Fail fast, then adjust

If you’re like most people, you want to make sure everything about your product is perfect before launching it. You may spend countless hours refining and polishing it to make sure it’s just right and add feature after feature to make sure it can do everything. This is admirable, but it’s not effective. You are not the one that will be buying your product, so your opinion is not the one that matters the most. Your consumers’ opinion is the one that matters. Unfortunately, no matter how many focus groups you test your product with, until it actually hits the market, you will not have an accurate gauge of what really matters to your consumer. If you want to launch a truly successful product, you need to launch it as soon as it is functional and then if and when your consumer dictates, add improvements. Something that may have seemed important to you may not matter at all to them. If you had added that from the beginning, you would have increased your costs without providing any value in their eyes. More importantly, you may overlook features that they want and you’ll only learn about their wants when your product is on the market.

Remember, there is nothing wrong with mistakes; they are simply an opportunity to learn. If you want to take this concept to the next level, be sure to read Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero by Michael Masterson.

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