Posted On: Friday, 14 January 2011 by Rajiv Popat

If you have done this even once, you know that if you are planning on working on an idea that you have, you are going to have to work without the crowd.

There are two reasons for this:

  1. The crowd doesn't get the idea. Its going to think your idea is too lame or too impractical or already taken
  2. The crowd doesn't care.

Both of these are good things.

The first is good because it allows you to build your idea exactly as you see it. As more people join, the vision dilutes. You are way better off working on the first version yourself or just a couple of really close friends who totally understand your vision or people who have similar core philosophies and values.

The second is good because it allows you to work in stealth mode, build something really small and release it to a closed inner circle of acquaintances who do care. This is good news because if you fail or build something that none of your users like, you have just disappointed a really small group who are willing to give you a second chance. You can choose to bury your failure, learn from it, move on, fix it, tune it, work it up and add more people really slowly.

Releasing a product live till you are done with a couple of complete sprints is almost never a good idea. If you are going to release a product live, do it when you are pretty darn confident the product has enough meat for people to love it, because otherwise they are just not going to care and that is not such a bad thing after all. Go on, ship something to your inner circle first and then slowly and steadily, surprise everyone else with a kickass product.

You don't need a big bang release date and press releases. Start with a slow and steady release instead.

I wish you good luck.


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