Ask HN: Should I launch two months after development began?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3685271

by mgallivan • 14 years ago

4 6 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

This is a relatively broad post - but hopefully I can get a bit of advice.

I recently started tossing the idea for a start-up in the back of my head. Then the front. Then I threw a landing page up and received quite a bit of good response (enough that I'm willing to go forward with it full-time).

Among the responses was an invitation to launch in a little under 2 months at a relatively large conference.

The product (mobile application) is not large by any means, and I think I could finish up a solid MVP in time for the launch. My question is should I commit to a launch with an MVP and a looming deadline before having started developing the product?

masonhensley• 14 years ago

Without knowing any more, if it it works, launch it. You will really be able to gauge how successful it will be until you cross that line.

The quicker you launch, the sooner you will know if it is a good use of your time moving forward.

pedalpete• 14 years ago

I think we're missing your experience here. You seem to talk the talk, but have you built an app on the platform you're targeting before? How confident are you in your abilities to hit the deadline.

You seem fairly confident, so what's holding you back.

If you try to launch and don't quite make it, you'll end up with more sign-ups. If you try to launch and the MVP isn't quite done, but close enough to get people using it, you'll get tons of feedback. If you launch, you've got lots of exposure for an MVP.

If you don't do it, you only loose out the opportunity to talk to more people about the product and help to get it fine tuned.

The only reason I would say not to do it is if you think it is going to take 2 months, but then it ends up taking much longer, as you may kill off any goodwill. But again, how bad will it be.

mgallivan2• 14 years ago

I'm a fairly confident programmer but I haven't spent much time in mobile development. I'm sure I can finished a core feature or two and have it ready for launch.

My worry was that if I launch a product with half the core features, would that make it harder in the future to launch a fully-functioning application? (if people didn't like it the first time)

Thanks for you response!

mryan• 14 years ago

If you are confident (really confident!) that you could deliver in 6 weeks, go for it. The publicity from launching at a large-ish conference should make up for the additional stress caused by a hard, external deadline.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

Just curious, is the conference NY Tech Day? Because I received an invitation there and we haven't even launched our mobile app yet.

mgallivan2• 14 years ago

No, it's in Canada. Congrats, though!

Ask HN: Should I launch two months after development began?

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