The Truth About Product Launches
One of my favorite startup tweets ever is by Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb, a company now valued north of $10B:
Hard to believe in hindsight that nobody paid attention (twice!!) when such a revolutionary service and poster child of the ‘sharing economy’ launched into the world. However, if you are not one of the creators of the iPod or exploring space, solar energy and fuel-free mobility at the same time, chances are that the same will be true once your product launches:
NOBODY IS WATCHING.
You might think that’s sad, after you put weeks or even months of work into the first version of your product … But think about how free it makes you!
It makes you free to A/B test your website with the little traffic you get. Free to change the layout of your site. Heck, free to change your company name if you want to.
Free to listen to the handful of friends, family members and social media followers that actually showed up and iterate on their feedback. Free to make them love it.
Free to play with pricing. Free to give your product away for nothing. Free to pay for your first users.
Free to fuck up.
Free to make changes. Free to add a feature. Or to remove one. Free to pivot if you have to.
Free to stop making excuses, free to laugh at the idea of launches.
So forget about The Big Launch. Ship fast, launch early.
