The first version of a product or feature is almost always going to fall short on its promise to its users. Not because it’s bad, but because what your customers make you think they want and what they actually need are often very different.
There’s “a secret corollary” to my aphorism. Namely, that “no matter how long you wait to release your first version, you will be embarrassed by it.” In other words, even if you blow deadlines and exceed budgets in an obsessive effort to achieve perfection at launch, you’re still going to be embarrassed by your first version anyway! It’s inevitable, because it’s impossible to exactly foresee whose going to use your product, toward what ends, under what conditions.
It’s impossible to truly know if something is going to be successful until you’ve got it into the hands of the people you think are going to use it.
Shipping isn’t the end of the process, it’s just the beginning.
