
Don't launch - peter123
http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/dont-launch.html
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cperciva
This is one of the great advantages of a public beta -- once you've ironed any
problems, you can have your media launch and justify it by saying "we're no
longer in beta".

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gord
Excellent article and blog from a programmer entrepreneur whose been there.

Some other points he makes include -

\- Startups should be optimized to learn [product and customer are being
discovered]

\- Sales metrics are a good thing [start small with $5/day search engine
marketing, iterate until this yields results ]

\- Bite off small chunks of development [and release them, as they often are a
distinct usable feature]

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lrajlich
Agreed, Eric writes an excellent blog and is based on real world experience.

Coordinated marketing and product launches make sense in the context of a
Product Development model but cut into your ability to learn in the context of
a Customer Development model. Instead of allowing your initial customers to
teach you about your product, you are skipping that step and going straight to
teaching the market about your product.

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jlm382
I've always been a fan of launching early. Until now.

A few months ago, I launched my pet project to the public, with some nice
publicity on websites like TechCrunch, but it was incredibly difficult to
capitalize on the benefits of launching a premature product.

I thought it was successful. (it was certainly better than not doing a
marketing launch at all)... but this didn't take into account the fact that it
would have been significantly better if we had launched with good timing and
with a better tested product.

I'll know for next time :)

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monological
What did you launch?

~~~
timcederman
internshipIN.com

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dhimes
He links to SEM on $5/day
([http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/sem-on-
fiv...](http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/sem-on-five-dollars-
day.html))

In that post, he mentions bidding directly against searches for competitor
products. If the competitor has trademarked the terms, is it legal to use them
as keywords? I've heard of companies receiving "cease and desist" orders for
such behavior.

~~~
wildwood
I've heard of people getting "cease and desist" _letters_ (i.e., from the
competitor's lawyer) for this behavior, but never an actual C&D order, which
is a court order.

The general approach seems to be, unless the trademark holder specifically
complains, you can place ads on their keywords, and even use their trademark
in your ad, as long as you're not pretending to be them. "We're better than
X", for example. And if the trademark holder does take issue with it, they're
at least as likely to take it up with Google as they are to take it to court.

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dhimes
Thanks for the clarification.

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TimothyFitz
I accidentally submitted his front-page instead of the actual article url,
which I've since deleted. Thanks for resubmitting peter!

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ashot
that was the product launch, and this is the media launch then

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donniefitz2
That is the best blog post I've read this month. Truly helpful.

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johnyzee
This advice is great for tempering the more unsophisticated "release early,
release often".

Joel makes similar points eloquently in "Good Software Takes Ten Years":
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html>

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adrianwaj
Launching enables you to catch your competition by surprise so that they have
to play catch up on your features. They also have to go after your customers
and your momentum, so there are two aspects of launch: revealing what was once
secret, and publicizing that offering as best as possible - which is what a
good launch should do -- and then also harnessing feedback.

If one can't execute all those simultaneously, it's better to sit back and
watch competition do it instead, and whilst doing this, it may or may not be
advantageous to be public.

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jwilliams
A soft launch (the product launch in my nomenclature) is also pretty a fairly
common/typical technology de-risking exercise.

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maurycy
This post does not take into account that before launching you have no idea
whether your project is something people want.

~~~
eries
"So don't combine your product launch with a marketing launch. Instead, do
your product launch first. Don't chicken out and do a closed beta; get real
customers in through real renewable channels. Start with a five-dollar-a-day
SEM campaign. Iterate as fast and for as long as you can. Don't scale. Don't
marketing launch."

