The Genius Guide to Just Launching It

How to launch before you're ready and why getting it wrong is actually getting it right. Read time: 6 minutes

I spent three months picking the perfect shade of blue.

Not kidding. Three months on branding, fonts, photos, messaging, the whole identity of this new business I was launching. I was choosing new color palettes every other week it seemed. And I rewrote the homepage copy probably 40 times because I wanted it to feel just right.

When I finally launched, finally started talking to actual people about it. They loved the idea, they said it was brilliant, they told me exactly who they think would and should buy it.

Then they didn’t buy it.

And then those other people they talked about, they didn’t buy it either.

The whole thing needed to pivot, which meant all that time perfecting the brand, obsessing over the messaging, getting everything perfect was basically wasted. I could’ve learned this in week one if I’d just put something ugly out there and started talking to people.

I see this happen over and over. Founders with legitimately great ideas who never get off the ground because they’re caught in the trap of figuring it all out before they launch. Brainstorming session after brainstorming session, trying to anticipate every possible user thought, building the roadmap to perfection, adding just one more feature before they’re ready and nothing ships.

The team gets frustrated because nobody knows what they’re actually working toward. Months go by and you’re still in the same place, just with a longer feature list and more reasons why you’re not ready yet.

You’re just never going to know if your theory is right until you test it. And the only way to test it is to put it out there and see what happens.

1. Here’s the thing you want:

You want to be successful. You want to be able to launch something you feel proud of.

You want to know what users want, what they’ll pay for, and you want a gold star next to your name.

You’re stuck in build mode, and what you need is to figure out how to get past it. Then, you’ll get what you want.

2. Here’s how to do it:

Get it to 80% and launch it.

The way to get started is to stop talking, and begin doing. - Walt Disney

Not 95%, not “just need to add this one thing.” 80%. Good enough that it demonstrates the core idea, rough enough that you’re not devastated about changing it.

Then get feedback, adjust, launch again. Keep doing this until you start to understand who your actual customers are, what they actually need, and what they’ll pay for.

I learned this the hard way with that business I mentioned. Three months on branding and positioning for something nobody wanted to buy.

When I finally pivoted, I did the opposite. I threw together something basic, reached out to five potential customers, walked them through it, and asked if they’d pay for it. One of them said yes immediately, two of them told me they like it but why it wouldn’t work for them at that time, and the other two said they could share it with other people they think would buy it. Suddenly I had actual information instead of theories.

The version I launched after those conversations looked much different than the original, but it was the right version because it was informed by reality instead of assumptions. And I then understood that each version after would get me a little closer to the goal line.

I’ve watched this play out with other founders too. Worked with a team once where we had meeting after meeting theorizing about the user experience, trying to sequence features perfectly, debating which user flow would be most intuitive. We weren’t making any real progress. The founder kept saying “we just need to think through this one more scenario.”

Eventually I asked, “What if we just launched what we have?” The founder didn’t. I left the team and never saw him launch anything. All that time. For nothing.

On the flip side, I worked with a founder who spent the time getting it perfect…. Well, perfect according to her. After she launched and got feedback, she didn’t listen to it because she was so attached to what she built and how much time and energy she spent. She was convinced it was the perfect product. Despite what people were telling her, she didn’t want to feel that time was wasted and it was harder to change the path forward, harder to meet her customers’ needs and solve their problems. 10 years later, she’s still stuck that mindset, running out of money and can’t get funding because she doesn’t have much growth compared to the time spent building it.

The ticket to just launching it is knowing it’s a litmus test. It’s not the end-all, be-all. The first version doesn’t need to be perfect. It won’t be what defines you for years to come and it doesn’t have to be your gold star. You’ll be able to make changes, smarter decisions, alter course. You just have to know what turn to take and why. Referring back to last week’s topic, just launching it requires being ok with not knowing, being comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and adjusting as you learn.

You probably already know this and it’s exactly why you’re not launching, but in case you don’t, know this is going to be uncomfortable.

Founders tend to wrap their whole identity around their product and how people respond to it. You might be embarrassed or feel like you got punched in the gut when you get feedback you don’t like. And you will.

You’ll probably also lose customers along the way. Some people may like the first version and not the second or vice versa but not everyone can be in love with what you build.

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. - Bill Gates

Just remember that it’s not about appealing to all customers, it’s about appealing to the right ones. Despite what you feel, the successful founders know this. They put their egos aside and just go for it.

3. Here’s why it works:

You stop wasting time on things nobody wants.

When you launch at 80% instead of waiting for perfection, you find out quickly if you’re building in the right direction. You might discover, like I did, that your theory was completely wrong and you need to pivot. That’s not a failure, that’s information. And getting that information early means finding success earlier.

You can theorize all you want about who your ideal user is and what they need, but until you test it on real people, you don’t actually know. Launching means you start building on reality, not just a good idea.

Move fast, fail fast, and fail forward until you get to the thing that works.

Every launch is progress. You’re moving forward, learning, iterating. That momentum keeps your team motivated and keeps you from getting trapped in endless planning cycles.

You get better at the things that actually scale. Launching and iterating teaches you about positioning, messaging, customer development, all the stuff that actually grows a company. Building in isolation just makes you good at building in isolation, which doesn’t help when you eventually need to sell the thing you built.

4. Now go:

This week, try this:

Pick one thing you’ve been perfecting that’s at least 80% done. Launch it this week, even if it feels rough. Get it in front of five real users, ask them what they think, watch how they actually use it instead of how you thought they’d use it. Document what you thought would happen and what actually happened.

Then adjust and launch again in a couple of weeks. Don’t wait until it’s perfect, just make it 10% better based on what you learned and put it back out there.

Start here if you only have 10 minutes:

Look at your calendar for the last month. How many hours did you spend in planning meetings vs. actually testing things with real users? If the ratio is heavily skewed toward planning, that’s your problem.

Block two hours this week to put something in front of someone outside your team. Doesn’t matter if it’s polished, just needs to be real enough that they can give you actual feedback instead of theoretical opinions.

Next Tuesday: How to be OK with Not Being a Unicorn

P.S. The hardest part about launching before you’re ready isn’t the work, it’s the emotional hit when you get feedback you don’t want to hear. That feature you spent weeks building that users don’t care about, the positioning you crafted that doesn’t resonate, the whole approach that turns out to be wrong. It feels like failure, and your instinct will be to retreat back into build mode where it’s safe and you don’t have to face reality. But getting that feedback is actually the win. Now you know. Now you can fix it. The only real failure is never launching at all because you were too scared to find out if you were wrong. If this resonates, hit reply and tell me what you’ve been sitting on that needs to ship this week. I read every response.

Writing from Austin, learning in public,

Alex