Treat your product like it’s finished (even before it is)

Books like the lean startup stress the importance of shipping early, and for a good reason. The sooner we can validate our assumptions and figure out how our users react to our product, the better.

However, quotes such as the following can make us feel like we should believe our product is “unfinished”:

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman.

“Build half a product, not a half-ass product” – from getting real by 37 signals.

Having the mentality that our product is unfinished will directly influence our communication with customers and the press about our product.

During this time, we told ourselves, “if we get an influx of traffic now, we won’t retain our users,” or “if we get users now, we don’t have our referral program, so the traffic spike will just disappear right away.”

By waiting to have a better product before you tell anyone or try and get any press, you’re severely impacting the traction you could build.

In hindsight, I’d treat it like a finished product even from the first week.

I’m not saying you should deny that your product needs to improve or that you should not build any additional valuable features.

The sooner you can get a steady stream of traffic to your startup, the easier it is to continually improve things and get fast feedback on the changes you make.