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I think that you have taken the recent atmosphere of "failing fast" a little too far. A "launch" really can't be considered a good metric for failure or success

I think that you have taken the recent atmosphere of "failing fast" a little too far. A "launch" really can't be considered a good metric for failure or success. Pegging your product on one massive launch is a flawed idea - it seems to operate under the assumption that massive, immediate reach is what you need to attract users as opposed to leveraging/exploiting other mechanisms. Having product "out" at all stages in order to gain feedback and iterate helps. In fact, it is far better that you had a "failed" launch now so that users can give you feedback as opposed to trying to remain stealth to build up to a bigger launch. I think that Skribit's "successful" launch can be more attributed to how Paul handled the pro upgrade screw up. But the TC article isn't what will make or break the success of Skribit.

vaksel 17y ago
To me failing fast, just means that you realize that the idea sucks and you close down shop and move on. And yeah if you have a crappy launch, you shouldn't use that to discount your idea. You only need to hit a certain niche of users to make your idea work. To tell the truth, we really haven't gotten that much feedback after we came out of private beta. In private beta we got hundreds of tips, feature requests etc, and now in public beta, nada. Not a single feature request last week. Yeah an article on TC won't make or break a startup, but it sure does help. a) better response to your other coverage requests b) a small bump to your page rank c) a flood of potential new users to help jump start the site. If I had to give it a numerical value, I'd say major launch coverage, can help you save 1-2 years of building your traffic the old fashioned way...1 person at a time