Online entrepreneurs often agonise over being ready enough to launch a web service. This is perhaps baggage carried over from traditional product launch strategies at old world behemoths, who have both the motivation and the wherewithal to go over every line of code and every bit of copy with a fine tooth comb before launch.
Thankfully, innovation need not be so severe. Two examples worth noting are Optimal Sort and SlideShare. Optimal Sort is an online card sorting tool made freely available (for now at least) to information architects by New Zealand-based Optimal Usability. The tool is simple enough to use, and has basic functionality you’d expect in a card sorting tool. Admittedly, the tool is far from perfect, and the developers make no secret of it. In fact, speak with Optimal Usability Directer Sam Ng, and you get the sense their modus operandi has been to launch the service, and get information architects to provide critical feedback on how to improve it. This iterative product development strategy allows for refinement based on user feedback, and can apply to larger organisations as well. A notable example is Fidelity Labs in the U.S., a website that serves as a beta platform for innovative tools and features.
SlideShare, referred to as You Tube for PowerPoint, is another example of getting your product out the door and improving it on the fly. At the recently concluded OZ IA Conference in Sydney, Australia, SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha talked about her learnings from the launch of SlideShare in a presentation aptly titled, “Fast, cheap & somewhat in control“. One of her insights – when you have developed a service that works but may have minor issues, go live with the service and invite user feedback. Early releases get your website exposure, while allowing you to invoke the “standard disclaimers apply” moniker for alpha releases.
Are you developing a web service and contemplating whether to have a public alpha or beta release? Share your thoughts, and URLs if you are game!
Totally agree.
What I think most of us struggle with is the fear of failure. Failure is seldom viewed positively. So we build (well meaning) structures to prevent and keep us safe from failing. If it even remotely smells like failure we stop. That is what keeps us locked away in a room researching and designing the perfect product, when a ‘good enough’ product is all that is needed.
In an age where product lifecycles can be extremely short, there’s a lot to be said about learning from failure and in fact, chasing failure to fail as fast as possible.