

Why You Haven't Launched - jeffmiller
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/11/10/five-reasons-you-havent-launched/

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dansingerman
So if I can't find the right idea in a month I should give up and become 'a
lifer'?

I don't buy it.

The corollary of this is that every entrepreneur should be able to come up
with an idea that will be a rock solid success _every_ month.

It is easy to come up with ideas, but successful ideas (whether the reason for
the success is being first to a new market, a better implementation of an
existing idea, or whatever reason turns a good idea into a successful idea)
are hard to come by.

Superstar entrepreneurs may be able to come up with such ideas with such
frequency.

But if you can't, you should give up? I don't think so.

~~~
Robin_Message
The idea seems to be that it doesn't have to be the right idea, or a
successful idea, but it does have to be an idea worth pursuing. If you don't
have that, you'll just be spinning.

~~~
dansingerman
I guess an 'idea worth pursuing' needs to be good enough to overcome the fear
associated with starting a startup. You need a strong belief in the idea if
you have a lot of fear to overcome.

Maybe his point(1) is indirectly really about point(5) (for many of us)

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iuguy
The procrastination point is quite an obvious one. By way of cutting down on
my HN time (as I don't play WoW), I've started using the pomodoro technique
(<http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/>) to keep me focused on one thing at a
time. So far it seems to be working quite well and I'm cutting down on my
distractions.

What do other HN'ers use here to cut down on distractions and interruptions?

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edw519
0\. You're truly not ready.

A recurring meme here (and almost everywhere else) is the equivalent of "Just
Do It". Excellent advice, almost all the time. Almost. Except when it's
terrible advice.

Yes, as someone who has suffered after launching too soon, I will go against
prevailing wisdom and suggest the unthinkable, "Maybe you're really not ready
and can do more harm than good by launching prematurely." Just a few of the
bad things that can happen:

1\. People will visit once, see that it's crap and _never come back again_ ,
no matter what you do.

2\. You will be overwhelmed by support requirements to the extent that all
development stops.

3\. You will be overwhelmed by support requirements to the extent that much
support never gets addressed.

4\. Your calendar becomes science fiction; everything has changed and it's a
whole new ballgame.

5\. The stress level will become so overwhelming for some of your people that
you will simply lose them. Forever.

6\. If you have taken people's money and not delivered, the guilt can become
so overwhelming that it cripples you.

7\. Your marathon has turned into a sprint you cannot finish. You have
launched and lost.

I love the idea of pushing the envelope and launching sooner rather than
later. You must have real world feedback and launching is best way to get it.
But launching _too early_ early is just as bad as launching _too late_. So how
do you know when the time is right? I don't have a definitive answer, but I do
know that "your gut" is a critical input. Sooner or later, you just have to go
with it.

~~~
jakevoytko
_1\. People will visit once, see that it's crap and never come back again, no
matter what you do._

Most of your cases are valid and important, but this point is unworthy of your
concern. It's unbelievably hard to produce Internet content that is hated AND
widespread. More often, crap is filtered and forgotten. Scroll to the bottom
of any large HN thread to see what I mean - there's always a long tail of
posts that are practically unread, some written by well-respected members of
the community.

Irritating some fickle people is a small price to pay for getting feedback
from someone who likes your idea.

~~~
BCM43
Cuil.

~~~
chc
Cuil didn't have the problem of people visiting once and never coming back
again despite its amazing strides. It had the problem of being crap from start
to finish. If Cuil had improved, I guarantee you most of the early visitors
would have given it a second look.

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guynamedloren
Some valid points here, but I strongly disagree with No. 2 "You’re Set on
Doing Everything Yourself" for various reasons. So here's why I think you
should do everything yourself, at least for the first time around. (If it's
your second or third time around the block, some of these probably wont
apply.)

1) _Constraints force innovation._ This could be taken several directions, but
what I'm really trying to get at here is if you have very limited time and
limited budget, you're forced to do only what is necessary and only add
critical features to your product. A one-man bootstrapped startup probably
won't have the time and funding to add every single feature, which is blessing
in disguise - the product ships faster and doesn't have a bunch of crap that
nobody wants.

2) _Nobody realizes your vision like you do._ Sure, other people could do some
of the coding, design, and usability work for you, but who says those people
will get it right? They don't see the product like you do, and that could make
or break your vision. (This doesn't apply to dime-a-dozen skills like psd
slicing).

3) _It's invaluable to learn new skillsets._ Maybe you aren't destined to be
the world's greatest designer or code ninja, but learning these skills will
enhance your understanding and communication down the road. Knowledge of these
skills could certainly aid in hiring employees and could prevent you from
getting burned in an outsource deal later on.

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harscoat
No the real reason is: you can still w.nk yourself with the idea! (pardon my
French) without the pain of taking care/answering real, demanding, not getting
it, or plain indifferent (non)users. Until you have launched for real, you can
dream of your beloved app/API/novel/idea/etc, that it will be so great, so
new, so cool, everybody's going to be blown away and come to it in flocks. You
can still dream in the Limbo. Once it's out ... the hard indifferent reality
sets in. (Until that hockey stick curve of course ;)

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iworkforthem
For me, it's a case of "You Have Launched, But No One Noticed", I launched
TradesAlerts (<http://tradesalerts.com>) in Nov 2010, the first few days got a
few users from HN and Facebook... in short -> no sign-up.

Looking at my Analytics stats, most of my visitors are from the USA, but my
site is more Asia focused. So now, I'm working on a variation to make it more
localized.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Did you mean "Nov 2010" ? If so, I'm surprised you only gave it a few days
before giving up and putting a "This is now a Closed site, consider joining
the Forum instead." message up...

~~~
iworkforthem
O... I'm not giving up, instead I'm working on a variation which overcome
these issues;

\- Target Asian traffic instead USA traffic.

\- Try to convince users I'm not selling snake oil. It is not easy especially
when the service can help investors make money. A common question I get is why
then am I giving it away. People might think I'm trying to Pump and Dump the
stocks.

So now, I am focusing my efforts on my friends and WOM instead. I hope by
helping them, they can recommend potential customers to me. I feel that this
approach might be more appropriate for this type of service.

Any feedbacks welcome. :)

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bmcleod
I've found the biggest distraction from getting a product launched so far is
contracting.

Although it has meant I've got the cash now, so I'm bringing a guy on part-
time through summer.

~~~
patio11
I had nowhere near 100% utilization (in consulting) between May 15th and
October 15th but I didn't get a single line written for Appointment Reminder
in that interim. I just couldn't find the mental bandwidth or the kick in the
pants I needed to dig in and start writing out the full system ex-nihilio.

What eventually worked for me was getting myself about 2.5 months of a
breather from all consulting commitments and getting BCC past the busy season.
I've been able to devote almost 100% of my time the last two weeks to AR, and
it is progressing faster than any project in my life.

I also hired a virtual assistant and have been aggressive about firing off
things to her rather than spending an hour or two chasing them down myself.
I'll write it up after I have some results to show, but it has been a real
stress saver to know that e.g. bookkeeping for January through October is now
in the "being accomplished" pile rather than the "have to put it off to
tomorrow because I've got code to write today" pile.

~~~
keeptrying
Hi Patrick, Where did you get your virtual assistant from? Can you recommend a
good company for this? Thanks

~~~
patio11
I Googled for VAs from the Philippines and picked a service which looked
reasonable.

I'll be happy to recommend them after they produce recommendation-worthy
results, but I'm barely started with her yet. The first task was only
partially successful, but that wasn't her fault. (I had her cancel a service
that I've had AOLesque difficulty canceling. They wouldn't talk other about
it, but she did get a direct line to a CSR with cancellation authority for me
to call, so I was done in two minutes on the phone instead of an hour.)

If she can reduce my bookkeeping backlog from ten hours to one, then I'll
spend an hour singing their praises on my blog. (And then figure out some more
grunt work to get rid of.)

~~~
euroclydon
Ha! Might have been all local calls, conducted in her native language.

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svnv
Our product is mostly ready for launch but we're waiting for a partner to
finish integration with our API so we have some actual data to present present
to our users.

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idleworx
Great article and insights. I just happened to listen today to Techzing's
episode 56 which has as a guest the author of this same article.

