Release early and often?
I posted my thoughts on releasing software as early as possible, in an effort to get feedback from customers as soon as possible, over at JoelonSoftware, in this thread:
I thought I’d also add it here.
First off, you seem to have thought out the product quite well, and you have made great progress thus far – so keep going.
I agree with what others have said: (paraphrasing) - “Freeze your to do list”, “Start thinking about marketing”, “prioritize what remains”, and “just execute”. But, I also wanted to comment on the merits of “release early and often”.
I am a firm believer in this credo, particularly in a bootstrapped situation (which I assume is the case for most on this board). True, you need to get the base features into v1.0, but the benefits gained from releasing as quickly (though prudently) as you can outweigh the negatives in my view. Releasing early offers:
1. Feedback from the customer. This is so critical in mind, particularly for a new company with its first product release. As entrepreneurs, we think we know what customers want/need, what features are important, and how to implement functionality, but until we get our product into customer’s hands we can’t be sure
2. Time to market – you mentioned this as a concern in your blog. Well, releasing something early addresses that
3. Confidence – getting your product out there, which begins to illicit feedback (hopefully positive), and sales will build confidence and momentum that you can build upon
As a bootstrapper, everything is tight; time, money, resources – but you can use that to your advantage. You can move quicker or change direction on dime more so than that of a larger competitor that needs to get projects approved, teams assembled, resources allocated, etc. Releasing “early and often” is something that can be a competitive advantage for small (or tiny) organizations.
I think your idea and product sound great. Good luck.
Just to add, generally speaking I subscribe to a software project/product philosophy where less is more and getting things done is more important than over analyzing everything. Hopefully, this will hold true as I get closer with iPresent Producer.
