Rough Launch

JonDaiello.com launched. I was happy to have something live. But, then a friend asked, “Are you embarrassed by it?” I replied, “No, not really.” He returned,

“You waited too long.”

I didn’t really know how to respond at that point. Then, I got to thinking, he’s probably right. I could have spent a little less time working on the finer details, and gotten the rough version out a few days earlier.

It brings up a great point, that in most cases something is better than nothing. In digital product development (think apps, etc.), giving the users something that meets their needs in a basic way is far more valuable than launching your perfect vision. In most cases, your perfect vision is probably not the full solution. You’ll learn a lot about your users. You’ll garner lots of support if you just focus on meeting the need.

You’ll need to battle your ‘expectation of perfection’ that we impose on our users. As designers and developers, we always strive for the best possible solution in that case. We want bleeding edge design and to utilize the fringe web technologies of tomorrow in every circumstance. Our goal is often to go for the ‘best’. When we should be thinking more about the basics of functionality.

Don’t Wait

Don’t wait until your design is perfect. Don’t wait until your code is bleeding edge. Launch it now. Launch it ‘in progress’. Focus on the absolute core needs and then mash that deploy button. It might be scary to think about, but don’t close that browser window just yet. Digital products like applications and sites are never done. So, if you wait until it’s done, it will never launch. All of your hard work will go by the wayside and get lost in ‘another unfinished project’, or worse you’ll be too overwhelmed to think about getting started.

Set aside a small amount of work. Commit to that work. Deploy. Repeat.

Thanks

I want to thank my good friend Michael Yockey for challenging me to break outside of the ‘perfect’ mold. Thank you friend.