Ask HN: Soft launch new startup in a week no matter what...good/bad?

2 points·schwabr21··6 comments

I have been working on a new project non-stop since New Years. My goal was to launch as soon as possible and then quickly iterate based on customer feedback.

That sounded great when I first started. Now I'm five weeks in, and every day I think of new features/refinements that I want to implement before launch.

Any advice on setting a hard deadline for launch? Thanks!

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One more point... You seem to be at the same point as me with my 'project' (I loathe calling everything a startup) and keep coming up with more ideas. Resist temptation! Have the core idea out there as a site that at least _some_ people can try out, so that you're getting outside feedback to validate your concept. Don't aim for perfection. Aim for function.

Now if only I could listen to my own advice.

You're right, I will start testing it out with my friends and play it by ear from there. Thanks!

Once the core product is built, launch it.

There are endless ideas and features you can add. Sometimes its better for the users to watch the company grow than have the perfect product launched.

There's degrees of launches. If you're going for a limited soft launch, just tell your friends, prevent indexing via robots.txt and limit expectations on the site. And don't post it here ;)

hold for two more weeks... and launch the LAUNCH Conference. :-)

@schwabr21 I'd take him up on it if I were you! Too bad I'd already broken one of the rules with my semi-secret launch that's coming up...

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