We've got this very badly wrong right now and are suffering the consequences. In short we are in the middle of a huge re-development of our core product. Unfortunately my co-founder (who isn't a developer) has been telling users various different "launch dates" (which have conflicted; and many of which we have now passed without the launch) on public and the pressure has really mounted on our public support forum.

The long and short of it is that I'm under enourmous pressure, because according to our users it's already behind schedule.

I don't want to break face by just saying that my co-founder has jumped the gun massively and was in no position to make the promises, so at the moment I'm just living with the embarassment and trying to keep my head down an get it out.

In his defense, there is a reason for this and I wonder what advice HN peeps would give.

Day-to-day senario......

User: Is feature xyz available? Company: No User: Will it be available in the future? Company: This does seem be a worthwile addition and we will discuss it in our next development meeting. User: When will this feature be added? Company: We don't have a launch date. User: Ok, when will this feature be available becuase I need to use it now? Company: We don't have a launch date available. User: When will it be available, I'm getting annoyed.

At this point my co-founder usually breaks cover and gives a vuage, fairly distant forward projection; "in a month".

Should we really just be saving "no" and keeping silent on good ideas even though we are developing them?