The examples the author cites: - a film which was released in 'beta' at Cannes, giving it a bad name - voice-recognition of contact names for mobiles, where t

The examples the author cites: - a film which was released in 'beta' at Cannes, giving it a bad name - voice-recognition of contact names for mobiles, where the technology became widespread before it was usable - his own experience of demoing a product without a nice interface to a client, causing the client to lose faith in the project. What is the commonality between these three scenarios that isn't generally shared by web startups? (I don't know if the article was aimed at web startups, but it's relevant here). Each time, the crappy version 1 was shown to a large segment or some key players in the market (film critics, a huge number of mobile phone owners, and the sole client), and put them off the product. I have a friend who is worried about this for his web startup. "If people see it when it looks crap, they won't come back". The thing with web startups is the few hundred people who might see it in the crappy phase will likely be a very small slice of your total market.