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Why being embarrassed is critical to the success of your startup
Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn) was speaking at a Churchill event and said something that really resonated with me:
‘If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.’
Every entrepreneur and startup faces this question when launching a new product or service - when do we go live. And it’s not always an easy answer when one balances:
- time to market
- quality
- first impressions
- member experience
- status anxiety
- and a host of other factors.
Being embarrassed is good for a startup however, because in the beginning you don’t even know if you have anything worth starting.
Fire … then aim, aim, aim
When you release the first version of your product, you are really shooting in the dark. Often you can’t even see that target, much less know where it is. All you’ve got is a hunch. And until you pull that trigger, and light up the room with that muzzle flash, you don’t know where to adjust your aim.
Don’t view this as a bad thing. It just is.
- Flickr started off as a massive multiplayer online game (Game Never Ending) before realizing people really just wanted to share and tag their photos.
- Head started off building tennis racquets before realizing they could really dominate skis.
- Viagra was originally made to help people with hypertension - not erectile dysfunction.
Rest assured, your idea is going to morph and change which is why being embarrassed about your first release isn’t a bad thing.
Be embarrassed
So does being embarrassed give us an excuse to write buggy software, skip testing, and release shoddy work? No.
But being embarrassed is a good litmus test when you have a set of features you think could be valuable, and you’re tempted to add one more feature, fix one more bug, and delay the release one more week.
Be embarrassed, and get your product out there in the market place. Time is everything.
What do you think?
The Start Up Success 2006 video with Reid’s quote at 35:55.
* The whole video is worth watching if you are into entrepreneurship and startups.
March 15th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I TOTALLY agree with this! I just released a website for helping with downtown parking. Anyways, I threw up the site in literally 10 minutes and emailed the media. I ended up in the Calgary Sun, on jackfm, am 660, city tv news and breakfast television, all in 2 days!
There is lots of stuff I want to add to the site, don’t know what the exact biz model is yet (pay per post, premium/featured ads, advertising, etc) and I was already approached by companies with big lots and companies that want to advertise on the site.
Related to this is fear holding people back - I contacted a few friends that could be on tv getting interviewed about their interested in this parking site. They all chickened out just to be interviewed on tv!
March 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Great story Will. That’s pretty amazing and you should definitely following through - sounds like you really hit something with the community there.
No imagine how it would have felt if you worked on the app for 12 months, pushed it live, and no one cared.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:47 am
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April 12th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
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