Actually launching

[AussieCoder]

I'm great at starting projects but terrible at getting as far as launching them. I've developed a couple of SAAS applications as far as getting beta testers but then not launched. Something always seems to come up but I think it's really fear: What if it's not good enough? What if it has (or causes users) problems?

Has anyone else had this problem? How do you get past it? I'm a solo developer - is working with a partner the way to go?

[read]

It's natural to have this problem at one point or another. Solution: call launching an experiment.

It's incredibly hard to tell if something will work or not. So hard in fact, that you are better off assuming it won't. Because that removes the expectation it has to do well, which is what's really holding you back, not fear. You believe launching will be a success only if it yields a specific type of outcome.

If you call it an experiment, it will allow you to not take yourself seriously, or to turn the project into something else, and even to ditch it if you realize you find something else more interesting. Don't let premature commitment limit your options. Just play.

Brian Eno might have said it best:

  Artists who don't censor their own work: Picasso, Miles
  Davis, Prince. They're all people who just put it out,
  and have almost no critical self-censorship. They say,
  "Let the market decide; let the world decide." You might
  not be the best person to judge it.

  That's a kind of humility, actually: it's a mixture of
  arrogance, which says, "I know I'm fucking good." But a
  humility, which says, "I'm not the person to decide."

[AussieCoder]

I like this idea in principle but I struggle with the idea of charging someone to use an experiment. My personal feeling is that once you take someone's money you have an obligation but, until you hit some level of scale, you may not be able to commit the time and effort to meet that obligation. With creative endeavours there is really a once-off transaction whereas for a SAAS application the customer expects an ongoing service.

[chewxy]

After you launched a few products, you will realise something: people don't really care. It took a healthy amount of money, time and effort to promote my products (all of which have failed), before realizing that there is no valuable/actionable market for them (a number of the products I launched had tens of thousands of users, but no money could be generated from them).

Don't worry about not being good enough. Just launch it. I'm free to chat - email's in my profile.

[S4M]

Funny, I am reading this comment at the right time for me. I "launched" my startup recently - I put in on HN and reddit but didnt get feedback, then I got some feedback on a forum specialized in maths (my startup is in maths education).

Definitely, it's hard to get people to pay attention, and I can't blame them; I myself don't go checking all the "Show HN".

I'll send you an email.

[Mumm-Ra]

For me this one's simple.

Are people aware of it and buying it - then it's ready.

If they're aware of it but not buying it - it's not ready.

If they're not aware of it - you'll never know.

[taprun]

I picked a very narrow problem, set myself a tiny budget ($50), forced myself into a tiny schedule (7 days) and am blogging about the process on reddit - http://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/2nbvc...

I suspect that having very tight, formalized and public deadlines will force me to put something out. Even putting out something "not good" would be preferable to me not releasing anything while people are watching.

[ISNIT]

I have the exact same issue with my projects, but recently I read something which seems to have helped over the last few weeks;

"Never got to bed satisfied."

It means, don't stay up all night fixing that issue, leave it till the next day when you will really want to start fixing the issue.

It seems to be a great way to maintain focus and motivation.

[Mumm-Ra]

This is great advice.

I recently learnt to say enough is enough when my program won't work and leave it until the morning.

Fresh eyes give me a huge boost some times - and often take the work in a whole new and improved direction.

[ashleyp]

Got a link to that?

[ISNIT]

I did have a look, unfortunately it was one of the many different 'Starting a Start-up' posts.