brain unconsciously filled in the details: "Oh, feeding people at a house, 'housefeed.com', makes sense". Also, you get the benefit of the "feed" connotation: a feed of pictures of people's meals at their houses.

As a second opinion, I had never thought of housefeed when thinking about housefed. Housefed is like grassfed, and I would never think of grassfeed.

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#22

Post by johnx123 » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 8:12 AM UTC

Would work only if you're a regular in HN. For anyone else, this would fire (no one will return).

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#23

Post by newchimedes » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 9:05 AM UTC

I've heard a few different pitches for this idea...booking meals in other people's homes...the one thing I rarely hear being brought up though is the legality of this. Aren't there pretty strict laws about cooking prepared food for others? I thought restaurants and even those street vendors are supposed to be checked out...

Just wondering if you have checked this potential issue out...or maybe I'm misunderstanding the idea.

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#24

Post by jrockway » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 9:34 AM UTC

newchimedes wrote: post #23

I've heard a few different pitches for this idea...booking meals in other people's homes...the one thing I rarely hear being brought up though is the legality of this. Aren't there pretty strict laws about cooking prepared food for others? I thought restaurants and even those street vendors are supposed to be checked out... Just wondering if you have checked this potential issue out...or maybe I'm misunderstanding th…

It's serving the food that's illegal, not making a website saying someone is willing to serve you food that's illegal. It's similar to AirBNB. Probably illegal to rent out your apartment for a few days. Your landlord doesn't want you to do it, your local hotel lobby doesn't want you to do it... and people do it anyway. Making a list of people willing to break the law isn't illegal. Same goes for Ubercab. Highly illegal or whatever, but still a great (and disruptive) business idea.

The Internet is allowing people to break the law in harmless ways more than we've ever been able to. And that's a good thing, because it means protectionism is going away. Businesses will have to compete based on the quality of their product, not based on how many lawmakers are in their pocket. The Internet is finally returning the power to the people.

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#25

Post by khafra » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 12:30 PM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #2

I guess the counterargument is that if you had launched a really polished site, you may have gotten positive press from the get-go and a much larger userbase.

I would've thought the counterargument is Cuil.

Re: Launch Your Site Too Soon

#26

Post by PonyGumbo » Mon, Jun 13, 2011, 12:38 PM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #18

PonyGumbo wrote: post #16

It's like throwing a dinner party and inviting the guests to come see how you've neatly arranged the pots and pans on the floor, in the fashion of a stove. "It's fantastic," they'll say, "Perhaps you should include some carrots." "This is wonderful feedback!", you'll think, as you as begin to slice carrots for your floor-bound pots.

A witty quip, but probably wrong. The author's conclusion was important: > Launch your [site] before you core functionality is done. You’ll fix the bugs you don’t know you have. Some places can't afford to do that - things where lives are at stake (medical, engineering, etc) or companies who don't get a chance at do-overs at all. But for most small ventures, you're in for a much bigger risk of abandoning the project…

There's an enormous difference between launching before a site is polished, and launching before the site is actually functional. You launch with a minimum viable product. If your car doesn't have wheels or an engine, it's not a viable product.

Show it to people early and often, get as much feedback as possible. Launch when it works.