Great Quote

My friend and investing buddy over at Edgestone Capital, Michael Hollend, had a great observation as we discussed a potential investment together.  We were reviewing time to market, plans, expectations, etc.

"Elapsed time is a start-up's greatest enemy"

We (and you!) have to balance between elapsed time and getting the product/service out the door.  Do you get V1 out the door feature incomplete or wait. There are risks in all of these strategies.

With six meetings packed into today, this quote was an interesting thing to have running in the back of my head. Some (2) of the teams were clearly trying to move like crazy.  When I started to ask "what about..." next release was the comment and  in the case of a web lending service, "we can do that after we have the first round of customers because nobody will care at first. By the time they are at caring stage, we will have that feature." 

Both were not blind to the impact of bad/grossly incomplete releases and both were struggling to find that balance.

Hopefully, as you roll out your next cool thing, you can find the right balance.

Comments

[Varun Mathur]

I think v1 has to have key and very visible differentiators and there isn't any room for 'slightly better' products in a competitive market. Its either 'significantly better' or something 'completely new', otherwise thats just wasting users' time.

[Martin Edic]

I think you have to look at the 37 Signals model these days. They believe in getting something out the door ASAP and then doing continual improvements. Given that virtually any software has multiple faults even if built behind closed doors for months or years, there is virtue in this approach. As users we're used to finding bugs or identifying needed features. By doing rapid, albeit sloppy, development you can tap into user input.
Worried about losing people because of crappy initial builds? Give it away during beta.
Hey Rick: I live in Rochester, NY. Can I talk to you when you're in Toronto?

[rick segal]

Anytime, Martin. Too bad they killed the ferry, you could have walked to my office!

Thanks for stopping by.

[Michael Artemiw]

When is the ratio of pain removed to new pain created great enough to warrant shipping? This question is best answered by the rare people who understand the product, the customer, and can regulate their personal tolerance for risk.

If a company is committed to getting a product to market, the skill most required is the ability to focus and prioritize. If you could only provide one new feature, what would it be? If you could only achieve one of your three value props which one would you nail?

[Keith Glover]

Quality, Speed, or Cost effectiveness... you can only pick 2 at a time.

Big business usually attempts to go with quality and speed but end up spending the big bucks!
Start ups usually choose quality and spend as little as possible but take forever getting their product launched quick enough and that usually kills it.
Open Source products chooses Speed and cost effectiveness (its free), but it ends up loosing quality and there is no guarantee of support.

My choice is quality and speed. Get the money and spend it in the right places to deliver a fantastic product and get up and running like lightning b4 someone beats you to the punch!

[Michael Garrity]

Hey Rick. Being part of a web lending company that has chosen the path of patience over expediency, I can only comment that while elapsed time may be one of your enemies, there are many more lurching in the tall grass. There were many people that counseled us to just launch our service without completing our regulatory licensing work for the sake of being "first" and as appealing as that sounded at the time, we chose a more prudent path to manage the downside damage of a launch and a service-stopping regulatory challenge. It was a big risk and we didn't know if it was the right path at the time. I personally fretted over that decision every day. We now know that it was the right decision and feel someone relieved. The decision we made was to play the long game of customer and business value. Golf is a game won in 18 holes, not just a long drive off the first tee.

[rick segal]

Hey Michael,

For sure in your case, I would be first to agree. I have this certain slide deck with a timeline on it.... :-)

Thanks for stopping by.

[Chris Kemp]

I think that Guy Kawasaki put it best in his Art of Innovation presentation: Don't worry, be crappy (there will be elements of crapiness - not completely crap - to any v1 release) but Churn, Baby, Churn (remove elements of crapiness ASAP and add features as necessary). In the wise words of Guy - innovation is a process, not an event!