launch fast vs launch well

I have been wrestling with this problem for a while - very much still unresolved, but here is my current thinking. I have now launched 4 different products. Took me anywhere from 3 months to 4 hours. As a recovering perfectionist, I have taken a big issue with the notion of launching fast. I couldn't fathom the idea of publishing something to the world that has mistake (I am getting better at it :) ). And you can confirm this notion very easily: most users will not return to your website if they have a negative first experience. I came to realize that this isn’t the only factor to consider. How quickly you can enhance your value proposition—product, messaging, or design—is a significant predictor of success. In many ways, the ability to iterate quickly is the greatest advantage a start-up has. And many things you can't really improve unless you get direct user feedback. With some, like messaging, the more time you spend working in isolation the ***worse*** your work is likely to become. As you spend time thinking about a product, you get so deep in trenches that you lose touch of how an outsider thinks. So your iteration speed is directly related to how quickly you launch. So, how do you balance speed vs completeness? I like to think of the size of your **reachable target market.** For example, if you have a relatively small target market, you really want to make sure that anything you show to a prospect does not look sloppy. As you don't get a lot of chances, you have to make sure you make the most of each. The drawback is that you may spend time perfecting things that will never actually be used. If you have a relatively big target market, then you can afford to lose many people and test things in the field. You also have to consider the notion of reachable. Unless you are well-connected in your space, there are only so many people that are going to give you the time of day to try something new out. The more administrative the task and the higher the stakes of a mistake, the smaller your effective audience is. For example, accountants are a huge target market, but convincing them to try a new bookkeeping solution is challenging due to the high stakes involved. So, your effective number is likely lower than what you initially think. Here are some strategies I have found to help you strike the balance better: 1. Work with *smaller* batches of users—you minimize losses when things go wrong. Nowadays, you can afford to go very incremental. Think 10 launches for 1 user each rather than 1 launch for 10 users. 2. Put a lot of care into **describing a problem** \- if you are working on a problem that matters for people and you verbalise it well, people will give you MUCH more leeway for errors. 3. Work on the smallest possible solution that provides value - it's much easier to get the things that matter right if the surface area you working on is small.