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How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

viniciusvacanti.com

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Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#31

Post by NameNickHN »

Domenic_S wrote: post #27
NameNickHN wrote: post #2

This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I've abandoned a project because my non-tech partner constantly came up with new ideas why we couldn't launch and that we needed more features before we launched. This resulted in me being highly demotivated and frustrated.

Not to sound trite, but that sounds like a lack of planning -- in the form of a question, what's your MVP? If you're clear on that, you point to the doc and say "how does this new idea/feature help accomplish this?" and force a specific answer.

It was all planned out and I myself had a clear path outlined but if your partner is supposed to do the marketing and PR and simply refuses to start with it, what are you going to do?

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#32

Post by NameNickHN »

john_flintstone wrote: post #30

This is not just a software/startup problem. Every single web project / eCommerce site / anything online that requires work, should be rolling out a variation of an MVP. I had a meeting with the brother earlier today. He runs an online wholesale business (I do all the tech stuff). I've been leaning towards launching a retail arm in our one EU country, and launching 3 new wholesale websites translated into Dutch, Fren…

whatever they speak in Belgium

Dutch and French. :-)

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#33

Post by NameNickHN »

shawnc wrote: post #5

We launched early, asked for money right away, and have been doing excellent ever since. Now our problem is defining what makes a 'final, out of beta, stable' version. Defining it, and then meeting it. We're constantly going 'this isn't good enough for a final release'. But hey, almost 300 paying users right now is motivation to make it better for THEM, and not for us and our imaginations of what is better. With thos…

We launched early, asked for money right away [...]

You have no idea how I like reading this. I'm sick of all those new websites that offer their service for free, hoping to figure out how to monetize later.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#34

Post by NameNickHN »

patio11 wrote: post #19

There exist many, many businesses where V1.0 of the product can be the CEO scrambling with a cell phone, Gmail, and a spreadsheet. This is especially true for business process innovation type businesses like e.g. ZeroCater (which actually started out pretty much exactly like that). After you learn exactly where the painful bits are you can code to prevent them rather than coding for problems which may not ever be exp…

[...] those tasks were never common/important/etc enough to justify even an hour writing up a tool to automate them.

I can't agree more. It took me a while to get there but in the end it's exactly what everybody should do.

As of right now I'm manually creating the accounts of new customers (has something to do with creating new database tables which is done half-automatically). Right now there is only a trickle of new customers (due to the lack of marketing) and it's not worth it (yet) to program a fully automated registration process which would require a registration form, payment processing and above mentioned account creation.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#35

Post by john_flintstone »

NameNickHN wrote: post #32
john_flintstone wrote: post #30

This is not just a software/startup problem. Every single web project / eCommerce site / anything online that requires work, should be rolling out a variation of an MVP. I had a meeting with the brother earlier today. He runs an online wholesale business (I do all the tech stuff). I've been leaning towards launching a retail arm in our one EU country, and launching 3 new wholesale websites translated into Dutch, Fren…

whatever they speak in Belgium Dutch and French. :-)

That doesn't help. If I listen to the 10 o'clock news in the Netherlands, do I get a choice of languages? Newspapers in two languages? Parliamentary questions and interviews in 2 languages? Seriously?

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#36

Post by patio11 »

NameNickHN wrote: post #34
patio11 wrote: post #19

There exist many, many businesses where V1.0 of the product can be the CEO scrambling with a cell phone, Gmail, and a spreadsheet. This is especially true for business process innovation type businesses like e.g. ZeroCater (which actually started out pretty much exactly like that). After you learn exactly where the painful bits are you can code to prevent them rather than coding for problems which may not ever be exp…

[...] those tasks were never common/important/etc enough to justify even an hour writing up a tool to automate them. I can't agree more. It took me a while to get there but in the end it's exactly what everybody should do. As of right now I'm manually creating the accounts of new customers (has something to do with creating new database tables which is done half-automatically). Right now there is only a trickle of ne…

A major "aha!" moment for me was 37Signals writing "If you have a 30 day trial anyhow, launching with billing code written means you've swapped something customers actually will notice today for something they won't." I don't endorse that specific advice (because you should probably auth cards on launch day) but the kinda relentless scope-cutting it implies has been a major win for me.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#37

Post by NameNickHN »

john_flintstone wrote: post #35
NameNickHN wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whatever they speak in Belgium Dutch and French. :-)

That doesn't help. If I listen to the 10 o'clock news in the Netherlands, do I get a choice of languages? Newspapers in two languages? Parliamentary questions and interviews in 2 languages? Seriously?

There are news shows and newspapers in multiple languages available in countries like Belgium or Switzerland that have two or more official languages. It's no big deal.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#38

Post by tnash »

It's important to draw a line in the sand where you will launch, say, "when I get X done, we will launch". Then make sure you stick to it. If you plan well, and you know your customers, this should work.

It seems like the real problem here is just not knowing your customers. By all means you should be beta testing with your friends and anyone else you can guilt into helping you. Don't launch blind.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#39

Post by joeag »

We launched a "netflix for action sports" dvds back in 2004 and the first day we shipped all the dvds (about 30) by hand. We hand picked from inventory what each customer wanted and then made mailing labels on the laser printer, licked the envelopes and mailed them out. Once we found out that there was a rental market for action sports DVD's we built the back end to use bar coding of dvds, automated envelope printing, etc. We did build the credit card gateway upfront though, both because we were offering free 30 day trials that involved shipping customers our inventory and also because we wanted to capture the CC info for recurring billing upfront.

Re: How We Fooled Ourselves Into Waiting Too Long To Launch

#40

Post by apenwarr »

john_flintstone wrote: post #35
NameNickHN wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whatever they speak in Belgium Dutch and French. :-)

That doesn't help. If I listen to the 10 o'clock news in the Netherlands, do I get a choice of languages? Newspapers in two languages? Parliamentary questions and interviews in 2 languages? Seriously?

In Canada, at least, parliamentary discussions are in both English and French, with real-time translation.
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