

Paying back your launch debt - jaf12duke
http://42floors.com/blog/posts/paying-back-your-launch-debt

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mhashim
I would add health/physical debt. Many people discount the impact of those
extra pounds gained during an unhealthy streak of eating. They not only put
you on an unhealthy trajectory that requires a ton of effort to reverse, but
they also have many hidden and side effects that unfortunately we can't
measure/identify until later on. And that, I guess, is why we discount the
health debt.

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verelo
Gez you beat me to it! I just wanted to +1 this, in launching our company, one
thing that has been killing me has been my health. I've put on weight, started
drinking more, eating more and exercising less...

Today i went for a run, i think it'll make me more productive tomorrow. Get
disciplined is the plan, but i'm not sure how easy it'll be...im going to
write about this next week.

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serbrech
I posted a comment on the blog, but I might just as well begin the discussion
here.

I'm working on a fun project with friends that we would love to see fly (We're
applying for YC by Tuesday probably !). As a developers, I relate best to the
technical kind of dept. It's interesting to read about other kinds of depts
that you will have to pay back when you deal with a startup, pre-launch, and
post-launch. Funnily, they all seem as important to keep track on.

Financial dept => game over. Personal dept => burn out => game over. Mental
dept => burn out => game over. Technical dept => quality/productivity freefall
=> game over.

Let's map them the to the assets of a startup. Out of these four kinds of
depts, 2 depend on the people and not the skills. Financial depends probably
equally on skills and people. Technical dept being mostly skills related.

I think it illustrates well why having a great team synergy is so crucial to
success.

What other depts can you think of?

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AznHisoka
Only the first 2 leads to game over. The last 2 just leads to a dip in
productivity but can be tolerable if you're ramen profitable.

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serbrech
I would argue that with how fast things are moving (and they are only getting
faster), accumulating technical depts can lead you very quickly to lose
customer (because you can't meet their expectation 'right now'). That can
quickly lead to game over with the competition out there.

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jmitcheson
I like this concept of 'launch debt'. It's true. Moreover, some people seem to
optimize their early process for fastest time to social gratification, and not
fastest time to user adoption.

What I mean is, if you rush too much and release something that "isn't quite
there", then (in my opinion) your user adoption will be lower until you work
out all your bugs. The only thing you would have gained here is that you got
to tell your friends and family "we've launched" and gotten lots of pats on
the back. Your friends and family don't care about the missing polish, but the
users sure will. End in the end, they are all that matter..

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fragsworth
I think it's OK to release something that "isn't quite there" - in the sense
that you don't expect to get too many users. Even with a small user base, you
will gain vast amounts of information that you wouldn't have otherwise. From
statistics and user feedback, you will learn lots more about what your product
needs to do than if you're still in pre-launch development.

