4 ms·

People who are serious about delivering quality are brilliant. I want people like you to have a proper chance at doing what you do sustainably. That way the wo

by jot 13y ago

People who are serious about delivering quality are brilliant. I want people like you to have a proper chance at doing what you do sustainably. That way the world will have less bad products built by people who are only good at sales and marketing. Quality is very important and very hard, but it is not 2/3 of a web application. At best quality is 1/3 of a web application, with 1/3 core functionality and the final 1/3 sales and marketing. When your product is not profitable you need to let your customers decide if it looks shit and confuses them. You'll know it's ready when they pay for it and keep paying. I want people to stop leaving it too long before measuring that by giving people the opportunity to buy. Too often developers leave it too long and don't have the time, money and energy to invest in all the things you also need to get right.

jiggy2011 13y ago
Isn't there a risk that releasing a product too early could cause a negative first impression and by the time you have gotten around to improving it, everyone has lost interest? Also quality is something which is difficult to define and pin down, and will also vary depending on the product. For example , a backup solution which blows away everything else in terms of innovation and usability but corrupts my data 1% of the time isn't going to get bought. And even if they fix the 1% corruption bug I'm going to remain skeptical for a very long time.
- ZoF 13y ago
  Yep, The negative impact of releasing an unfinished project is almost always enough to make a developer wait until their product is finalized. Most intelligent people realize that they are most likely not the MOST intelligent person in the world; therefore releasing an incomplete product, when they unsure of a final release date, only opens them up to the risk of being copied and outdone.
- jot 13y ago
  Yes there is a risk but it is very small, particularly for the sort of products that web developers build. This is why you should not do all singing all dancing PR launches too early, releases are different. If you do a big PR launch too early at the very least you'll close down a channel (e.g. TechCrunch readers) at worst everyone in the web startup industry will have heard about you. The most successful products have people that both love them and hate them, you can't make everyone happy and you will loose some customers to unfortunate experiences. Fortunately the if you've chosen a good market there are probably more customers than you can ever hope to find out about you.
- jt2190 13y ago
  > Isn't there a risk that releasing a product too early > could cause a negative first impression and by the time > you have gotten around to improving it, everyone has > lost interest? Let's say that the per customer cost of your sales cycle doubles each time you engage that customer. This may not be a problem if: * you have a large market, and there are plenty of new potential customers. * the cost of your sales cycle is really cheap, i.e. low-touch, online sales. So if you have a small market that's expensive to sell to, make sure you've got all the details worked out in advance.

by jot 13y ago

jiggy2011 13y ago

Isn't there a risk that releasing a product too early could cause a negative first impression and by the time you have gotten around to improving it, everyone has lost interest? Also quality is something which is difficult to define and pin down, and will also vary depending on the product. For example , a backup solution which blows away everything else in terms of innovation and usability but corrupts my data 1% of the time isn't going to get bought. And even if they fix the 1% corruption bug I'm going to remain skeptical for a very long time.

ZoF 13y ago
Yep, The negative impact of releasing an unfinished project is almost always enough to make a developer wait until their product is finalized. Most intelligent people realize that they are most likely not the MOST intelligent person in the world; therefore releasing an incomplete product, when they unsure of a final release date, only opens them up to the risk of being copied and outdone.
jot 13y ago
Yes there is a risk but it is very small, particularly for the sort of products that web developers build. This is why you should not do all singing all dancing PR launches too early, releases are different. If you do a big PR launch too early at the very least you'll close down a channel (e.g. TechCrunch readers) at worst everyone in the web startup industry will have heard about you. The most successful products have people that both love them and hate them, you can't make everyone happy and you will loose some customers to unfortunate experiences. Fortunately the if you've chosen a good market there are probably more customers than you can ever hope to find out about you.
jt2190 13y ago
> Isn't there a risk that releasing a product too early > could cause a negative first impression and by the time > you have gotten around to improving it, everyone has > lost interest? Let's say that the per customer cost of your sales cycle doubles each time you engage that customer. This may not be a problem if: * you have a large market, and there are plenty of new potential customers. * the cost of your sales cycle is really cheap, i.e. low-touch, online sales. So if you have a small market that's expensive to sell to, make sure you've got all the details worked out in advance.