Product Launches and Bootstrapped Companies

On Tuesday, I had lunch with an early stage entrepreneur building a mobile app. He’s had a lot of difficultly building his product and has delayed launching for over a year. His model for a product launch is to build the perfect product, then release it where it will automatically go viral and create tons of buzz.

Very few businesses find success with that model, especially bootstrapped companies. Building a product and generating a user base is a very iterative process. I recommended that this entrepreneur read up on customer development methodologies (e.g. stuff by Steve Blank).

Bootstrapped companies especially have trouble with perfectionist product building followed by massive product launches. The nature of bootstrapping requires building iteratively: making some money, reinvesting to build more, and continuing the process iteratively to build something great, while retaining nearly full ownership of the company.

Bootstrapped companies can emulate some of the aura of a big product launch by controlling the rate of release of the product. Most minimally viable products should be released to a small list of closed beta users prior to rolling out more broadly.

In the ideal case, most product launches would have a rolling and quick iterative release process that incorporates rapid integration of early adopter feedback into product improvements that drive the bigger success for later adopting groups. It can mean death to release an MVP too widely too early.

The extra time taken to iterate on product improvements trades off with the buzz that you can generate with a launch. Buzz does not have the patience to stick around forever.

My advice is to focus on getting early versions of the product into customer’s hands as soon as possible. Starting iterative development with users in the loop is rich fuel for a startup’s growth.

What have you noticed about product launches and bootstrapped startups? What is your preferred approach to product launches?

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